Fathers and Sons
as was proved by the fact that, for all the beating of his heart, the
colour had not left his face.
Soon hasty footsteps were heard approaching, and Arkady reappeared on
the terrace.
"I have made her acquaintance!" he shouted with a kindly,
good-humoured, triumphant expression. "That Theodosia Nikolaievna is
not well to-day is a fact; but also it is a fact that she is going to
appear later. And why did you not tell me that I had a little brother?
Otherwise I should have gone and kissed him last night, even as I have
done this moment."
Nikolai Petrovitch tried to say something--to rise and to make an
explanation of some sort; but Arkady cut him short by falling upon his
neck.
"What is this? Again embracing?" said Paul Petrovitch behind them.
As a matter of fact, neither father nor son was ill-pleased to see
him appear, for, however touching such situations may be, one may be
equally glad to escape from them.
"At what are you surprised?" asked Nikolai Petrovitch gaily. "Remember
that I have not seen Arkesha for several centuries--at all events, not
since last night!"
"Oh, I am not surprised," said Paul Petrovitch. "On the contrary, I
should not mind embracing him myself."
And Arkady, on approaching his uncle, felt once more upon his cheek the
impression of a perfumed moustache. Paul Petrovitch then sat down to
table. Clad in an elegant morning suit of English cut, he was flaunting
on his head a diminutive fez which helped the carelessly folded tie to
symbolise the freedom of a country life. At the same time, the stiff
collar of the shirt (which was striped, not white, as best befitted
a matutinal toilet) supported with its usual rigour an immaculately
shaven chin.
"Well, Arkady?" said he. "Where is your new friend?"
"Out somewhere. He seldom misses going for an early morning walk.
But the great thing is to take no notice of him, for he detests all
ceremony."
"So I have perceived." And with his usual deliberateness Paul
Petrovitch began to butter a piece of bread. "Will he be staying here
very long?"
"Well, as long as he may care to stay. As a matter of fact, he is going
on to his father's place."
"And where does his father live?"
"Some eighty versts from here, in the same province as ourselves. I
believe he has a small property, and used to be an army doctor."
"H'm! Ever since last night I have been asking myself where I can have
heard the name before. Nikolai, do you remember whether there was a
doctor of that name in our father's division?"
"Yes, there used to be."
"Then that doctor will be this fellow's father. H'm!" And Paul
Petrovitch twitched his moustache. "What exactly is your Bazarov?" he
enquired of Arkady.
"What _is_ he?" Arkady repeated smiling. "Do you really want me to tell
you what he is, Uncle?"
"If you please, my nephew."
"He is a Nihilist."
"A what?" exclaimed Nikolai Petrovitch, while even Paul Petrovitch
paused in the act of raising a knife to the edge of which there was a
morsel of butter adhering.
"A Nihilist," repeated Arkady.
"A Nihilist?" queried Nikolai Petrovitch. "I imagine that that must
be a term derived from the Latin _nihil_ or 'nothing.' It denotes,
I presume, a man who--a man who--well, a man who declines to accept
_anything_."
"Or a man who declines to _respect_ anything," hazarded Paul Petrovitch
as he re-applied himself to the butter.
"No, a man who treats things solely from the critical point of view,"
corrected Arkady.
"But the two things are one and the same, are they not?" queried Paul
Petrovitch.
"Oh no. A Nihilist is a man who declines to bow to authority, or to
accept any principle on trust, however sanctified it may be."
"And to what can that lead?" asked Paul Petrovitch.
"It depends upon the individual. In one man's case, it may lead to
good; in that of another, to evil."
"I see. But we elders view things differently. We folk of the
older generation believe that without principles" (Paul Petrovitch
pronounced the word softly, and with a French accent, whereas Arkady
had pronounced it with an emphasis on the leading syllable)--"without
principles it is impossible to take a single step in life, or to draw a
single breath. _Mais vous avez changé tout cela._ God send you health
and a general's rank, Messieurs Nihil--how do you pronounce it?"
"Ni-hi-lists," said Arkady distinctly.
"Quite so (formerly we had Hegelists, and now they have become
Nihilists)--God send you health and a general's rank, but also let us
see how you will contrive to exist in an absolute void, an airless
vacuum. Pray ring the bell, brother Nikolai, for it is time for me to
take my cocoa."
Nikolai Petrovitch did as requested, and also shouted for Duniasha;
but, instead of the latter, there issued on to the terrace Thenichka
in person. A young woman of twenty-three, she was pale, and
gentle-looking, with dark eyes and hair, a pair of childishly red,
pouting lips, and delicate hands. Also, she was clad in a clean
cotton gown, a new blue kerchief was thrown lightly over her rounded
shoulders, and she was carrying in front of her a large cup of cocoa.
Shyly she placed the latter before Paul Petrovitch, while a warm, rosy
current of blood suffused the exquisite skin of her comely face, and
then she remained standing by the table, with lowered eyes and the
tips of her fingers touching its surface. Yet, though she looked as
though she were regretting having come, she looked as though she felt
that she had a right to be there.
Paul Petrovitch frowned, and Nikolai Petrovitch looked confused.
"Good morning, Thenichka," the latter muttered.
"Good morning," she replied in a low, clear voice. Then she glanced
askance at Arkady, and he smiled at her in friendly fashion. Finally
she departed with a quiet step and slightly careless gait--the latter a
peculiarity of hers.
