‘Why do you need Latin names?’ asked Bazarov.
‘One needs order in everything,’ she replied.
‘What a wonderful woman Anna Sergeyevna is,’ Arkady exclaimed when he was alone with his friend in the room they’d been given.
‘Yes,’ answered Bazarov, ‘that’s a lady with a brain. And she’s seen life.’
‘In what sense do you mean, Yevgeny Vasilyich?’
‘In a good sense, my friend Arkady Nikolaich, in a good sense! I am sure too that she manages her estate really well. But she isn’t the real wonder, that’s her sister.’
‘What? That little dark girl?’
‘Yes, that little dark girl. There is something fresh and untouched and timid and silent, anything you like. There is someone worth bothering with. You can make out of her whatever you want. The other one’s been around.’
Arkady didn’t answer Bazarov, and each went to bed with his own particular thoughts in his head.
Anna Sergeyevna too thought of her guests that night. She had liked Bazarov – for his unpretentiousness and for the very bluntness of his views. She saw in him something new she hadn’t come across before and she was curious.
Anna Sergeyevna was a rather strange being. Having no prejudices, having no real beliefs even, she stopped before nothing, but she didn’t move in any particular direction. Many things she saw clearly, many things engaged her interest, and nothing fully satisfied her: she probably didn’t want complete satisfaction. Her mind was questing and indifferent at one and the same time: her doubts were never sufficiently allayed for her to forget them, but they never grew so as to cause her alarm. If she hadn’t been rich and independent, perhaps she would have joined the fray and known passion… But she had an easy life, although she was sometimes bored, and she went on living day after unhurried day, only occasionally prey to anxiety. Rainbow colours sometimes flashed before her eyes, but when they faded she was relieved and didn’t regret them. Her imagination even went beyond the bounds of what the laws of conventional morality regard as permissible; but even then the blood just went on coursing quietly through the veins of her calm, lovely and graceful body. At times, as she left her scented bath, all warm and pampered, she would ponder the insignificance of life, its sorrow, its toil and evil… A rush of courage would fill her spirit, and she would be fired by a noble impulse; but a draught would come in through a half-open window, and Anna Sergeyevna would shrink and complain and almost get angry, and at that moment she only wanted one thing – for that horrid wind to stop blowing.
Like all women who haven’t managed to know love she wanted something without herself knowing exactly what. In fact she didn’t really want anything although she thought she wanted everything. She had barely been able to tolerate the late Odintsov (she had married him out of calculation although she probably wouldn’t have done so if she hadn’t recognized he was a good man) and she experienced a secret revulsion for all men, whom she thought of as nothing more than messy, heavy, flabby, limp and tiresome creatures. Somewhere abroad she had once met a young, handsome Swede with a chivalrous expression, honest blue eyes and an open brow; he had made a strong impression on her, but that hadn’t kept her from returning to Russia.
‘What a strange man that doctor is!’ she thought as she lay in her splendid bed on her lace pillows under a light silken coverlet… Anna Sergeyevna had inherited from her father a bit of his taste for luxury. She had dearly loved her father, with all his sins but a kind heart; he worshipped her, joked with her as a friend and equal, trusted her completely and took her advice. Her mother she barely remembered.
‘What a strange man the doctor is!’ she repeated to herself. She stretched, smiled and put her hands behind her head. Then she scanned a couple of pages of a silly French novel, dropped the book – and fell asleep, all clean and cold in her clean and scented sheets.
The next morning Anna Sergeyevna and Bazarov went off botanizing immediately after breakfast and returned just before dinner. Arkady didn’t go anywhere and spent an hour or so with Katya. He wasn’t bored with her, and she herself volunteered to play yesterday’s sonata again. But when Odintsova came back, his heart tightened for a moment… She walked through the garden with slightly weary steps, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shone more than usual from under her round straw hat. She was turning round in her fingers the stem of a wild flower, a light shawl had slipped down to her elbows, and the broad grey ribbons of her hat lay on her breast. Bazarov walked behind her confidently and easily, as usual, but Arkady didn’t like the expression on his face – though it was cheerful, even affectionate. Muttering ‘Good day!’ Bazarov went off to his room, and Anna Sergeyevna distractedly shook Arkady’s hand and also walked on past him.
