‘I warned you, my dear guest, that we live here like in army camp, so to speak…’
‘Stop it, why are you apologizing?’ Bazarov interrupted. ‘Kirsanov knows very well that we’re not rich as Croesus and that you don’t live in a palace. Where are we going to put him, that’s the problem?’
‘Excuse me, Yevgeny, I’ve got an excellent room in the wing. He’ll be very comfortable there.’
‘So you’ve got a wing now?’
‘Of course, where the bathhouse is,’ Timofeich interjected. ‘That is, next door to the bathhouse,’ Vasily Ivanovich quickly interrupted. ‘It’s summer now…3 I’ll go round there and give the orders. And, Timofeich, you bring in his things. Yevgeny, you of course will be getting my study. Suum cuique.’4
‘That’s what he’s like. The funniest old fellow and the very best,’ Bazarov added as soon as Vasily Ivanovich had gone out. ‘Just as odd a fellow as yours, but in a different way. He talks a great deal.’
‘And I think your mother’s a lovely woman,’ said Arkady.
‘Yes, she has no pretensions. You just see what a dinner she’ll give us.’
‘We didn’t expect you today, sir. They didn’t bring the beef,’ said Timofeich, who had just dragged in Bazarov’s trunk.
‘We’ll do without beef, if there isn’t any there’s nothing we can do. They say poverty isn’t a vice.’
‘How many serfs does your father own?’ Arkady suddenly asked.
‘The property isn’t his but my mother’s. As far as I remember, fifteen.’
‘They’re twenty-two in all,’ said Timofeich crossly.
They heard the shuffling of slippers, and Vasily Ivanovich appeared again.
‘Your room will be ready to receive you in a few minutes,’ he solemnly announced, ‘Arkady… Nikolaich? I think I’ve got your name right. And here is your servant,’ he added, pointing to a boy who had come in with him, with a closely cropped head and wearing a dark-blue tunic that had gone at the elbows and borrowed boots. ‘His name is Fedka. I say once again, although my son tells me not to, don’t be too critical. But he can fill a pipe. You do smoke?’
‘Yes, but usually I smoke cigars,’ Arkady answered.
‘You’re so sensible. I myself have a preference for cigars, but in our remote parts it’s exceptionally difficult to obtain them.’
‘That’s enough whingeing from you,’ Bazarov interrupted again. ‘Better sit down here on the couch and let me have a look at you.’
Vasily Ivanovich laughed and sat down. He was very like his son in features, only his forehead was lower and his mouth a little wider, and he kept moving the entire time and shrugging his shoulders as if his clothes were too tight under the arms; he blinked and coughed and fidgeted with his fingers, whereas his son displayed a kind of relaxed immobility.
‘Whingeing!’ Vasily Ivanovich repeated. ‘Yevgeny, don’t think I want to make our guest feel sorry for us by saying we live so far out in the sticks. On the contrary, I’m of the opinion that for a thinking man there’s no such thing as the sticks. At least I try in so far as I am able not to let the grass grow under my feet, as people say, not to lag behind the times.’
Vasily Ivanovich took out of his pocket a new yellow silk handkerchief which he’d gone to get as he hurried to Arkady’s room, and went on speaking, waving the handkerchief in the air.
‘I’m not talking now of the fact, for example, that I have made painful sacrifices. I’ve put my peasants on quit-rent5 and given them the land in return for half the crop. That I thought my duty, and in this case common sense dictated it, although other landowners don’t even think about that. I’m talking of science, of education.’
‘Yes, I see you have the Friend of Health6 from 1855,’ Bazarov remarked.
‘An old colleague sends it on to me out of friendship,’ Vasily Ivanovich said quickly, ‘but we do have, for example, some notion of phrenology,’ he added, addressing himself, however, more to Arkady and pointing to a small white plaster head in the cupboard, divided up into numbered squares. ‘We’ve heard too of Schönlein and Rademacher.’7
‘Do folk in the province of *** still believe in Rademacher?’
Vasily Ivanovich coughed.
‘In the province of… Of course, gentlemen, you know better. How can we keep up with you? You’ve come to take our place. In my day too there was a Hoffman, a humoral pathologist, and a Brown with his “Vitalism”,8 who seemed very funny, but they too once had their day. In your eyes some new man has taken their place, whom you worship, but in twenty years’ time he too probably will be laughed at.’
