Fathers and Sons
it his rule to try and forget her)--even now, I say, there existed the
difference that, whereas Nikolai Petrovitch could look back upon a
life well spent, and had a son rising to manhood, Paul Petrovitch was
still a lonely bachelor, and, moreover, entering upon that dim, murky
period when regrets come to resemble hopes, and hopes are beginning to
resemble regrets, and youth is fled, and old age is fast approaching.
To Paul Petrovitch that period was particularly painful, in that, in
losing his past, he had lost his all.
"'I shall not invite you to come to Marino,' were Nikolai Petrovitch's
words to his brother. 'Even when my wife was alive, you found the place
tedious; and now it would kill you.'
"'Ah, but in those days I was young and foolish and full of vanity,'
replied Paul Petrovitch. 'Even though I may not have grown wiser, at
least am I quieter. So, if you should be willing, I will gladly come
and make your place my permanent home.'
"For answer Nikolai Petrovitch embraced him; and though a year and a
half elapsed before Paul Petrovitch decided to carry out his intention,
once settled on the estate, he has never left it--no, not even during
the three winters spent by Nikolai Petrovitch with his son in St.
Petersburg. Meanwhile he has taken to reading books--more especially
English books, and, in general, to ordering his life on the English
pattern. Rarely, also, does he call upon his neighbours, but confines
his excursions, for the most part, to attending election meetings,
where, as a rule, he holds his tongue, but occasionally amuses himself
by angering and alarming the older generation of landowners with
Liberal sallies. From the representatives of the younger generation he
holds entirely aloof. Yet both parties, though they reckon him haughty,
accord him respect. They do so because of his refined, aristocratic
manners, and of what they have heard concerning his former conquests,
and of the fact that he dresses with exquisite taste, that he always
occupies the best suites in the best hotels, that he dines sumptuously
every day, that once he took dinner with the Duke of Wellington at the
Court of Louis Philippe, that invariably he takes about with him a
silver _nécessaire_ and a travelling bath, that he diffuses rare and
agreeable perfumes, that he is a first-rate and universally successful
whist-player, and that his honour is irreproachable. The ladies too
look upon him as a man of charming melancholy: but with their sex he
has long ceased to have anything to do.
"You see, then, Evgenii," wound up Arkady, "that you have judged my
uncle very unfairly. Moreover, I have omitted to say that several times
he has saved my father from ruin by making over to him the whole of
his money (for they do not share the estate), and that he is always
ready to help any one, and, in particular, that he stands up stoutly
for the peasants, even though, when speaking to them, he pulls a wry
face, and, before beginning the interview, scents himself well with
eau-de-Cologne."
"We all know what nerves like his mean," remarked Bazarov.
"Perhaps so. Yet his heart is in the right place; nor is he in any
way a fool. To myself especially has he given much useful advice,
especially on the subject of women."
"Ah, ha! 'Scalded with milk, one blows to cool another's water.' That
is a truism."
"Finally, and to put matters shortly," resumed Arkady, "he is a man
desperately unhappy, not one who ought to be despised."
"_Who_ is despising him?" exclaimed Bazarov. "All that I say is that a
man who has staked his whole upon a woman's love, and, on losing the
throw, has turned crusty, and let himself drift to such an extent as
to become good for nothing--I say that such a man is not a man, a male
creature at all. He is unhappy, you say; and certainly you know him
better than I do; but it is clear also that he has not yet cleansed
himself of the fool. In other words, certain am I that, just because he
occasionally reads _Galignani_, and because, once a month, he saves a
peasant from distress for debt, he believes himself really to be a man
of action."
"But think of his upbringing!" expostulated Arkady. "Think of the
period in which he has lived his life!"
"His upbringing?" retorted Bazarov. "Why, a man ought to _bring
himself_ up, even as I had to do. And with regard to his period,
why should I, or any other man, be dependent upon periods? Rather,
we ought to make periods dependent upon _us_. No, no, friend!
Sensuality and frivolity it is that are at fault. For of what do the
so-called mysterious relations between a man and a woman consist? As
physiologists, we know precisely of what they consist. And take the
anatomy of the eye. What in it justifies the guesswork whereof you
speak? Such talk is so much Romanticism and nonsense and unsoundness
and artificiality. Let us go and inspect that beetle."
And the two friends departed to Bazarov's room, where he had already
succeeded in creating a medical-surgical atmosphere which consorted
well with the smell of cheap tobacco.
VIII
At his brother's interview with the steward (the latter was a tall,
thin man of shifty eyes who to every remark of Nikolai's replied in
an unctuous, mellifluous voice: "Very well, if so it please you")
Paul Petrovitch did not long remain present. Recently the system of
estate-management had been reorganised on a new footing, and was
creaking as loudly as an ungreased cartwheel or furniture which has
been fashioned of unseasoned wood. For the same reason, though never
actually giving way to melancholy, Nikolai Petrovitch often indulged
in moodiness and sighing, for the reason that it was clear that his
affairs would never prosper without money, and that the bulk of the
latter had disappeared. As for Arkady's statement that frequently Paul
Petrovitch had come to his brother's assistance, it had been perfectly
true, for on more than one occasion had Paul been moved by the sight of
his brother's perplexity to walk slowly to the window, to plunge a hand
into his pocket, to mutter, "_Mais je puis vous donner de l'argent_,"
and, lastly, to suit the action to the word. But on the day of which
we are speaking Paul had no spare cash himself; wherefore he preferred
to remove himself elsewhere, and the more so in that the _minutiæ_ of
estate-management wearied him, and that he felt certain that, though
powerless to suggest a better way of doing business than the present
one, he knew at least that Nikolai's was at fault.
