Fathers and Sons
"How quiet he has been with you!" she exclaimed under her breath.
"Always children are quiet with me," he remarked. "You see, I know how
to handle them."
"And _they_ know when people are fond of them," put in Duniasha.
"True," assented Thenichka. "Though it is seldom that Mitia will go to
any one's arms but mine."
"Would he come to me?" ventured Arkady, who, until now standing in
the background, at this moment came forward towards the arbour. But
on his attempting to wheedle Mitia to his arms, the infant threw back
its head, and started to cry--a circumstance which greatly perturbed
Thenichka.
"Another time--when he has come to be more used to me," said Arkady
indulgently. And the two friends departed.
"What is her name?" asked Bazarov.
"Thenichka--Theodosia," replied Arkady.
"And her patronymic?"
"Nikolaievna."
"_Bene_! What I like about her is her total absence of shyness. True,
that is a _trait_ which some might have condemned in her, but I say,
'What rubbish!' For why need she be bashful? She is a mother, and
therefore justified."
"I agree," said Arkady. "And my father----"
"Also is justified," concluded Bazarov.
"No, I do not agree in that respect."
"You do not altogether welcome a superfluous heir?"
"For shame, Evgenii!" cried Arkady heatedly. "How can you impute such
motives? What I mean is that my father is not justified from _one_
point of view. That is to say, he ought to marry her."
"Oh, ho!" said Bazarov quietly. "How high and mighty we are getting! So
you still attribute importance to the marriage rite? This I should not
have expected of you."
For some paces the friends walked on in silence. Then Bazarov
continued:
"I have been inspecting your father's establishment. The cattle look
poor, the horses seem broken-down, the buildings have a tipsy air, the
workmen manifest a tendency to loaf, and I cannot yet determine whether
the new steward is a fool or a rogue."
"You are censorious to-day?"
"I am; and the reason is that these good peasants are cheating your
father--exemplifying the proverb that 'The Russian _muzhik_ will break
even the back of God.'"
"Soon I shall have to agree with my uncle in his opinion that you think
but poorly of Russia."
"Rubbish! The Russian's very best point is that he holds a poor opinion
of _himself_. Two and two make four. Nothing but that matters."
"And is nature also rubbish?" queried Arkady with a musing glance at
the mottled fields where they lay basking in the soft, kindly rays of
the morning sun.
"Nature _is_ rubbish--at least in the sense in which _you_ understand
her. She is not a church, but a workshop wherein man is the labourer."
At this moment there came wafted to their ears the long-drawn strains
of a violoncello, on which a sensitive, but inexperienced, hand was
playing Schubert's _Erwartung_. Like honey did the voluptuous melody
suffuse the air.
"Who is the musician?" asked Bazarov in astonishment.
"My father."
"What? Your father plays the 'cello?"
"He does."
"At his age?"
"Yes--he is only forty-four."
Bazarov burst out laughing.
"Why do you laugh?" asked Arkady.
"Pardon me, but the idea that your father--a man of forty-four, a
paterfamilias, and a notable in the county--should play the 'cello!"
And he continued laughing, though Arkady, for all his reverence for his
mentor, failed to accomplish even a smile.
X
During the next two weeks life at Marino pursued its normal course.
Arkady took things easily, and Bazarov worked. In passing, it may be
said that, for all his careless manner and abrupt, laconic speech, the
latter had become an accepted phenomenon in the house. In particular
had Thenichka so completely lost her shyness of him that one night
she sent to awake him because Mitia had been seized with convulsions;
whereupon Bazarov arrived, and, half-joking, half-yawning, according
to his usual manner, helped her for two hours in the task of attending
to the baby. Only Paul Petrovitch disliked the man with the whole
strength of his soul, for he accounted him a proud, cynical, conceited
plebeian, and suspected him not only of failing to respect, but even of
holding in contempt, the personality of Paul Petrovitch Kirsanov. Also,
Nikolai Petrovitch stood in slight awe of the young Nihilist, since he
doubted the likelihood of any good accruing from Bazarov's influence
over Arkady. Yet always he would listen with pleasure to Bazarov's
discourses, and gladly attend the chemical or physical experiments with
which the young doctor (who had brought a microscope with him) would
occupy himself for hours at a stretch. On the other hand, in spite of
Bazarov's domineering manner, all the servants had become attached
to him, for they felt him to be less a _barin_ than their brother;
and in particular did Duniasha readily joke and talk with him, and
throw him many meaning glances as she sped past in quail-like fashion,
while Peter himself, though a man full of conceit and stupidity, with
a forehead perpetually puckered, and a dignity which consisted of a
deferential demeanour, a practice of reading journals syllable by
syllable, and a habit of constantly brushing his coat; even Peter,
I say, would brighten and strike an attitude when he was noticed
by Bazarov. In fact, the only servant to disapprove of Bazarov was
old Prokofitch, the butler, who looked sour whenever he handed the
young doctor a dish, and called him a "sharper" and a "flaunter," and
declared that, for all his whiskers, Bazarov was no better than "a
dressed-up pig," whereas he, Prokofitch, was practically as good an
aristocrat as Paul Petrovitch himself.
In the early days of June, the best season of the year, the weather
became beautiful. True, from afar there came threatenings of cholera,
but to the local inhabitants such visitations had become a commonplace.
