Fathers and Children

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Six months had passed by. White winter had come with the cruelstillness of unclouded frosts, the thick-lying, crunching snow, therosy rime on the trees, the pale emerald sky, the wreaths of smokeabove the chimneys, the clouds of steam rushing out of the doors whenthey are opened for an instant, with the fresh faces, that look stungby the cold, and the hurrying trot of the chilled horses. A January daywas drawing to its close; the cold evening was more keen than ever inthe motionless air, and a lurid sunset was rapidly dying away. Therewere lights burning in the windows of the house at Maryino; Prokofitchin a black frockcoat and white gloves, with a special solemnity, laidthe table for seven. A week before in the small parish church twoweddings had taken place quietly, and almost without witnesses--Arkadyand Katya's, and Nikolai Petrovitch and Fenitchka's; and on this dayNikolai Petrovitch was giving a farewell dinner to his brother, who wasgoing away to Moscow on business. Anna Sergyevna had gone there alsodirectly after the ceremony was over, after making very handsomepresents to the young people.

  Precisely at three o'clock they all gathered about the table. Mitya wasplaced there too; with him appeared a nurse in a cap of glazed brocade.Pavel Petrovitch took his seat between Katya and Fenitchka; the'husbands' took their places beside their wives. Our friends hadchanged of late; they all seemed to have grown stronger and betterlooking; only Pavel Petrovitch was thinner, which gave even more of anelegant and 'grand seigneur' air to his expressive features.... AndFenitchka too was different. In a fresh silk gown, with a wide velvethead-dress on her hair, with a gold chain round her neck, she sat withdeprecating immobility, respectful towards herself and everythingsurrounding her, and smiled as though she would say, 'I beg yourpardon; I'm not to blame.' And not she alone--all the others smiled,and also seemed apologetic; they were all a little awkward, a littlesorry, and in reality very happy. They all helped one another withhumorous attentiveness, as though they had all agreed to rehearse asort of artless farce. Katya was the most composed of all; she lookedconfidently about her, and it could be seen that Nikolai Petrovitch wasalready devotedly fond of her. At the end of dinner he got up, and, hisglass in his hand, turned to Pavel Petrovitch.

  'You are leaving us ... you are leaving us, dear brother,' he began;'not for long, to be sure; but still, I cannot help expressing what I... what we ... how much I ... how much we.... There, the worst of itis, we don't know how to make speeches. Arkady, you speak.'

  'No, daddy, I've not prepared anything.'

  'As though I were so well prepared! Well, brother, I will simply say,let us embrace you, wish you all good luck, and come back to us asquickly as you can!'

  Pavel Petrovitch exchanged kisses with every one, of course notexcluding Mitya; in Fenitchka's case, he kissed also her hand, whichshe had not yet learned to offer properly, and drinking off the glasswhich had been filled again, he said with a deep sigh, 'May you behappy, my friends! _Farewell!_' This English finale passed unnoticed;but all were touched.

  'To the memory of Bazarov,' Katya whispered in her husband's ear, asshe clinked glasses with him. Arkady pressed her hand warmly inresponse, but he did not venture to propose this toast aloud.

  The end, would it seem? But perhaps some one of our readers would careto know what each of the characters we have introduced is doing in thepresent, the actual present. We are ready to satisfy him.

  Anna Sergyevna has recently made a marriage, not of love but of goodsense, with one of the future leaders of Russia, a very clever man, alawyer, possessed of vigorous practical sense, a strong will, andremarkable fluency--still young, good-natured, and cold as ice. Theylive in the greatest harmony together, and will live perhaps to attaincomplete happiness ... perhaps love. The Princess K---- is dead,forgotten the day of her death. The Kirsanovs, father and son, live atMaryino; their fortunes are beginning to mend. Arkady has becomezealous in the management of the estate, and the 'farm' now yields afairly good income. Nikolai Petrovitch has been made one of themediators appointed to carry out the emancipation reforms, and workswith all his energies; he is for ever driving about over his district;delivers long speeches (he maintains the opinion that the peasantsought to be 'brought to comprehend things,' that is to say, they oughtto be reduced to a state of quiescence by the constant repetition ofthe same words); and yet, to tell the truth, he does not give completesatisfaction either to the refined gentry, who talk with _chic_, ordepression of the _emancipation_ (pronouncing it as though it wereFrench), nor of the uncultivated gentry, who unceremoniously curse 'thedamned _'mancipation_.' He is too soft-hearted for both sets. KaterinaSergyevna has a son, little Nikolai, while Mitya runs about merrily andtalks fluently. Fenitchka, Fedosya Nikolaevna, after her husband andMitya, adores no one so much as her daughter-in-law, and when thelatter is at the piano, she would gladly spend the whole day at herside.