"He is not sufficiently practical," would be his reflection. "He lets
these fellows cheat him right and left."
On the other hand, Nikolai had a high opinion of Paul's practicality,
and always sought his advice.
"I am a weak, easy-going fellow," he would say, "and have spent the
whole of my life in retirement; whereas you cannot have lived in the
world for nothing--you know it well, and have the eye of an eagle."
To this Paul Petrovitch would make no reply: he would merely turn away
without attempting to undeceive his brother.
After leaving Nikolai Petrovitch's study, Paul traversed the corridor
which separated the front portion of the house from the rear, and, on
reaching a low doorway, halted in seeming indecision, tugged at his
moustache for a moment, then tapped with his knuckles upon the panels.
"Who is there?" replied Thenichka from within. "Pray enter."
"It is I," said Paul Petrovitch as he opened the door.
Springing from the chair on which she had been seated with her baby,
she handed the latter to the nurse-girl (who at once bore it from the
room), and hastened to rearrange her bodice.
"Pardon me for having disturbed you," said Paul Petrovitch without
looking at her, "but my object in coming here is to ask you (for I
understand that you are sending in to the town to-day) if you would
procure me a little green tea for my own personal use."
"I will," replied Thenichka. "How much ought I to have ordered?"
"I think that half a pound will suffice. But what a change!" he went on
glancing around the room with an eye which included also in its purview
Thenichka's features. "It is those curtains that I am referring to,"
he explained on seeing that she had failed to grasp his meaning.
"Yes--those curtains. They were given me by Nikolai Petrovitch himself,
and have been hung a long while."
"But it is a long time, remember, since last I paid you a visit. The
room looks indeed comfortable, does it not?"
"Yes, thanks to Nikolai Petrovitch's kindness," whispered Thenichka.
"And you find things better here than in the wing?" continued Paul
Petrovitch politely--also, without the least shadow of a smile.
"I do."
"And who is lodged in the wing in your place?"
"The laundry women."
"Ah!"
Paul Petrovitch relapsed into silence, while Thenichka thought to
herself: "I suppose he will go presently." So far from doing so,
however, he remained where he was, and she had to continue standing
in front of him with her fingers nervelessly locking and unlocking
themselves.
"Why have you had the little one taken away?" at length he inquired. "I
love children. Pray show him to me."
Thenichka reddened with confusion and pleasure; and that though Paul
Petrovitch was accustomed to make her nervous, so seldom did he address
her.
"Duniasha!" she cried (Duniasha she addressed, as she did every one
in the house, in the second person plural[1]). "Bring Mitia here, and
be quick about it! But first put on his clothes." With that she moved
towards the door.
"Never mind, never mind," said Paul Petrovitch.
"But I shall soon be back." And she disappeared.
Left alone, Paul looked about him with keen attention. The small,
low room in which he was waiting was clean and comfortable, and
redolent of balm, camomile, and furniture polish. Against the walls
stood straight-backed, lyre-shaped chairs which the late General had
purchased during the period of the Polish campaign; in one corner
stood a bedstead under a muslin coverlet, with, flanking it, a large,
iron-clamped, convex-lidded chest; in the opposite corner burnt a
lamp before a massive, smoke-blackened _ikon_ of Saint Nikolai the
Miracle Worker--the Saint's halo suspended by a red riband, and a tiny
china egg resting on his breast; on the window-sills were ranged some
carefully sealed jars of last year's jam, which filtered the light to
green, and of which the parchment covers were inscribed, in Thenichka's
large handwriting, "Gooseberry"--a jam of which Nikolai Petrovitch
was particularly fond; from the ceiling hung, by a long cord, a cage
containing a short-tailed siskin which kept up such a perpetual
twittering and hopping that its cage rocked to and fro as it sang, and
stray hemp seeds came pattering lightly to the floor; on the wall space
above a small chest of drawers hung a few poorly executed photographs
of Nikolai Petrovitch in various attitudes (the work of a travelling
photographer); alongside these photographs hung a very unsuccessful one
of Thenichka herself, since it revealed nothing but an eyeless face
peering painfully from a dark frame; and, lastly, above the portrait
of Thenichka hung a picture of Ermolov in a big cloak and a portentous
frown--the latter directed principally towards a distant mountain range
of the Caucasus, while over the forehead of the portrait dangled a
silken pincushion in the shape of a shoe.
For five minutes or so there came from the adjoining room a sound as of
rustling and whispering. From the chest of drawers Paul Petrovitch took
up a greasy, dog's-eared volume of Masalsky's _The Strielitsi_, and
turned over a few of its pages. Suddenly the door opened, and Thenichka
entered with Mitia, whom she had now vested in a red robe and beaded
collar, while his little head had been brushed, and also his face