Each day Bazarov rose early to set forth upon a tramp of some two or
three versts; nor were those tramps undertaken merely for the sake of
the exercise (he could not abide aimless expeditions), but, rather,
for the sake of collecting herbs and insects. Sometimes, too, he would
succeed in inducing Arkady to accompany him; and whenever this was the
case the pair would, on the way back, engage in some dispute which
always left Arkady vanquished in spite of his superior profusion of
argument.
One morning the pair lingered considerably by the way, and Nikolai
Petrovitch set out across the garden to meet them. Just as he reached
the arbour, he heard their voices and brisk footsteps approaching,
though he himself was invisible to the returning friends.
"You do not understand my father," Arkady was saying.
Nikolai Petrovitch halted instead of revealing himself.
"Oh, he is a good fellow enough," replied Bazarov. "But also he is a
man on the shelf, a man whose song has been sung."
Though Nikolai Petrovitch strained his ears, he failed to catch
Arkady's reply. So the "man on the shelf" lingered for a minute or
two--then walked slowly back to the house.
"For the past three days I have noted him reading Pushkin," continued
Bazarov. "You ought to explain to him that no good can come of that,
for he is no longer a boy, and ought to have shaken himself free of
such fiddlesticks. Who would desire to be a Romanticist? Give him
something _practical_."
"For instance?"
"Let me consider. For a start, give him Büchner's[1] _Stoff und Kraft_."
"Good!" Arkady's tone was approving. "_Stoff und Kraft_ is at least
written in a popular style."
The same day Nikolai Petrovitch was sitting with his brother. At length
he said:
"I find that you and I are men on the shelf, that our songs have been
sung. Eh? And perhaps Bazarov is right. Yet I confess that one thing
hurts me: and that is that, though I had hoped to draw nearer to
Arkady, I am being left in the rear, and he is for ever marching ahead.
No longer do he and I understand one another."
"And why is he for ever marching ahead?" asked Paul Petrovitch
indignantly. "How comes he to stand at such a distance from us? The
reason is simply the ideas which that precious 'Nihilist' is putting
into his head. For myself, I detest the fellow, and think him a
charlatan. Also, I am certain that, in spite of his frogs, he is making
no real progress in physics."
"We ought not to say that, brother. For my own part, I look upon him as
a man of culture and ability."
"If so, a detestably conceited one."
"Perhaps he _is_ conceited," Nikolai Petrovitch allowed. "But then it
would appear that nothing can be done without something of the kind.
What I cannot make out is the following. As you know, I have done
everything possible to keep up with the times--I have organised my
peasantry, I have set up such a farm that throughout the province I am
known as 'Fine Kirsanov,' persistently I read and educate myself, in
general I try to march abreast of the needs of the day. Yet, though I
do all this, I am now given to understand that my day is past and gone!
And, brother, I do not say that I am not partially inclined to accept
that view."
"For what reason?"
"For the following. To-day, as I was reading Pushkin (I think it was
'The Gipsies' that I had lighted upon), there suddenly entered the room
Arkady. Silently, and with an air of kindly regret, and as gently as a
child, he withdrew the book from my hand, and laid before me another
book--a German production of some kind. That done, he gave me another
smile, and departed with my volume of Pushkin under his arm."
"Good gracious! And what might be the book which he has given you?"
"This."
Nikolai Petrovitch extracted from the tail pocket of his frock-coat a
copy (ninth edition) of Büchner's well-known work.
Paul Petrovitch turned it over in his hands.
"H'm!" he grunted. "Arkady does indeed seem solicitous for your
education! Have you tried reading the book?"
"Yes."
"And how do you like it?"
"Well, either I am a fool or the thing is rubbish. Of the two views,
the former seems to me the most probable."
"It is not because you have forgotten your German, I suppose?"
"Oh no. I understand the language perfectly."
Again Paul Petrovitch turned over the book, and again he glanced at his
brother from under his brows. A moment's silence ensued.
"By the way," continued Nikolai Petrovitch with an evident desire to
change the conversation, "I have received a letter from Koliazin."
"From Matvei Ilyitch?"
"From the same. It seems that he has just arrived at ----, for the
purpose of carrying out the Revision[2] of the province, and he writes
very civilly that, as our kinsman, he would be glad to see Arkady and
you and myself."
"Do you intend to accept his invitation?" asked Paul Petrovitch.
"I do not. Do you?"
"No. We have no need to drag ourselves fifty versts to eat blanc-mange.
The good Mathieu wants to show off a little--that is all. He can
do without us. But what an honour to be a Privy Councillor! Had I
continued in the Service, continued hauling at the old tow-rope, I
myself might have been Adjutant-General! As it is, I, like yourself, am
on the shelf."
"Yes, brother. Clearly it is time that we ordered our tombstones, and
folded our hands upon our breasts."
A sigh concluded Nikolai Petrovitch's speech.
"But _I_ do not intend to give in so soon," muttered his brother.
"There is first going to be a skirmish between that chirurgeon of
Arkady's and myself. That I can see beyond a doubt."
And, sure enough, the "skirmish" occurred the same evening. Ready for
battle as soon he repaired to the drawing-room for tea, Paul Petrovitch
entered angrily, but firmly, and sat waiting for an excuse to advance
upon the foe. Yet for a while that excuse hung fire, since Bazarov