‘Good day!’ thought Arkady. ‘As if we hadn’t seen each other today?’
XVII
It’s a known fact that time sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes creeps along like a worm. But it’s best for a man if he doesn’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly. That’s how Arkady and Bazarov spent a fortnight at Odintsova’s. It was partly helped by the order she had established in the house and in her life. She maintained it rigidly and made others observe it. Everything during the day took place at a known time. In the morning, at eight precisely, the whole company gathered for tea. From tea till lunch everyone did what he wanted while the hostess was busy with her steward (the estate was run on a quit-rent basis), her butler and her head housekeeper. Before dinner the company assembled again to talk or read. The evenings were given over to walking, cards and music. At half past ten Anna Sergeyevna withdrew to her room, gave her orders for the following day and went to bed. Bazarov didn’t like this measured, slightly formal regularity of everyday life; he claimed, ‘It’s as if you were going along on rails’: liveried footmen and dignified butlers offended his democratic sensibility. He found that if things had gone that far, they might as well sit down to dinner like the English, in white tie and tails. He once had it out with Anna Sergeyevna on this subject. Her way of behaving was such that anyone would be quite open about what they thought in front of her. She heard him out and said, ‘From your point of view you are right – and maybe in this case I am playing the grand lady. But one can’t live in the country without order; otherwise one would be overcome by boredom.’ And she went on acting in her own way. Bazarov grumbled, but the reason that he and Arkady had such a comfortable time at Odintsova’s was because everything in her house ‘went along as if it was on rails’.
With all this a change took place in both young men from the very first days of their stay at Nikolskoye. Bazarov, whom Anna Sergeyevna clearly liked though she seldom agreed with him, felt a sense of disquiet he hadn’t had before: he was easily irritated, was reluctant to talk, looked angrily about him and couldn’t sit still, as if something were nagging him. And Arkady, who had finally decided he was in love with Anna Sergeyevna, began to indulge in quiet despair. However, this despair didn’t prevent him from becoming close to Katya: it even helped him to be on affectionate and friendly terms with her. ‘She doesn’t appreciate me! So that’s that!… But here is a kind being who doesn’t reject me,’ he thought, and his heart again tasted the pleasure of high-minded generosity. Katya dimly felt he was seeking some kind of solace in her company, and didn’t deny either him or herself the innocent pleasure of a friendship that was both timid and trusting. In front of Anna Sergeyevna they didn’t speak to one another: Katya always shrank under her sister’s sharp eyes, and Arkady – as is right for a man in love – when he was near the object of his love, couldn’t pay attention to anything else. But he was at ease with Katya on her own. He felt it was beyond his power to engage Anna Sergeyevna’s interest; he was shy and became flustered when he was alone with her; and she didn’t know what to say to him; he was too young for her. On the other hand with Katya Arkady felt at home; he was indulgent with her and didn’t stop her sharing with him what she had learnt from music, reading novels, poetry and
other nonsense, without himself noticing or acknowledging that this nonsense interested him. For her part Katya didn’t stop his melancholy pose. Arkady felt good in Katya’s company, and Anna Sergeyevna in Bazarov’s, and so it usually happened that after a short time together both couples would go off by themselves, especially during their walks. Katya adored nature, and Arkady liked nature too although he didn’t dare admit it. Anna Sergeyevna was fairly indifferent to nature, like Bazarov. Since now our friends were apart almost the whole time, that too had consequences: their relationship started to change. Bazarov stopped talking to Arkady about Odintsova, he even stopped criticizing her ‘aristocratic little ways’. It’s true he continued to praise Katya and only advised Arkady to control her tendency towards sentimentality, but his praise was cursory and his advice stiff. In general he chatted to Arkady much less than before… as if he were avoiding him, were ashamed of him…
Arkady noticed all this but kept his thoughts to himself.
