[1]"I think that our friend Arkady has acquired some polish."
[1]"I think that our friend Arkady has acquired some polish."
[2]Dear Papa.
[2]Dear Papa.
[3]Father.
[3]Father.
Next morning Bazarov was the first to awake and go out of doors.
"Ah," thought he to himself as he gazed about him, "this isnotmuch of a place to look at."
When apportioning allotments to his peasantry, Nikolai Petrovitch had found himself forced to exclude from the new "farm" fourdesiatinsof level, naked land, and upon this space had built himself a house, quarters for his servants, and a homestead. Also, he had laid out a garden, dug a pond, and sunk two wells. But the young trees had fared badly, very little water had risen in the pond, and the wells had developed a brackish taste. The only vegetation to attain robust growth was a clump of lilacs and acacias, under the shade of which the household was accustomed to take tea or to dine. Within a few minutes Bazarov had traversed all the paths in the garden, visited the stables and the cattlesheds, and made friends with two young household serfs whom he happened to encounter, and with whom he set forth to catch frogs in a marsh about a verst from the manor.
"For what do you want frogs,barin?" asked one of the lads.
"To make them useful," replied Bazarov (who possessed a peculiar gift for winning the confidence of his inferiors, even though he never cozened them, but, on the contrary, always treated them with asperity). "You see, I like to open them, and then to observe what their insides are doing. You and I are frogs too, except that we walk upon our hind legs. Thus the operation helps me to understand what is taking place in ourselves."
"And what good will that do you?"
"This. That if you should fall sick, and I should have to treat you, I might avoid some mistakes."
"Then you are a doctor?"
"I am."
"Listen to that, Vasika! Thebarinsays that you and I too are frogs. My word!"
"I don't like frogs," remarked Vasika, a barefooted boy of seven with a head as white as tow, and a costume made up of a grey blouse and a stiff collar.
"Whydon't you like them?" asked Bazarov. "Do you think they will bite you? Nay! Into the water, my young philosophers!"
Nikolai Petrovitch too had left his bed, and, on going to visit Arkady, found him fully dressed; wherefore father and son proceeded to repair to the terrace, and there seated themselves under the shade of the awning. Amid nosegays of lilac, a tea-urn was simmering on a table by the balustrade, and presently there appeared upon the scene also the damsel who, on the previous night, had met the arrivals on the verandah. She announced in shrill tones:
"Theodosia Nikolaevna is not very well this morning, and cannot come to breakfast. So she has told me to ask you whether you will pour out tea for yourselves, or whether she is to send Duniasha?"
"I will pour it out myself," Nikolai Petrovitch replied with some haste. "Will you have cream or lemon in your tea, Arkady?"
"Cream," he replied. After a pause he continued:
"Papasha——"
Nikolai Petrovitch glanced confusedly in his direction.
"Yes?" said he.
Arkady lowered his eyes.
"Pardon me if my question should seem to you indiscreet," he began, "but, owing to your frankness of last night, I am emboldened to return it. You will not take offence, will you?"
"Oh no! Pray go on."
"Then I feel encouraged to ask you whether it—whether it is because I am here that she—that is to say, Thenichka—has not joined us at breakfast?"
Nikolai Petrovitch slightly averted his face.
"It may be so," he said at length. "At all events, I presume that—that she prefers, she prefers—in fact, that she is shy."
Arkady glanced at his father.
"But why should she be shy?" he inquired. "In the first place, you know my views" (he uttered the words with no little complacency), "and, in the second place, surely you cannot suppose that I would by a hair's breadth intrude upon your life and your habits? No; sure am I that never could you make a bad choice; and if you have asked this girl to reside under your roof, that is tantamount to saying that she has well deserved it. In any case, moreover, it is not for a son to summon his father to judgment—least of all for me, who possess a father like yourself, a father who has never restricted his son's freedom of action."
