CHAPTER XXI
On getting up Arkady opened the window, and the first object that methis view was Vassily Ivanovitch. In an Oriental dressing-gown girtround the waist with a pocket-handkerchief he was industriously diggingin his garden. He perceived his young visitor, and leaning on hisspade, he called, 'The best of health to you! How have you slept?'
'Capitally,' answered Arkady.
'Here am I, as you see, like some Cincinnatus, marking out a bed forlate turnips. The time has come now--and thank God for it!--when everyone ought to obtain his sustenance with his own hands; it's useless toreckon on others; one must labour oneself. And it turns out that JeanJacques Rousseau is right. Half an hour ago, my dear young gentleman,you might have seen me in a totally different position. One peasantwoman, who complained of looseness--that's how they express it, but inour language, dysentery--I ... how can I express it best? Iadministered opium, and for another I extracted a tooth. I proposed ananaesthetic to her ... but she would not consent. All that I do_gratis_--_anamatyer_ (_en amateur_). I'm used to it, though; you see,I'm a plebeian, _homo novus_--not one of the old stock, not like myspouse.... Wouldn't you like to come this way into the shade, tobreathe the morning freshness a little before tea?'
Arkady went out to him.
'Welcome once again,' said Vassily Ivanovitch, raising his hand in amilitary salute to the greasy skull-cap which covered his head. 'You, Iknow, are accustomed to luxury, to amusements, but even the great onesof this world do not disdain to spend a brief space under a cottageroof.'
'Good heavens,' protested Arkady, 'as though I were one of the greatones of this world! And I'm not accustomed to luxury.'
'Pardon me, pardon me,' rejoined Vassily Ivanovitch with a politesimper. 'Though I am laid on the shelf now, I have knocked about theworld too--I can tell a bird by its flight. I am something of apsychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, Iwill venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come togrief long ago; I should have stood no chance, a poor man like me. Itell you without flattery, I am sincerely delighted at the friendship Iobserve between you and my son. I have just seen him; he got up as heusually does--no doubt you are aware of it--very early, and went aramble about the neighbourhood. Permit me to inquire--have you known myson long?'
'Since last winter.'
'Indeed. And permit me to question you further--but hadn't we bettersit down? Permit me, as a father, to ask without reserve, What is youropinion of my Yevgeny?'
'Your son is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met,' Arkadyanswered emphatically.
Vassily Ivanovitch's eyes suddenly grew round, and his cheeks weresuffused with a faint flush. The spade fell out of his hand.
'And so you expect,' he began ...
'I'm convinced,' Arkady put in, 'that your son has a great futurebefore him; that he will do honour to your name. I've been certain ofthat ever since I first met him.'
'How ... how was that?' Vassily Ivanovitch articulated with an effort.His wide mouth was relaxed in a triumphant smile, which would not leaveit.
'Would you like me to tell you how we met?'
'Yes ... and altogether....'
Arkady began to tell his tale, and to talk of Bazarov with even greaterwarmth, even greater enthusiasm than he had done on the evening when hedanced a mazurka with Madame Odintsov.
Vassily Ivanovitch listened and listened, blinked, and rolled hishandkerchief up into a ball in both his hands, cleared his throat,ruffled up his hair, and at last could stand it no longer; he bent downto Arkady and kissed him on his shoulder. 'You have made me perfectlyhappy,' he said, never ceasing to smile. 'I ought to tell you, I ...idolise my son; my old wife I won't speak of--we all know what mothersare!--but I dare not show my feelings before him, because he doesn'tlike it. He is averse to every kind of demonstration of feeling; manypeople even find fault with him for such firmness of character, andregard it as a proof of pride or lack of feeling, but men like himought not to be judged by the common standard, ought they? And here,for example, many another fellow in his place would have been aconstant drag on his parents; but he, would you believe it? has neverfrom the day he was born taken a farthing more than he could help,that's God's truth!'
'He is a disinterested, honest man,' observed Arkady.
'Exactly so; he is disinterested. And I don't only idolise him, ArkadyNikolaitch, I am proud of him, and the height of my ambition is thatsome day there will be the following lines in his biography: "The sonof a simple army-doctor, who was, however, capable of divining hisgreatness betimes, and spared nothing for his education ..."' The oldman's voice broke.