‘I’ll say to you as a consolation,’ said Bazarov, ‘that now we generally laugh at medical science and don’t acknowledge any masters.’
‘How is that? Don’t you want to be a doctor?’
‘I do, but one thing doesn’t stand in the way of the other.’
Vasily Ivanovich poked his middle finger into his pipe, in which there still was some hot ash.
‘Well, maybe, maybe – I’m not going to argue. So what am I? A retired army doctor, voilà tout,9 who’s now become an agronomist. I served in your grandfather’s brigade,’ (again he addressed Arkady) ‘yes, yes, I’ve seen a lot in my time. I’ve mixed in every kind of society, there’s no one I haven’t met! I… this man whom you see in front of you has taken the pulse of Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky.10 And the men of 14 December from the Army of the South11 – you understand whom I’m talking about’ (and here Vasily Ivanovich meaningfully pursed his lips) ‘– I knew them all, every one. Well, that was nothing to do with me. I just know how to use a lancet, and that’s it! But your grandfather was very respected, a true soldier.’
‘Come on, he was a real dolt,’ Bazarov said lazily.
‘Oh, Yevgeny, your language! Please… Of course, General Kirsanov wasn’t one of the…’
‘Enough of him,’ Bazarov interrupted. ‘As we were driving up here I was pleased to see your little birch wood, it’s come on well.’
Vasily Ivanovich livened up.
‘And just look at my little garden now! I’ve planted every tree myself. I have fruit, and soft fruit, and all kinds of medicinal herbs. You young gentlemen may be very clever, but still old Paracelsus12 expressed a hallowed truth: “In herbis, verbis et lapidibus…”13 I’ve given up practising, you know, but a couple of times a week I have to get up to my old tricks. If they come for advice, one can’t send them out on their ear. Sometimes the poor come for help. And there are no doctors here at all. One of my local neighbours, a retired major, also acts as a doctor – think of that. I ask whether he’s studied any medicine… I am told, no, he hasn’t, he’s more of a philanthropist… Ha ha, a philanthropist! Eh? That’s good! Ha ha! Ha ha!’
‘Fedka, fill me a pipe,’ Bazarov said grimly.
‘Another doctor here comes to see a patient,’ Vasily Ivanovich went on with a kind of desperation, ‘but the patient’s already gone ad patres.14 The servant won’t let the doctor in and says, “You’re not needed now.” The doctor wasn’t expecting that, he’s nonplussed and asks, “So, did your master have the hic-coughs before he died?” “He did, sir.” “Did he hiccough a lot?” “Yes, he did, a lot.” “Ah – that’s good.” So back he goes. Ha ha ha!’
The old man was the only one to laugh. Arkady gave a smile. Bazarov just stretched. The conversation went on this way for about an hour. Arkady managed to go to his room, which turned out to be the bathhouse’s changing room, but very comfortable and clean. Eventually Tanyusha came in and announced dinner was ready.
Vasily Ivanovich was the first to get up.
‘Gentlemen, let’s go in! I am truly sorry if I’ve bored you. Perhaps my good lady will satisfy you more than I have.’
The dinner, though prepared in haste, turned out to be excellent, even abundant. Only the wine had gone off a bit, as they say: the almost black sherry, which Timofeich had bought from a merchant he knew in the town, had a taste which was a mixture of copper and re
sin. And the flies too were a problem. Usually a house boy kept them away with a big branch of foliage; but on this occasion Vasily Ivanovich had sent him off for fear of censure from the younger generation.
Arina Vlasyevna had managed to smarten up her appearance: she had put on a tall cap with silk ribbons and a blue fringed shawl. She burst into tears again as soon as she saw her Yenyusha, but her husband didn’t have to reprove her: she herself quickly wiped away her tears so as not to stain her shawl.