  A passing word of Piotr. He has grown perfectly rigid with stupidityand dignity, but he too is married, and received a respectable dowrywith his bride, the daughter of a market-gardener of the town, who hadrefused two excellent suitors, only because they had no watch; whilePiotr had not only a watch--he had a pair of kid shoes.

  In the Bruhl Terrace in Dresden, between two and four o'clock--the mostfashionable time for walking--you may meet a man about fifty, quitegrey, and looking as though he suffered from gout, but still handsome,elegantly dressed, and with that special stamp, which is only gained bymoving a long time in the higher strata of society. That is PavelPetrovitch. From Moscow he went abroad for the sake of his health, andhas settled for good at Dresden, where he associates most with Englishand Russian visitors. With English people he behaves simply, almostmodestly, but with dignity; they find him rather a bore, but respecthim for being, as they say, _'a perfect gentleman.'_ With Russians heis more free and easy, gives vent to his spleen, and makes fun ofhimself and them, but that is done by him with great amiability,negligence, and propriety. He holds Slavophil views; it is well knownthat in the highest society this is regarded as _tres distingue_! Hereads nothing in Russian, but on his writing table there is a silverashpan in the shape of a peasant's plaited shoe. He is much run afterby our tourists. Matvy Ilyitch Kolyazin, happening to be in temporaryopposition, paid him a majestic visit; while the natives, with whom,however, he is very little seen, positively grovel before him. No onecan so readily and quickly obtain a ticket for the court chapel, forthe theatre, and such things as _der Herr Baron von Kirsanoff_. He doeseverything good-naturedly that he can; he still makes some little noisein the world; it is not for nothing that he was once a great societylion;--but life is a burden to him ... a heavier burden than hesuspects himself. One need but glance at him in the Russian church,when, leaning against the wall on one side, he sinks into thought, andremains long without stirring, bitterly compressing his lips, thensuddenly recollects himself, and begins almost imperceptibly crossinghimself....

  Madame Kukshin, too, went abroad. She is in Heidelberg, and is nowstudying not natural science, but architecture, in which, according toher own account, she has discovered new laws. She still fraterniseswith students, especially with the young Russians studying naturalscience and chemistry, with whom Heidelberg is crowded, and who,astounding the naive German professors at first by the soundness oftheir views of things, astound the same professors no less in thesequel by their complete inefficiency and absolute idleness. In companywith two or three such young chemists, who don't know oxygen fromnitrogen, but are filled with scepticism and self-conceit, and, too,with the great Elisyevitch, Sitnikov roams about Petersburg, alsogetting ready to be great, and in his own conviction continues the'work' of Bazarov. There is a story that some one recently gave him abeating; but he was avenged upon him; in an obscure little article,hidden in an obscure little journal, he has hinted that the man whobeat him was a coward. He calls this irony. His father bullies him asbefore, while his wife regards him as a fool ... and a literary man.

  There is a small village graveyard in one of the remote corners ofRussia. Like almost all our grave
yards, it presents a wretchedappearance; the ditches surrounding it have long been overgrown; thegrey wooden crosses lie fallen and rotting under their once paintedgables; the stone slabs are all displaced, as though some one werepushing them up from behind; two or three bare trees give a scantyshade; the sheep wander unchecked among the tombs.... But among them isone untouched by man, untrampled by beast, only the birds perch upon itand sing at daybreak. An iron railing runs round it; two youngfir-trees have been planted, one at each end. Yevgeny Bazarov is buriedin this tomb. Often from the little village not far off, two quitefeeble old people come to visit it--a husband and wife. Supporting oneanother, they move to it with heavy steps; they go up to the railing,fall down, and remain on their knees, and long and bitterly they weep,and yearn and intently gaze at the dumb stone, under which their son islying; they exchange some brief word, wipe away the dust from thestone, set straight a branch of a fir-tree, and pray again, and cannottear themselves from this place, where they seem to be nearer to theirson, to their memories of him.... Can it be that their prayers, theirtears are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred, devoted love, is notall-powerful? Oh, no! However passionate, sinning, and rebellious theheart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely atus with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone,of that great peace of 'indifferent' nature; tell us too of eternalreconciliation and of life without end.