Arkady pressed his hand.
'What do you think,' inquired Vassily Ivanovitch, after a shortsilence, 'will it be in the career of medicine that he will attain thecelebrity you anticipate for him?'
'Of course, not in medicine, though even in that department he will beone of the leading scientific men.'
'In what then, Arkady Nikolaitch?'
'It would he hard to say now, but he will be famous.'
'He will be famous!' repeated the old man, and he sank into a reverie.
'Arina Vlasyevna sent me to call you in to tea,' announced Anfisushka,coming by with an immense dish of ripe raspberries.
Vassily Ivanovitch started. 'And will there be cooled cream for theraspberries?'
'Yes.'
'Cold now, mind! Don't stand on ceremony, Arkady Nikolaitch; take somemore. How is it Yevgeny doesn't come?'
'I'm here,' was heard Bazarov's voice from Arkady's room.
Vassily Ivanovitch turned round quickly. 'Aha! you wanted to pay avisit to your friend; but you were too late, _amice_, and we havealready had a long conversation with him. Now we must go in to tea,mother summons us. By the way, I want to have a little talk with you.'
'What about?'
'There's a peasant here; he's suffering from icterus....
'You mean jaundice?'
'Yes, a chronic and very obstinate case of icterus. I have prescribedhim centaury and St. John's wort, ordered him to eat carrots, given himsoda; but all that's merely palliative measures; we want some moredecided treatment. Though you do laugh at medicine, I am certain youcan give me practical advice. But we will talk of that later. Now comein to tea.'
Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up briskly from the garden seat, and hummedfrom _Robert le Diable_--
'The rule, the rule we set ourselves, To live, to live for pleasure!'
'Singular vitality!' observed Bazarov, going away from the window.
It was midday. The sun was burning hot behind a thin veil of unbrokenwhitish clouds. Everything was hushed; there was no sound but the cockscrowing irritably at one another in the village, producing in every onewho heard them a strange sense of drowsiness and ennui; and somewhere,high up in a tree-top, the incessant plaintive cheep of a young hawk.Arkady and Bazarov lay in the shade of a small haystack, putting underthemselves two armfuls of dry and rustling, but still greenish andfragrant grass.
'That aspen-tree,' began Bazarov, 'reminds me of my childhood; it growsat the edge of the clay-pits where the bricks were dug, and in thosedays I believed firmly that that clay-pit and aspen-tree possessed apeculiar talismanic power; I never felt dull near them. I did notunderstand then that I was not dull, because I was a child. Well, nowI'm grown up, the talisman's lost its power.'
'How long did you live here altogether?' asked Arkady.
'Two years on end; then we travelled about. We led a roving life,wandering from town to town for the most part.'
'And has this house been standing long?'
'Yes. My grandfather built it--my mother's father.'
'Who was he--your grandfather?'
'Devil knows. Some second-major. He served with Suvorov, and was alwaystelling stories about the crossing of the Alps--inventions probably.'
'You have a portrait of Suvorov hanging in the drawing-room. I likethese dear little houses like yours; they're so warm and old-fashioned;and th
ere's always a special sort of scent about them.'
'A smell of lamp-oil and clover,' Bazarov remarked, yawning. 'And theflies in those dear little houses.... Faugh!'
'Tell me,' began Arkady, after a brief pause, 'were they strict withyou when you were a child?'
'You can see what my parents are like. They're not a severe sort.'
'Are you fond of them, Yevgeny?'
'I am, Arkady.'
'How fond they are of you!'
Bazarov was silent for a little. 'Do you know what I'm thinking about?'he brought out at last, clasping his hands behind his head.
'No. What is it?'
'I'm thinking life is a happy thing for my parents. My father at sixtyis fussing around, talking about "palliative" measures, doctoringpeople, playing the bountiful master with the peasants--having afestive time, in fact; and my mother's happy too; her day's so chockfulof duties of all sorts, and sighs and groans that she's no time even tothink of herself; while I ...'
'While you?'