At first Arkady's voice had trembled a little, since not only did he feel that he was doing the "magnanimous," but also he knew that he was delivering something like a "lecture" to his father; but such an effect does the sound of his own voice exercise upon a human being that towards the end Arkady pronounced his words firmly, and even with a certain degree ofempressement.
"I thank you, Arkady," Nikolai Petrovitch said faintly as his fingers began their customary perambulation of his forehead. "Nor is your conjecture mistaken, for if this girl had not deserved the invitation, I should not, of course, have—in other words, as you imply, this is no frivolous whim on my part. Nor need I have spoken of the matter, were it not that I desired you to understand that she might possibly have felt embarrassed at meeting you on the very day after your arrival."
"Then letmego and meether," exclaimed Arkady with another access of "magnanimity" as he sprang from his chair. "Yes, letmego and explain to her why she need not shun me."
Nikolai Petrovitch also rose.
"Arkady," he began, "pray do me a favour. Hitherto I had not warned you that——"
But, without listening to him, Arkady darted from the terrace. For a moment or two Nikolai Petrovitch gazed after him—then, overcome with confusion, relapsed into a chair. His heart was beating rapidly. Whether or not he was picturing to himself a strangeness of future relations with his son; whether he was imagining that, had his son refrained from interfering, the latter might have paid him more respect in future; whether he was reproaching himself for his own weakness—it is difficult to say what his thoughts were. Probably in them there was a combination of the feelings just indicated, if only in the form of apprehensions. Yet those apprehensions cannot have been deeply rooted, 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.
"Whatishe?" 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 Latinnihilor 'nothing.' It denotes, I presume, a man who—a man who—well, a man who declines to acceptanything."
"Or a man who declines torespectanything," 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 hisbon motto have been out of place, and hastened to divert the subject to the estate and the new steward.
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 theGermanicshave 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 abrusquerieakin 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, donotfavour the Germans. Of course, I am not including in that category theRusso-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 assistance. Brother Paul, I believe it is time that we interviewed our steward."
Paul Petrovitch rose from his chair.
"Yes," he said, without looking at any one in particular, "it is indeed a terrible thing to have lived five years in the country, and to have stood remote from superior intellects! If one isab originea fool, one becomes so more than ever, seeing that, however much one may try not to forget what one has learnt, there will dawn upon one, sooner or later, the revelation that one's knowledge is all rubbish, that sensible men have ceased to engage in such futilities, and that one has lagged far behind the times. But, in such a case, what is one to do? Evidently the younger generation know more than we do."
And, slowly turning on his heel, he moved away as slowly, with Nikolai Petrovitch following in his wake.
"Does Paul Petrovitch always reside here?" asked Bazarov when the door had closed upon the pair.
"Yes, he does. But look here, Evgenii. You adopted too sharp a tone with my uncle. You have offended him."
"What? Am I to fawn upon these rustic aristocrats, even though their attitude is one purely of conceit and subservience to custom? If such be Paul Petrovitch's bent, he had better have continued his career in St. Petersburg. Never mind him, however. Do you know, I have found a splendid specimen of the water beetledytiscus marginatus. Are you acquainted with it? I will show it you."
"Did I not promise to tell you his history?" observed Arkady musingly.
"Whose history? The water beetle's?"
"No; my uncle's. At least you will see from it that he is not the man you take him for, but a man who deserves pity rather than ridicule."
"I am not prepared to dispute it. But how come you to be so devoted to him?"
"Always one ought to be fair."
"The connection I do not see."
"Then listen."
And Arkady related the story to be found in the following chapter.
[1]Justus Freiherr von Liebig (1803-1873), the great German chemist—in particular, the founder of agricultural chemistry.
[1]Justus Freiherr von Liebig (1803-1873), the great German chemist—in particular, the founder of agricultural chemistry.