Silence reigned on the terrace. For a while Paul Petrovitch drank his
cocoa. Then he suddenly raised his head, and muttered:
"Monsieur Nihilist is about to give us the pleasure of his company."
True enough, Bazarov could be seen stepping across the flowerbeds. On
his linen jacket and trousers was a thick coating of mud, to the crown
of his ancient circular hat clung a piece of sticky marshweed, and in
his hand he was holding a small bag. Also, something in the bag kept
stirring as though it were alive. Approaching the terrace with rapid
strides, he nodded to the company and said:
"Good morning, gentlemen! Pardon me for being so late. I shall be back
presently, but first my captures must be stowed away."
"What are those captures?" Paul Petrovitch inquired. "Leeches?"
"No, frogs."
"Do you eat them? Or do you breed them?"
"I catch them for purposes of experiment," was Bazarov's only reply as
carelessly he entered the house.
"In other words, he vivisects them," was Paul Petrovitch's comment. "In
other words, he believes in frogs more than in principles."
Arkady threw his uncle a reproachful look, and even Nikolai Petrovitch
shrugged his shoulders, so that Paul Petrovitch himself felt his _bon
mot_ to have been out of place, and hastened to divert the subject to
the estate and the new steward.
VI
Bazarov, returning, seated himself at the table, and fell to drinking
tea. The brothers contemplated him in silence. Arkady glanced covertly
from his father to his uncle, and back again.
"Have you walked far this morning?" at length Nikolai Petrovitch
inquired.
"To a marsh beside an aspen coppice. By the way, Arkady, I flushed five
head of woodcock. Perhaps you would like to go and shoot them?"
"Then you yourself are no sportsman?"
"No."
"That is to say, you prefer physics to anything else?" This from Paul
Petrovitch.
"Yes, I prefer physics--in fact, the natural sciences in general--to
anything else."
"Well, I am told that the _Germanics_ have made great strides in that
department?" (Paul Petrovitch used the term "Germanics" instead of
"Germans" ironically, but no one noticed it.)
"True," was Bazarov's careless reply. "In fact, the Germans are, in the
same respect, our masters."
"You think highly of the Germans?" Paul Petrovitch's tone was now
studiously polite, for he was beginning to feel irritated with the
man--his aristocratic nature could not altogether stomach Bazarov's
absolute lack of ceremony, the fact that this doctor's son not only
knew no diffidence, but actually returned snappish and reluctant
answers, and infused a _brusquerie_ akin to rudeness into his tone.
"At least the savants of that part of the world have some energy in
them," retorted Bazarov.
"Quite so. And your opinion of our Russian savants is--well, perhaps
less flattering?"
"It is, with your leave."
"That constitutes a piece of laudable modesty on your part," Paul
Petrovitch observed with a slight hitch of his figure and a toss of his
head. "But how comes it about that Arkady has just told us that you
recognise no authorities whatsoever? Do you not trust authorities?"
"Why should I? Is anything in the world trustworthy? Certainly, should
I be told a fact, I agree with it, but that is all."
"Oh! Then the Germans confine themselves solely to facts?" Paul
Petrovitch's face had now assumed an expression of detachment, as
though he had suddenly become withdrawn to the ultimate heights of the
empyrean.
"No, not all Germans," replied Bazarov with a passing yawn. Clearly
he had no mind to continue the controversy. Meanwhile Paul Petrovitch
glanced at Arkady as much as to say: "Admit that your friend has
beautiful manners!"
"For my own part," he continued, ostentatiously, and with an effort,
"I, a fallible mortal, do _not_ favour the Germans. Of course, I am not
including in that category the _Russo_-Germans, who, as we know, are
birds of passage. Rather, it is the Germans of Germany proper whom I
cannot abide. Once upon a time they used to produce men like Schiller
and like--what's his name?--Goethe: for both of which authors my
brother has a marked predilection. But now the German nation has become
a nation solely of chemists and materialists."
"A good chemist is worth a score of your poets," remarked Bazarov.
"Quite so." Paul Petrovitch hitched his eyebrows a little, as though he
had come near to falling asleep. "Er--I take it then that you decline
to recognise art, but believe only in science?"
"I have told you that I believe in nothing at all. What after all, is
science--that is to say, science in the mass? A science may exist, even
as a trade or a profession may exist; but with regard to science in the
mass, there is no such thing."
"Very good. And, with regard to such other postulates as usually are
granted in human affairs, the attitude which you adopt is negative in
the same degree?"
"What is this?" suddenly countered Bazarov. "Is it an examination in
tenets?"
Paul Petrovitch turned pale, and Nikolai Petrovitch thought it time to
intervene in the dispute.
"Nay, we will debate the subject later," he said. "And then, while
recognising your views, good Evgenii Vasilitch, we will state our own.
Individually speaking, I am delighted that you should be interested in
the natural sciences. For instance, I am told that recently Liebig[1]
has made some surprising discoveries in the matter of the improvement
of soils. Consequently you might be able to help me in my agricultural
labours, and to give me much useful advice."
"Always I shall be at your service, Nikolai Petrovitch," replied
Bazarov. "But what has Liebig to do with us? First the alphabet should
be learnt before we try to read books. We have not even reached the
letter A."
"You are a Nihilist--that is plain enough," reflected Nikolai
Petrovitch; while aloud he added: "Yet allow me to seek your occasional