'I think; here I lie under a haystack.... The tiny space I occupy is soinfinitely small in comparison with the rest of space, in which I amnot, and which has nothing to do with me; and the period of time inwhich it is my lot to live is so petty beside the eternity in which Ihave not been, and shall not be.... And in this atom, this mathematicalpoint, the blood is circulating, the brain is working and wantingsomething.... Isn't it loathsome? Isn't it petty?'
'Allow me to remark that what you're saying applies to men in general.'
'You are right,' Bazarov cut in. 'I was going to say that they now--myparents, I mean--are absorbed and don't trouble themselves about theirown nothingness; it doesn't sicken them ... while I ... I feel nothingbut weariness and anger.'
'Anger? why anger?'
'Why? How can you ask why? Have you forgotten?'
'I remember everything, but still I don't admit that you have any rightto be angry. You're unlucky, I'll allow, but ...'
'Pooh! then you, Arkady Nikolaevitch, I can see, regard love like allmodern young men; cluck, cluck, cluck you call to the hen, but if thehen comes near you, you run away. I'm not like that. But that's enoughof that. What can't be helped, it's shameful to talk about.' He turnedover on his side. 'Aha! there goes a valiant ant dragging off ahalf-dead fly. Take her, brother, take her! Don't pay attention to herresistance; it's your privilege as an animal to be free from thesentiment of pity--make the most of it--not like us conscientiousself-destructive animals!'
'You shouldn't say that, Yevgeny! When have you destroyed yourself?'
Bazarov raised his head. 'That's the only thing I pride myself on. Ihaven't crushed myself, so a woman can't crush me. Amen! It's all over!You shall not hear another word from me about it.'
Both the friends lay for some time in silence.
'Yes,' began Bazarov, 'man's a strange animal. When one gets a sideview from a distance of the dead-alive life our "fathers" lead here,one thinks, What could be better? You eat and drink, and know you areacting in the most reasonable, most judicious manner. But if not,you're devoured by ennui. One wants to have to do with people if onlyto abuse them.'
'One ought so to order one's life that every moment in it should be ofsignificance,' Arkady affirmed reflectively.
'I dare say! What's of significance is sweet, however mistaken; onecould make up one's mind to what's insignificant even. But pettiness,pettiness, that's what's insufferable.'
'Pettiness doesn't exist for a man so long as he refuses to recogniseit.'
'H'm ... what you've just said is a common-place reversed.'
'What? What do you mean by that term?'
'I'll tell you; saying, for instance, that education is beneficial,that's a common-place; but to say that education is injurious, that's acommon-place turned upside down. There's more style about it, so tosay, but in reality it's one and the same.'
'And the truth is--where, which side?'
'Where? Like an echo I answer, Where?'
'You're in a melancholy mood to-day, Yevgeny.'
'Really? The sun must have softened my brain, I suppose, and I can'tstand so many raspberries either.'
'In that case, a nap's not a bad thing,' observed Arkady.
'Certainly; only don't look at me; every man's face is stupid when he'sasleep.'
'But isn't it all the same to you what people think of you?'
'I don't know what to say to you. A real man ought not to care; a realman is one whom it's no use thinking about, whom one must either obeyor hate.'
'It's funny! I don't hate anybody,' observed Arkady, after a moment'sthought.
'And I hate so many. You are a soft-hearted, mawkish creature; howcould you hate any one?... You're timid; you don't rely on yourselfmuch.'
'And you,' interrupted Arkady, 'do you expect much of yourself? Haveyou a high opinion of yourself?'
Bazarov paused. 'When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me,' hesaid, dwelling on every syllable, 'then I'll change my opinion ofmyself. Yes, hatred! You said, for instance, to-day as we passed ourbailiff Philip's cottage--it's the one that's so nice and clean--well,you said, Russia will come to perfection when the poorest peasant has ahouse like that, and every one of us ought to work to bring itabout.... And I felt such a hatred for this poorest peasant, thisPhilip or Sidor, for whom I'm to be ready to jump out of my skin, andwho won't even thank me for it ... and why should he thank me? Why,suppose he does live in a clean house, while the nettles are growingout of me,--well what do I gain by it?'
'Hush, Yevgeny ... if one listened to you to-day one would be driven toagreeing with those who reproach us for want of principles.'