The real reason for this whole change lay in the feelings that Odintsova had inspired in Bazarov – feelings which tormented and maddened him and which he would have denied with a scornful laugh and a cynical curse if anyone had even remotely hinted at the possibility of what had happened to him. Bazarov was a great lover of women and of feminine beauty, but love in the ideal or, in his word, romantic, sense he called rubbish, unforgivable folly; he considered chivalrous love a kind of deformity or disease, and several times he expressed his surprise that Toggenburg hadn’t been consigned to a lunatic asylum with the whole pack of Minnesingers and troubadours.1 ‘If you like a woman,’ he would say, ‘try and get what you want; but if you can’t, well, you can’t; just go away – there are other fish in the sea.’ He liked Anna Sergeyevna: the stories that went around about her, the freedom and independence of her thinking, her indubitably positive feelings towards him – everything seemed to be in his favour; however, he soon realized that with her you wouldn’t get ‘what you want’, but to his amazement he hadn’t the strength to turn away from her. As soon as he started to think of her, his blood was on fire; he could easily have coped with that, but something else had taken root in him, something he had absolutely no time for, which he always used to mock, which offended all his pride. In his conversations with Anna Sergeyevna he expressed his scornful indifference to all things romantic even more than before; but when he was on his own he recognized with indignation that he had become a romantic. Then he would take himself off to the woods and walk there with big strides, breaking off branches in his path and muttering curses at her and at himself; or he would go up into the hayloft in the barn and, stubbornly closing his eyes, would try to fall asleep, in which of course he didn’t always succeed. He would suddenly imagine those chaste arms some day twined in an embrace round his neck, those proud lips responding to his kisses, those wise eyes tenderly – yes, tenderly – meeting his, and his head would spin and for a moment he would forget himself – until his anger flared up again. He caught himself in all manner of ‘shameful’ thoughts as if a devil were playing with him. He sometimes thought that Anna Sergeyevna too had changed, that her expression signified something particular, that perhaps… But then he would usually stamp his foot and grind his teeth and shake his fist.
However, Bazarov wasn’t completely wrong. He had caught Odintsova’s imagination, he interested her, she thought about him a lot. When he wasn’t there she didn’t pine, she didn’t wait for him to come, but his coming at once enlivened her; she was glad to spend time alone with him and was glad to talk to him even when he made her angry or attacked her taste and her elegant ways. She seemed to want to study her own self while putting him to the test.
One day, as they were walking in the garden, he suddenly announced in a glum voice that he was going to leave and go to his father’s village… She went pale as if she’d been stabbed in the heart – so painfully that she was surprised and for a long time afterwards thought about what that might mean. Bazarov hadn’t made this announcement to test her and see what happened. He never played games. That morning he had seen Timofeich, his father’s bailiff who had looked after him as a child, a shrewd and agile old man with faded yellow hair, a weather-beaten red face and screwed-up, running eyes. Timofeich had unexpectedly appeared before Bazarov in his short jacket of thick grey-blue cloth, belted with a bit of strap, and tarred boots.
‘Well, old friend, greetings!’ exclaimed Bazarov.
‘Greetings, Yevgeny Vasilyevich, sir,’ the old man began and gave a happy smile, which wrinkled up his entire face.
‘Why’ve you come? Did they send you for me?’
‘How can you think that, sir?’ Timofeich stammered (remembering the strict instructions his master had given him when he left). ‘I was going to town on master’s business and heard Your Honour was here, so I dropped in on the way, that is – just to have a look at Your Honour, otherwise I wouldn’t bother you!’
‘Don’t tell lies,’ Bazarov interrupted him. ‘Is this your way to town?’
Timofeich hesitated and didn’t reply.
‘Is my father well?’
‘He is, thank God.’
‘And my mother?’
‘Arina Vlasyevna is well, thanks to the Lord.’