"Like his brother, Paul Petrovitch Kirsanov received his early education at home, and entered the Imperial Corps of Pages. Distinguished from boyhood for his good looks, he had, in addition, a nature of the self-confident, quizzical, amusingly sarcastic type which never fails to please. As soon, therefore, as he had received his officer's commission, he began to go everywhere in society, to set the pace, to amuse himself, to play the rake, and to squander his money. Yet these things somehow consorted well with his personality, and women went nearly mad over him, while men called him 'Fate,' and secretly detested him. Meanwhile he rented a flat with his brother, for whom, in spite of their dissimilarity, he had a genuine affection. The dissimilarity in question lay, among other things, in the fact that, while Nikolai Petrovitch halted, had small, kindly, rather melancholy features and narrow black eyes, and was of a disposition prone to reading omnivorously, to bestirring himself but little, and to feeling nervous when attending social functions, Paul Petrovitch never spent a single evening at home, but was renowned for his physical dexterity and daring (he it was who made gymnastics the rage among the gilded youth of his day), and read, at most, five or six French novels. Indeed, by the time that he reached his twenty-eighth year Paul had risen to be a captain, and before him there seemed to lie a brilliant career; but everything suddenly underwent a change, as shall be related forthwith.
"Among the society of St. Petersburg of that period there was accustomed to appear, and to disappear, at irregular intervals a certain Princess R. whose memory survives to this day. Though wedded to a highly placed and very presentable (albeit slightly stupid) husband, she had no children, and spent her time between making unexpected visits abroad and unexpected returns to Russia. In short, she led a very curious life, and the world in general accounted her a coquette, in that she devoted herself to every sort of pleasure, and danced at balls until she could dance no more, and laughed and jested with young men whom she received before dinner in the half-light of a darkened drawing-room. Yet, strangely enough, as the night advanced she would fall to weeping and praying and wringing her hands, and, unable to rest, would pace her room until break of day, or sit huddled, pale and cold, over the Psalter. But no sooner would daylight have appeared than she would once more become a woman of the world, and drive, and laugh, and chatter, and fling herself upon anything which seemed to offer any sort of distraction. Also, her power to charm was extraordinary; for though no one could have called her a beauty (seeing that the one good feature of her face lay in her eyes—and even then it was not the small, grey eyes themselves which attracted, but the glance which they emitted), she had hair of the colour and weight of gold which reached to her knees. That glance!—it was a glance which could be careless to the point of daring or meditative to the point of melancholy; a glance so enigmatical that, even when her tongue was lisping fatuous nonsense, there gleamed in her aspect something intangible and out of the common. Finally, she dressed with exquisite taste.
"This woman Paul Petrovitch met at a ball; and at it he danced a mazurka with her. Yet, though, during the dance, she uttered not a single word of sense, he straightway fell in love with her, and, being a man accustomed to conquests, attained his end in this case also. Yet, strangely enough, the facility of his triumph in no way chilled him, but led him on to become more and more resolutely, more and more painfully, attached, and that though she was a woman in whom, even after she had made the great surrender, there still remained something as immutably veiled, as radically intangible, as before—something which no one had yet succeeded in penetrating. What was in that soul God alone knows. Almost would it seem as though she were subservient to a mysterious force of which the existence was absolutely unknown to her, but which sported with her as it willed, and whose whims her mentality was powerless to control. At all events, her conduct constituted a series of inconsistencies, and even the few letters which she wrote to Paul Petrovitch—missives which would undoubtedly have aroused her husband's suspicions had he seen them—were written to a man who was practically a stranger to her. And in time her love began to be succeeded by fits of despondency; she ceased to smile and jest with the lover whom she had selected, and looked at him, and listened to his voice, with reluctance. In fact, there were moments—for the most part, unexpected moments—when this reluctance bordered upon chill horror, and her face assumed a wild, corpse-like expression, and she would shut herself up in her bedroom, whence her maid, with ear glued to the keyhole, would hear issue sounds as of dull, hopeless sobbing. Paul Petrovitch himself frequently found that, when returning home after one of these tender interviews, there was naught within his breast save the bitter, galling sensation which comes of final and irrevocable failure. 'What more could I want?' he would say to himself in his bewilderment; yet always he spoke with an aching heart.