'You talk like your uncle. There are no general principles--you've notmade out that even yet! There are feelings. Everything depends onthem.'
'How so?'
'Why, I, for instance, take up a negative attitude, by virtue of mysensations; I like to deny--my brain's made on that plan, and that'sall about it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you like apples?--byvirtue of our sensations. It's all the same thing. Deeper than that menwill never penetrate. Not every one will tell you that, and, in fact, Ishan't tell you so another time.'
'What? and is honesty a matter of the senses?'
'I should rather think so.'
'Yevgeny!' Arkady was beginning in a dejected voice ...
'Well? What? Isn't it to your taste?' broke in Bazarov. 'No, brother.If you've made up your mind to mow down everything, don't spare yourown legs. But we've talked enough metaphysics. "Nature breathes thesilence of sleep," said Pushkin.'
'He never said anything of the sort,' protested Arkady.
'Well, if he didn't, as a poet he might have--and ought to have saidit. By the way, he must have been a military man.'
'Pushkin never was a military man!'
'Why, on every page of him there's, "To arms! to arms! for Russia'shonour!"'
'Why, what stories you invent! I declare, it's positive calumny.'
'Calumny? That's a mighty matter! What a word he's found to frighten mewith! Whatever charge you make against a man, you may be certain hedeserves twenty times worse than that in reality.'
'We had better go to sleep,' said Arkady, in a tone of vexation.
'With the greatest pleasure,' answered Bazarov. But neither of themslept. A feeling almost of hostility had come over both the young men.Five minutes later, they opened their eyes and glanced at one anotherin silence.
'Look,' said Arkady suddenly, 'a dry maple leaf has come off and isfalling to the earth; its movement is exactly like a butterfly'sflight. Isn't it strange? Gloom and decay--like brightness and life.'
'Oh, my friend, Arkady Nikolaitch!' cried Bazarov, 'one thing I entreatof you; no fine talk.'
'I talk as best I can.... And, I declare, its perfect despotism. Anidea came into my head; why shouldn't I utter it?'
'Yes; and why shouldn't I utter my ideas? I think that fine talk'spositively indecent.'
'And what is decent? Abuse?'
'Ha! ha
! you really do intend, I see, to walk in your uncle'sfootsteps. How pleased that worthy imbecile would have been if he hadheard you!'
'What did you call Pavel Petrovitch?'
'I called him, very justly, an imbecile.'
'But this is unbearable!' cried Arkady.
'Aha! family feeling spoke there,' Bazarov commented coolly. 'I'venoticed how obstinately it sticks to people. A man's ready to give upeverything and break with every prejudice; but to admit that hisbrother, for instance, who steals handkerchiefs, is a thief--that's toomuch for him. And when one comes to think of it: my brother, mine--andno genius ... that's an idea no one can swallow.'
'It was a simple sense of justice spoke in me and not in the leastfamily feeling,' retorted Arkady passionately. 'But since that's asense you don't understand, since you haven't that sensation, you can'tjudge of it.'
'In other words, Arkady Kirsanov is too exalted for my comprehension. Ibow down before him and say no more.'
'Don't, please, Yevgeny; we shall really quarrel at last.'
'Ah, Arkady! do me a kindness. I entreat you, let us quarrel for oncein earnest....'
'But then perhaps we should end by ...'
'Fighting?' put in Bazarov. 'Well? Here, on the hay, in these idyllicsurroundings, far from the world and the eyes of men, it wouldn'tmatter. But you'd be no match for me. I'll have you by the throat in aminute.'
Bazarov spread out his long, cruel fingers.... Arkady turned round andprepared, as though in jest, to resist.... But his friend's face struckhim as so vindictive--there was such menace in grim earnest in thesmile that distorted his lips, and in his glittering eyes, that he feltinstinctively afraid.
'Ah! so this is where you have got to!' the voice of Vassily Ivanovitchwas heard saying at that instant, and the old army-doctor appearedbefore the young men, garbed in a home-made linen pea-jacket, with astraw hat, also home-made, on his head. 'I've been looking everywherefor you.... Well, you've picked out a capital place, and you'reexcellently employed. Lying on the "earth, gazing up to heaven." Do youknow, there's a special significance in that?'