‘I suppose they’re waiting for me.’
The old man put his little head to one side.
‘Oh, Yevgeny Vasilyevich, how could they not! Believe me, my heart bleeds when I look at your parents.’
‘Very well then! Don’t get carried away. Tell them I’ll soon be there.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Timofeich answered, with a sigh.
Having gone out of the house, he pulled down his cap over his forehead with both hands, got up into the wretched fast droshky he had left at the gates and went off at a trot, only not in the direction of the town.
That evening Anna Sergeyevna was sitting in her room with Bazarov while Arkady was walking up and down the big drawing room, listening to Katya play the piano. The princess had gone to her rooms upstairs; she generally couldn’t stand guests, and in particular these ‘new lunatics’ as she called them. In the public rooms she just sulked, but in her own quarters with her maid she sometimes got so carried away with abuse that her cap and wig jumped about on her head. Anna Sergeyevna knew all that.
‘How can you think of leaving?’ she began. ‘What about your promise?’
Bazarov shivered.
‘What promise?’
‘Have you forgotten? You were going to give me some chemistry lessons.’
‘What can I do? My father is expecting me, and I can’t hold back any longer. However, you can read Pelouse and Frémy’s Notions générales de Chimie.2 It’s a good book and clearly written. You’ll find in it all you need.’
‘But do you remember you told me a book cannot replace – I’ve forgotten how you phrased it, but you know what I mean… do you remember?’
‘What can I do?’ Bazarov repeated.
‘Why leave?’ said Anna Sergeyevna, lowering her voice.
He looked at her. She leant her head against the back of her chair and crossed her arms, which were bare to the elbow, on her breast. She looked paler in the light of a single lamp with a cut paper shade. She was completely shrouded in the soft drapery of a voluminous white dress: the tips of her feet, which were also crossed, were only just visible.
‘But why stay?’ Bazarov replied.
She turned her head a little.
‘Why? Aren’t you enjoying yourself here? Or do you think you won’t be missed?’
‘I’m sure I won’t be.’
For a moment Anna Sergeyevna didn’t say anything.
‘You’re wrong to think that. But I don’t believe you. You couldn’t be serious saying it.’ Bazarov continued to sit without moving. ‘Yevgeny Vasilyevich, why aren’t you saying anything?’
‘What should I be saying to you? In general there’s no point in missing people, certainly not me.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I�
��m a down-to-earth, uninteresting man. I don’t know how to talk.’
‘You’re fishing for compliments, Yevgeny Vasilyevich.’
‘I don’t do that. Don’t you yourself know that I can’t enter the elegant side of life, that side you so value?’
Anna Sergeyevna bit the corner of her handkerchief.
‘You can think what you like, but I’ll be bored when you go.’
‘Arkady will be staying behind.’
She slightly shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’ll be bored,’ she said again.
‘Really? At all events you won’t be bored for long.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because you yourself told me that you only get bored when the order of your life is disturbed. You’ve organized your life with such faultless regularity that there can be no room in it for boredom or distress… for any painful feeling.’
‘You find me faultless… that is, in the regularity of my life?’
‘Absolutely! For example – in a few minutes’ time it’ll strike ten, and I know in advance you’ll ask me to leave.’
‘No, I won’t, Yevgeny Vasilyich. You can stay. Open that window… I feel there’s no air.’
Bazarov got up and gave the window a push. It opened at once with a noise… He wasn’t expecting it to open so easily – and his hands were shaking. The dark and gentle night entered the room with its almost black sky, the soft murmur of the trees and the fresh smell of free, clean air.
‘Pull down the blind and sit down,’ said Anna Sergeyevna. ‘I want to chat to you before you go. Tell me something about yourself. You never talk about yourself.’
‘Anna Sergeyevna, I try and talk to you about useful things.’
‘You’re very modest… But I’d like to learn something about you, about your family, about your father, for whom you’re leaving us.’
Fathers and Sons Page 12