"It happened that on one occasion he gave her a ring having a stone carved in the figure of the Sphinx.
"'What?' she exclaimed. 'Do you offer me the Sphinx?'
"'I do,' he replied. 'The Sphinx is yourself.'
"'I?' she queried with a slow lift of her enigmatical eyes. 'You are indeed flattering!'
"With the words went the ghost of a smile, while her eyes looked stranger than ever.
"Even during the time that the Princess loved him things were difficult for Paul Petrovitch; but when she cooled in her affection for him (as soon happened) he came near to going out of his mind. Distracted with jealousy, he allowed her no rest, but followed her to such an extent that at length, worn out with his persistent overtures, she betook herself on a tour abroad. Yet even then Paul Petrovitch listened to neither the prayers of his friends nor the advice of his superior officers, but, resigning his commission, set out on the Princess's track. Thus four years were spent in hunting her down, and losing sight of her again: and though, throughout, he felt ashamed of his conduct, and disgusted with his lack of spirit, all was of no avail—her image, the baffling, bewitching, alluring image which ever flitted before his eyes, had implanted itself too deeply in his breast. At last—it was at Baden—the pair once more came together; and though it seemed that never had she loved him as she did now, before a month was over another rupture had occurred, and, this time, a final one, as, with a last flicker, the flame died down and went out. True, that the parting would come he had foreseen; yet still he sought to be friends with her (as though friendship with such a woman could have been possible!), and only the fact that she quietly withdrew from Baden, and thenceforth studiously avoided him, baffled his purpose. Returning to Russia, he endeavoured to resume his former mode of life: but neither by hook nor crook could he regain the old rut. As a man with a poisoned system wanders hither and thither, so did he drive out, and retain all the customs of a societyhabitué. Nay, he could even have boasted of two or three new conquests. But no. What he wanted was obtainable neither through himself nor others, since his whole power of initiative was gone, and his head gradually growing grey. To sit at his club, to consume his soul in jaundice andennui, to engage in bachelor disputes which failed to interest him—such was now become his sole occupation. And, as we know, it is an occupation which constitutes the worst of signs. Nor, for that matter, seems he to marriage to have given a thought.
"Thus ten years elapsed in colourless, fruitless pursuits. Yet Paul found time pass swiftly, indeed, with amazing swiftness, for nowhere in the world does it fly as it does in Russia (in prison only is its passage said to be still swifter); wherefore there came at length a night when, while dining at his club, he heard that the Princess was dead—that she had died in Paris in a state bordering upon insanity. Rising from the table, he fell to pacing the rooms of the club with a face like that of a corpse, and only at intervals halting to watch the tables of the card-players; until, his usual time for returning home having arrived, he departed. Soon after he had reached his flat there was delivered for him a package containing the ring which he had given to the Princess. The Sphinx on it was marked with a mark like the sign of the cross, and enclosed also was a message to say that through the cross had the enigma become solved.
"These things took place just at the time (early in '48) when Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, and removed to St. Petersburg; and since, also, the period of Nikolai's marriage had coincided with the earlier days of Paul's acquaintance with the Princess, Paul had not seen his brother since the day when the latter had settled in the country. True, on returning from abroad, Paul had paid Nikolai a visit with the intention of staying with him for a couple of months, as a congratulatory compliment on his happiness; but the visit had lasted a week only, since the difference in the position of the two brothers had been too great, and even now, though that difference had diminished somewhat, owing to the fact that Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, and Paul Petrovitch his memories (after the Princess's death he made 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 silvernécessaireand 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."
"Whois 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 readsGalignani, 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 tobring himselfup, 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 uponus. 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.