Only the young men ate. The master and mistress had had their dinner long before. Fedka served, clearly bothered by his unfamiliar boots, and he was helped by a woman with one eye and a masculine face, Anfisushka by name, who performed the duties of housekeeper, poultrywoman and laundress. Throughout the dinner Vasily Ivanovich paced up and down the room and with a completely happy, even blissful expression on his face talked about the grave misgivings he felt about the policies of Napoleon III and the complexity of the Italian question.15 Arina Vlasyevna paid no attention to Arkady and didn’t press food on him. Leaning her round head on her hand – her full cherry-red lips and the small birthmarks on her cheeks and brow emphasized its sweet-naturedness – she didn’t take her eyes off her son and kept on sighing; she was dying to know how long he had come for but she was frightened to ask him. ‘What if he says for two days,’ she thought, and her heart froze. After the roast Vasily Ivanovich disappeared for a moment and came back with an opened half-bottle of champagne. ‘You see,’ he exclaimed, ‘even though we live at the back of beyond, on high days and holidays we have the wherewithal for enjoyment!’ He poured out three goblets and a tiny glass, proposed the health of ‘our guests beyond price’ and drank down his goblet in one, army fashion, and he made Arina Vlasyevna drink the tiny glass to the last drop.
When it was the turn of the preserves,16 Arkady, who couldn’t abide sweet things, nonetheless felt it his duty to sample four different kinds, all freshly made, all the more so because Bazarov flatly declined and lit up a cigar right away. Then tea came on the scene, with cream and butter and pretzels. Then Vasily Ivanovich took them all into the garden to admire the beauty of the evening. Walking past a bench, he whispered to Arkady:
‘I like to philosophize in this spot and watch the sunset. That’s just the thing for a hermit. And further on, over there, I’ve planted a few trees, Horace’s17 favourites.’
‘What kind of tree?’ asked Bazarov, who had overheard.
‘Acacias, of course.’
Bazarov started yawning.
‘I suppose it’s time for the travellers to go to the arms of Morpheus,’18 said Vasily Ivanovich.
‘You mean it’s time to sleep!’ said Bazarov. ‘That’s sound thinking. It’s time indeed.’
Saying goodnight to his mother, Bazarov kissed her on the forehead, and she embraced him and surreptitiously, behind his back, made the sign of the cross over him three times. Vasily Ivanovich took Arkady to his room and wished him ‘that health-giving repose I used to enjoy at your happy age’. And indeed Arkady slept very well in his changing room: it smelt of mint, and two crickets chirped soporifically to each other behind the stove. Vasily Ivanovich left Arkady to go to his study. He curled up on the couch at his son’s feet and was going to chat to him; however, Bazarov immediately asked him to go, saying he was sleepy, but he didn’t sleep till dawn. Eyes wide open, he stared angrily into the darkness: childhood memories had no power over him while he hadn’t yet had time to be free of his recent bitter experiences. Arina Vlasyevna first prayed her fill, then she talked for a long, long time to Anfisushka, who, standing stock-still before her mistress and fixing her single eye on her, communicated to her all her own observations and thoughts about Yevgeny Vasilyevich. The old woman had become quite giddy from happiness, and wine, and cigar smoke. Her husband started to talk to her and threw up his hands.
Arina Vlasyevna was a true Russian gentlewoman of olden time. She should have lived two hundred years before, in the days of old Muscovy. She was extremely devout and sensitive, believed in all kinds of portents, fortune-telling, spells and dreams. She believed in holy idiots,19 house spirits, wood goblins, unlucky encounters, the evil eye, folk medicines, Maundy Thursday salt,20 and in the imminence of the world’s end. She believed that if the candles at the Easter midnight service didn’t go out, then there’d be a good crop of buckwheat, and that mushrooms stop growing if seen by a human eye. She believed the devil likes being where there is water and that every Jew bears a blood-red mark on his breast. She was afraid of mice, grass-snakes, frogs, sparrows, leeches, thunder, cold water, draughts, horses, billy goats, redheads and black cats, and thought crickets and dogs unclean creatures. She didn’t eat veal or pigeon or crab or cheese or asparagus or Jerusalem artichokes or rabbits or watermelons (because a cut-open watermelon reminds one of the head of John the Baptist), and she only mentioned oysters with a shudder. She liked her food – and kept strict fasts. She slept ten hours out of the twenty-four – and didn’t go to bed at all if Vasily Ivanovich had a headache. She hadn’t read a single book except Alexis, or The Cottage in the Wood,21 wrote one or at most two letters a year and had a good understanding of housekeeping, of drying food and making preserves, although she touched nothing with her own hands and generally didn’t like to move from her seat.