'I never gaze up to heaven except when I want to sneeze,' growledBazarov, and turning to Arkady he added in an undertone. 'Pity heinterrupted us.'
'Come, hush!' whispered Arkady, and he secretly squeezed his friend'shand. But no friendship can long stand such shocks.
'I look at you, my youthful friends,' Vassily Ivanovitch was sayingmeantime, shaking his head, and leaning his folded arms on a rathercunningly bent stick of his own carving, with a Turk's figure for atop,--'I look, and I cannot refrain from admiration. You have so muchstrength, such youth and bloom, such abilities, such talents!Positively, a Castor and Pollux!'
'Get along with you--going off into mythology!' commented Bazarov. 'Youcan see at once that he was a great Latinist in his day! Why, I seem toremember, you gained the silver medal for Latin prose--didn't you?'
'The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri!' repeated Vassily Ivanovitch.
'Come, shut up, father; don't show off.'
'Once in a way it's surely permissible,' murmured the old man.'However, I have not been seeking for you, gentlemen, to pay youcompliments; but with the object, in the first place, of announcing toyou that we shall soon be dining; and secondly, I wanted to prepareyou, Yevgeny.... You are a sensible man, you know the world, and youknow what women are, and consequently you will excuse.... Your motherwished to have a Te Deum sung on the occasion of your arrival. You mustnot imagine that I am inviting you to attend this thanksgiving--it isover indeed now; but Father Alexey ...'
'The village parson?'
'Well, yes, the priest; he ... is to dine ... with us.... I did notanticipate this, and did not even approve of it ... but it somehow cameabout ... he did not understand me.... And, well ... Arina Vlasyevna... Besides, he's a worthy, reasonable man.'
'He won't eat my share at dinner, I suppose?' queried Bazarov.
Vassily Ivanovitch laughed. 'How you talk!'
'Well, that's all I ask. I'm ready to sit down to table with any man.'
Vassily Ivanovitch set his hat straight. 'I was certain before Ispoke,' he said, 'that you were above any kind of prejudice. Here am I,an old man at sixty-two, and I have none.' (Vassily Ivanovitch did notdare to confess that he had himself desired the thanksgiving service.He was no less religious than his wife.) 'And Father Alexey very muchwanted to make your acquaintance. You will like him, you'll see. He'sno objection even to cards, and he sometimes--but this is betweenourselves ... positively smokes a pipe.'
'All right. We'll have a round of whist after dinner, and I'll cleanhim out.'
'He! he! he! We shall see! That remains to be seen.'
'I know you're an old hand,' said Bazarov, with a peculiar emphasis.
Vassily Ivanovitch's bronzed cheeks were suffused with an uneasy flush.
'For shame, Yevgeny.... Let bygones be bygones. Well, I'm ready toacknowledge before this gentleman I had that passion in my youth; and Ihave paid for it too! How hot it is, though! Let me sit down with you.I shan't be in your way, I hope?'
'Oh, not at all,' answered Arkady.
Vassily Ivanovitch lowered himself, sighing, into the hay. 'Yourpresent quarters remind me, my dear sirs,' he began, 'of my militarybivouacking existence, the ambulance halts, somewhere like this under ahaystack, and even for that we were thankful.' He sighed. 'I had many,many experiences in my life. For example, if you will allow me, I willtell you a curious episode of the plague in Bessarabia.'
'For which you got the Vladimir cross?' put in Bazarov. 'We know, weknow.... By the way, why is it you're not wearing it?'
'Why, I told you that I have no prejudices,' muttered VassilyIvanovitch (he had only the evening before had the red ribbon unpickedoff his coat), and he proceeded to relate the episode of the plague.'Why, he's fallen asleep,' he whispered all at once to Arkady, pointingto Yevgeny, and winking good-naturedly. 'Yevgeny! get up,' he went onaloud. 'Let's go in to dinner.'