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 theminutiæof 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-blackenedikonof 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'sThe 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 washed. Though he was breathing stertorously, and wriggling his whole body about, and twitching his tiny arms after the manner of all healthy children, the dainty robe had had its effect, and his face was puckered with delight. Also, Thenichka had tidied her own hair, and rearranged her bodice—well enough though she would have done as she was. For, in all the world, is there a more entrancing spectacle than that of a young, handsome mother with, in her arms, a healthy child?
"What a little beauty!" Paul Petrovitch exclaimed indulgently as he tickled Mitia's double chin with the tip of his forefinger. The baby fixed its eyes upon the siskin, and smiled.
"This is Uncle," said Thenichka as she bent over the boy and gave him a gentle shake. For fumigating purposes Duniasha deposited upon the window-sill a lighted candle, and, beneath it, a two-kopeck piece.
"How old is he?" asked Paul Petrovitch.
"Six months. On the eleventh of this month he will be seven."
"No, eight, will he not, Theodosia Nikolaievna?" timidly corrected Duniasha.
"No, seven."
Here the infant crowed, fixed his eyes upon the chest in the corner, and suddenly closed his five tiny fingers upon his mother's mouth and nose.
"The little rascal!" she said, without, however, freeing her features from his grasp.
"He is very like my brother," commented Paul Petrovitch.
"Whom else should he be like?" she thought.
"Yes," he continued, half to himself. "Undoubtedly I see the likeness." He gazed pensively, almost mournfully, at the young mother.
"This is Uncle," again she said to the child: but this time she said it under her breath.
"Oh, here you are, Paul!" cried Nikolai Petrovitch from behind them.
Paul Petrovitch faced about and knit his brows. But so joyously, and with such a grateful expression, was his brother regarding the trio that Paul could only respond with a smile.
"He is a fine little fellow, this baby of yours," the elder brother observed. Then, glancing at his watch, he added: "I came here merely to arrange about the purchase of some tea." With which he assumed an air of indifference, and left the room.
"He came here of his own accord, did he?" was Nikolai Petrovitch's first inquiry.
"Yes, of his own accord," the girl replied. "He just knocked at the door and entered."
"And what of Arkasha? Has he too been to see you?"
"No, Nikolai Petrovitch. By the way, might I return to the rooms in the wing of the house?"
"Why do you want to?"
"Because they suit me better than these."
"I think not," said Nikolai Petrovitch, rubbing his forehead with an air of indecision. "Before there was a reason for your being there, but that reason no longer exists."
"Good morning, little rascal!" was his next remark as, with a sudden access of animation, he approached and kissed the baby's cheek. Then, bending a little, he pressed his lips to Thenichka's hand—a hand, against the red of Mitia's robe, as white as milk.
"Why have you done that, Nikolai Petrovitch?" she murmured with downcast eyes. Yet when she raised them, their expression, as she glanced from under her brows and smiled her caressing, but slightly vacant, smile, was charming indeed!
Of the circumstances of Nikolai Petrovitch's first meeting with Thenichka the following may be related. Three years ago it had fallen to his lot to spend a night at an inn in a remote country town; and, while doing so, he had been struck with the cleanliness of the room assigned him, and also with the freshness of the bed-linen. "Clearly," he had thought to himself, "the landlady must be a German." But, as it had turned out, she was not a German, but a Russian of about fifty, well-dressed, and possessed both of a comely, intelligent countenance and of a refined manner of speaking. When breakfast was over, he had had a long conversation with her, and conceived for her a great liking. Now, as fate would have it, he had just removed to his new house, and, owing to a reluctance to continue keeping bonded serfs, was on the look-out for hired domestics; while she, for her part, was in despair over the question of the hard times, which caused only a limited number of visitors to resort to the town. In the end, therefore, Nikolai Petrovitch proposed to her to come to his house as housekeeper; and to this proposal, (since her husband was dead, and her family consisted only of a young daughter named Thenichka) she eventually agreed. Accordingly, within two weeks Arina Savishna (such was the new housekeeper's name) arrived at Marino with her child, and took up her abode in the wing of the new manor-house; nor was it long before she had put the place to rights. To Thenichka, however, then a girl of sixteen, she never referred; and few people even caught a glimpse of the maiden, since she lived a life so modest and retired that only on Sundays could Nikolai Petrovitch contemplate the delicate profile of her face in an aisle of the parish church. More than a year thus elapsed.