Arina Vlasyevna was very kind-hearted and in her own way not at all stupid. She knew that in the world there are the masters, who have to give orders, and the ordinary people, who have to serve – and so she wasn’t offended by obsequiousness or bows to the ground;22 but she treated the lower orders kindly and gently, she let no beggar go by without a donation and never condemned anyone, though she did sometimes gossip. In her youth she had been very pretty, she played the clavichord and could speak a little French; but in the course of many moves of house with her husband (whom she had married against her will) she had lost her figure and forgotten her music and French. She loved her son and was unutterably frightened of him. She had given over the management of the estate to Vasily Ivanovich – and now had nothing to do with any of it. She cried out, fanned herself with her handkerchief and raised her eyebrows higher and higher in alarm as soon as the old man began to explain about the coming changes and his plans. She was suspicious, was always expecting some great disaster and immediately cried as soon as she thought of something sad. Women like that are now a dying breed. God knows whether one should rejoice at that!
XXI
Having got out of bed, Arkady opened the window – and the first thing he saw was Vasily Ivanovich. In a Bukharan dressing-gown held together with a handkerchief, the old man was digging hard in the vegetable garden. He noticed his young guest and, leaning on his spade, called out:
‘Your very good health! How did you sleep?’
‘Really well,’ Arkady answered.
‘And here I am as you can see, like a modern Cincinnatus,1 digging a bed for late turnips. The time has now come – and thank God for that! – when everyone must earn his substance with his own hands. It’s no use relying on others: one must work oneself. After all Jean-Jacques Rousseau2 was right. Half an hour ago, my dear sir, you would have seen me in a quite different position, I had a peasant woman complaining of the cramps – that’s what they call it, but in our terms dysentery – and I… how shall I say it?… I gave her some opium. And I took out another woman’s tooth. I offered to give her ether… but she refused. All this I do gratis – en amateur.3 However, there’s nothing extraordinary in my doing this. Because I’m a plebeian, a homo novus4 – I’m not a noble with a family tree, like my good lady… But why don’t you come here into the shade and breathe in the morning cool before we have our tea?’
Arkady went and joined him.
‘Once more, welcome!’ Vasily Ivanovich exclaimed, raising his hand in a military salute to the greasy skull-cap which covered his head. ‘I know you’re accustomed to luxury and pleasure, but even the great of this world don’t scorn a little while spent under a cottage roof.’
&
nbsp; ‘Excuse me,’ cried Arkady, ‘what sort of a great man am I? And I’m not accustomed to luxury.’
‘Now, now,’ Vasily Ivanovich objected with a friendly grin, ‘although I’ve now been put on the archive shelf, I too have been around in the world, rubbing along – I can tell a bird by the way it flies. And in my own way I am a psychologist and physiognomist. If I didn’t have that, let me call it talent, I’d have gone to the wall long ago, as a little man I’d have been quite rubbed out. Without wanting to compliment you, I’ll say this – the friendship I observe between you and my son makes me truly happy. I met him just now. In his usual way, which you probably know, he jumped out of bed very early and has gone off somewhere in the locality. May I be inquisitive – how long have you known my Yevgeny?’
‘Since last winter.’
‘Really. And may I ask you something else – but let’s sit down – may I ask you, speaking as a father, to tell me frankly – what do you think of my Yevgeny?’
‘Your son is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met,’ Arkady answered animatedly.
Vasily Ivanovich’s eyes opened wider, and his cheeks flushed slightly. The spade fell from his hands.
‘So you think…’ he began.
‘I am convinced,’ Arkady went on, ‘that a great future is waiting for your son, that he’ll make your name famous. I’ve been convinced of that since our very first meeting.’
‘How… how was that?’ Vasily Ivanovich barely managed to get the words out. His lips were parted in an ecstatic smile, which didn’t leave them.
‘Do you mean, how did we meet?’
‘Yes… and generally…’
Arkady began to recount and to speak of Bazarov with even greater passion and enthusiasm than on the evening when he danced the mazurka with Odintsova.
Fathers and Sons Page 15