Father Alexey, a good-looking stout man with thick, carefully-combedhair, with an embroidered girdle round his lilac silk cassock, appearedto be a man of much tact and adaptability. He made haste to be thefirst to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though understandingbeforehand that they did not want his blessing, and he behaved himselfin general without constraint. He neither derogated from his owndignity, nor gave offence to others; he vouchsafed a passing smile atthe seminary Latin, and stood up for his bishop; drank two smallglasses of wine, but refused a third; accepted a cigar from Arkady, butdid not proceed to smoke it, saying he would take it home with him. Theonly thing not quite agreeable about him was a way he had of constantlyraising his hand with care and deliberation to catch the flies on hisface, sometimes succeeding in smashing them. He took his seat at thegreen table, expressing his satisfaction at so doing in measured terms,and ended by winning from Bazarov two roubles and a half in papermoney; they had no idea of even reckoning in silver in the house ofArina Vlasyevna.... She was sitting, as before, near her son (she didnot play cards), her cheek, as before, propped on her little fist; sheonly got up to order some new dainty to be served. She was afraid tocaress Bazarov, and he gave her no encouragement, he did not invite hercaresses; and besides, Vassily Ivanovitch had advised her not to'worry' him too much. 'Young men are not fond of that sort of thing,'he declared to her. (It's needless to say what the dinner was like thatday; Timofeitch in person had galloped off at early dawn for beef; thebailiff had gone off in another direction for turbot, gremille, andcrayfish; for mushrooms alone forty-two farthings had been paid thepeasant women in copper); but Arina Vlasyevna's eyes, bent steadfastlyon Bazarov, did not express only devotion and tenderness; in them wasto be seen sorrow also, mingled with awe and curiosity; there was to beseen too a sort of humble reproachfulness.
Bazarov, however, was not in a humour to analyse the exact expressionof his mother's eyes; he seldom turned to her, and then only with someshort question. Once he asked her for her hand 'for luck'; she gentlylaid her soft, li
ttle hand on his rough, broad palm.
'Well,' she asked, after waiting a little, 'has it been any use?'
'Worse luck than ever,' he answered, with a careless laugh.
'He plays too rashly,' pronounced Father Alexey, as it werecompassionately, and he stroked his beard.
'Napoleon's rule, good Father, Napoleon's rule,' put in VassilyIvanovitch, leading an ace.
'It brought him to St. Helena, though,' observed Father Alexey, as hetrumped the ace.
'Wouldn't you like some currant tea, Enyusha?' inquired ArinaVlasyevna.
Bazarov merely shrugged his shoulders.
'No!' he said to Arkady the next day. I'm off from here to-morrow. I'mbored; I want to work, but I can't work here. I will come to your placeagain; I've left all my apparatus there too. In your house one can atany rate shut oneself up. While here my father repeats to me, "My studyis at your disposal--nobody shall interfere with you," and all the timehe himself is never a yard away. And I'm ashamed somehow to shut myselfaway from him. It's the same thing too with mother. I hear her sighingthe other side of the wall, and if one goes in to her, one's nothing tosay to her.'
'She will be very much grieved,' observed Arkady, 'and so will he.'
'I shall come back again to them.'
'When?'
'Why, when on my way to Petersburg.'
'I feel sorry for your mother particularly.'
'Why's that? Has she won your heart with strawberries, or what?'
Arkady dropped his eyes. 'You don't understand your mother, Yevgeny.She's not only a very good woman, she's very clever really. Thismorning she talked to me for half-an-hour, and so sensibly,interestingly.'
'I suppose she was expatiating upon me all the while?'
'We didn't talk only about you.'
'Perhaps; lookers-on see most. If a woman can keep up half-an-hour'sconversation, it's always a hopeful sign. But I'm going, all the same.'
'It won't be very easy for you to break it to them. They are alwaysmaking plans for what we are to do in a fortnight's time.'
'No; it won't be easy. Some demon drove me to tease my father to-day;he had one of his rent-paying peasants flogged the other day, and quiteright too--yes, yes, you needn't look at me in such horror--he didquite right, because he's an awful thief and drunkard; only my fatherhad no idea that I, as they say, was cognisant of the facts. He wasgreatly perturbed, and now I shall have to upset him more than ever....Never mind! Never say die! He'll get over it!'
Bazarov said, 'Never mind'; but the whole day passed before he couldmake up his mind to inform Vassily Ivanovitch of his intentions. Atlast, when he was just saying good-night to him in the study, heobserved, with a feigned yawn--
'Oh ... I was almost forgetting to tell you.... Send to Fedot's for ourhorses to-morrow.'