But one morning Arina entered his study, bowed to him as usual, and requested him to be so good as to come and help her with her daughter, one of whose eyes had been injured with a spark from the stove. It so happened that, like most men of sedentary habit, Nikolai Petrovitch had picked up a smattering of medicine—nay, he had even compiled a list of homoeopathic remedies for one and another emergency; wherefore he hastened to order Arina to produce the sufferer. As soon as she heard that thebarinhad sent for her, Thenichka turned very nervous, but followed her mother as in duty bound; whereupon Nikolai Petrovitch led her to the window, took her head in his hands, and, after an inspection of the red, inflamed eye, wrote out a prescription for a lotion, compounded the stuff himself, and, lastly, tore off a portion of his handkerchief, and showed her how best the eye could be bathed. Meanwhile Thenichka listened attentively, and then tried to leave the room. "But the idea of going away without kissing thebarin'shand, foolish one!" cried Arina; whereupon, in lieu of offering the girl his hand, Nikolai Petrovitch felt so embarrassed that in the end he himself kissed her bent head at the spot where the hair lay parted. Soon Thenichka's eye healed, but the impression produced upon Nikolai Petrovitch did not pass away so quickly. Continually there flitted before him a pure, tender, timidly upturned face; continually he could feel between the palms of his hands soft coils of hair; continually appearing to his vision there would be a pair of innocent, half-parted lips between which a set of pearl-like teeth flashed back the sunlight. Consequently he began to observe the girl more in church, and to try to engage her in conversation. But shyness always overcame her, and, on one occasion when she happened to meet him on a narrow path through a rye field, she turned aside, and plunged into the mass of tall grain and undergrowth of cornflowers and wormwood. Yet, despite her endeavours to escape, his eye discerned her head amid the golden mesh of cornblades, and he called to her, as she gazed at him with wild eyes:
"Good morning, Thenichka! I shall not hurt you."
"Good morning,barin!" she whispered in reply, but did not leave her retreat.
As time went on, however, she grew more accustomed to his presence; and by the time that she was beginning really to get over her bashfulness, her mother died of cholera. Here was a dilemma indeed! For what was to be done with the young Thenichka, who had inherited her mother's love of orderliness, and also her mother's good sense and natural refinement? In the end, she was so young and lonely, and Nikolai Petrovitch was so good-hearted and modest, that the inevitable came about. The rest need not be related.
"So my brother has been to you?" he inquired again. "You say that he just knocked at the door and entered?"
"Yes, he just knocked at the door and entered."
"Good! Now, hand me Mitia."
And Nikolai Petrovitch fell to tossing the baby up and down towards the ceiling—a proceeding which greatly delighted the little one, but as greatly disquieted the mother, who, at each upward flight, stretched her hands in the direction of the infant's naked toes.
Meanwhile Paul Petrovitch returned to his study, of which the walls were lined with a paper of red wild roses, and hung with weapons; the floor was covered with a striped Persian carpet; and the furniture, consisting of a Renaissance bookcase in old black oak, a handsome writing-table, a few bronze statuettes, and a stove, was constructed, for the most part, of hazelwood, and upholstered in dark-green velvet. Stretching himself upon a sofa, he clasped his hands behind his head, and remained staring at the ceiling. Did presently the thoughts which were passing through his mind need to be concealed even from the walls, seeing that he rose, unhooked the heavy curtains from before the windows, and replaced himself upon the sofa?