Vassily Ivanovitch was dumbfounded. 'Is Mr. Kirsanov leaving us, then?'
'Yes; and I'm going with him.'
Vassily Ivanovitch positively reeled. 'You are going?'
'Yes ... I must. Make the arrangements about the horses, please.'
'Very good....' faltered the old man; 'to Fedot's ... very good ...only ... only.... How is it?'
'I must go to stay with him for a little time. I will come back againlater.'
'Ah! For a little time ... very good.' Vassily Ivanovitch drew out hishandkerchief, and, blowing his nose, doubled up almost to the ground.'Well ... everything shall be done. I had thought you were to be withus ... a little longer. Three days.... After three years, it's ratherlittle; rather little, Yevgeny!'
'But, I tell you, I'm coming back directly. It's necessary for me togo.'
'Necessary.... Well! Duty before everything. So the horses shall be inreadiness. Very good. Arina and I, of course, did not anticipate this.She has just begged some flowers from a neighbour; she meant todecorate the room for you.' (Vassily Ivanovitch did not even mentionthat every morning almost at dawn he took counsel with Timofeitch,standing with his bare feet in his slippers, and pulling out withtrembling fingers one dog's-eared rouble note after another, chargedhim with various purchases, with special reference to good things toeat, and to red wine, which, as far as he could observe, the young menliked extremely.) 'Liberty ... is the great thing; that's my rule.... Idon't want to hamper you ... not ...'
He suddenly ceased, and made for the door.
'We shall soon see each other again, father, really.'
But Vassily Ivanovitch, without turning round, merely waved his handand was gone. When he got back to his bedroom he found his wife in bed,and began to say his prayers in a whisper, so as not to wake her up.She woke, however. 'Is that you, Vassily Ivanovitch?' she asked.
'Yes, mother.'
'Have you come from Enyusha? Do you know, I'm afraid of his not beingcomfortable on that sofa. I told Anfisushka to put him on yourtravelling mattress and the new pillows; I should have given him ourfeather-bed, but I seem to remember he doesn't like too soft a bed....'
'Never mind, mother; don't worry yourself. He's all right. Lord, havemercy on me, a sinner,' he went on with his prayer in a low voice.Vassily Ivanovitch was sorry for his old wife; he did not mean to tellher over night what a sorrow there was in store for her.
Bazarov and Arkady set off the next day. From early morning all wasdejection in the house; Anfisushka let the tray slip out of her hands;even Fedka was bewildered, and was reduced to taking off his boots.Vassily Ivanitch was more fussy than ever; he was obviously trying toput a good face on it, talked loudly, and stamped with his feet, buthis face looked haggard, and his eyes were continually avoiding hisson. Arina Vlasyevna was crying quietly; she was utterly crushed, andcould not have controlled herself at all if her husband had not spenttwo whole hours early in the morning exhorting her. When Bazarov, afterrepeated promises to come back certainly not later than in a month'stime, tore himself at last from the embraces detaining him, and tookhis seat in the coach; when the horses had started, the bell wasringing, and the wheels were turning round, and when it was no longerany good to look after them, and the dust had settled, and Timofeitch,all bent and tottering as he walked, had crept back to his little room;when the old people were left alone in their little house, which seemedsuddenly to have grown shrunken and decrepit too, Vassily Ivanovitch,after a few more moments of hearty waving of his handkerchief on thesteps, sank into a chair, and his head dropped on to his breast. 'Hehas cast us off; he has forsaken us,' he faltered; 'forsaken us; he wasdull with us. Alone, alone!' he repeated several times. Then ArinaVlasyevna went up to him, and, leaning her grey head against his greyhead, said, 'There's no help for it, Vasya! A son is a separate piececut off. He's like the falcon that flies home and flies away at hispleasure; while you and I are like funguses in the hollow of a tree, wesit side by side, and don't move from our place. Only I am left youunchanged for ever, as you for me.'
Vassily Ivanovitch took his hands from his face and clasped his wife,his friend, as warmly as he had never clasped in youth; she comfortedhim in his grief.
Fathers and Children Page 28
