Fathers and Children, Ivan Turgenev [best book reader .TXT] 📗

had grown fairly well; they sometimes had tea and dinner in it. In a few minutes Bazarov had traversed all the little paths of the garden; he went into the cattle-yard and the stable, routed out two farm-boys, with whom he made friends at once, and set off with them to a small swamp about a mile from the house to look for frogs.

“What do you want frogs for, sir?” one of the boys asked him.

“I’ll tell you what for,” answered Bazarov, who possessed the special faculty of inspiring confidence in people of a lower class, though he never tried to win them, and behaved very casually with them; “I shall cut the frog open, and see what’s going on in his inside, and then, as you and I are much the same as frogs, only that we walk on legs, I shall know what’s going on inside us too.”

“And what do you want to know that for?”

“So as not to make a mistake, if you’re taken ill, and I have to cure you.”

“Are you a doctor then?”

“Yes.”

“Vaska, do you hear, the gentleman says you and I are the same as frogs, that’s funny!”

“I’m afraid of frogs,” observed Vaska, a boy of seven, with a head as white as flax, and bare feet, dressed in a grey smock with a stand-up collar.

“What is there to be afraid of? Do they bite?”

“There, paddle into the water, philosophers,” said Bazarov.

Meanwhile Nikolai Petrovitch too had waked up, and gone in to see Arkady, whom he found dressed. The father and son went out on to the terrace under the shelter of the awning; near the balustrade, on the table, among great bunches of lilacs, the samovar was already boiling. A little girl came up, the same who had been the first to meet them at the steps on their arrival the evening before. In a shrill voice she said⁠—

“Fedosya Nikolaevna is not quite well, she cannot come; she gave orders to ask you, will you please to pour out tea yourself, or should she send Dunyasha?”

“I will pour out myself, myself,” interposed Nikolai Petrovitch hurriedly. “Arkady, how do you take your tea, with cream, or with lemon?”

“With cream,” answered Arkady; and after a brief silence, he uttered interrogatively, “Daddy?”

Nikolai Petrovitch in confusion looked at his son.

“Well?” he said.

Arkady dropped his eyes.

“Forgive me, dad, if my question seems unsuitable to you,” he began, “but you yourself, by your openness yesterday, encourage me to be open⁠ ⁠… you will not be angry⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Go on.”

“You give me confidence to ask you.⁠ ⁠… Isn’t the reason, Fen⁠ ⁠… isn’t the reason she will not come here to pour out tea, because I’m here?”

Nikolai Petrovitch turned slightly away.

“Perhaps,” he said, at last, “she supposes⁠ ⁠… she is ashamed.”

Arkady turned a rapid glance on his father.

“She has no need to be ashamed. In the first place, you are aware of my views” (it was very sweet to Arkady to utter that word); “and secondly, could I be willing to hamper your life, your habits in the least thing? Besides, I am sure you could not make a bad choice; if you have allowed her to live under the same roof with you, she must be worthy of it; in any case, a son cannot judge his father⁠—least of all, I, and least of all such a father who, like you, has never hampered my liberty in anything.”

Arkady’s voice had been shaky at the beginning; he felt himself magnanimous, though at the same time he realised he was delivering something of the nature of a lecture to his father; but the sound of one’s own voice has a powerful effect on any man, and Arkady brought out his last words resolutely, even with emphasis.

“Thanks, Arkasha,” said Nikolai Petrovitch thickly, and his fingers again strayed over his eyebrows and forehead. “Your suppositions are just in fact. Of course, if this girl had not deserved.⁠ ⁠… It is not a frivolous caprice. It’s not easy for me to talk to you about this; but you will understand that it is difficult for her to come here, in your presence, especially the first day of your return.”

“In that case I will go to her,” cried Arkady, with a fresh rush of magnanimous feeling, and he jumped up from his seat. “I will explain to her that she has no need to be ashamed before me.”

Nikolai Petrovitch too got up.

“Arkady,” he began, “be so good⁠ ⁠… how can⁠ ⁠… there⁠ ⁠… I have not told you yet⁠ ⁠…”

But Arkady did not listen to him, and ran off the terrace. Nikolai Petrovitch looked after him, and sank into his chair overcome by confusion. His heart began to throb. Did he at that moment realise the inevitable strangeness of the future relations between him and his son? Was he conscious that Arkady would perhaps have shown him more respect if he had never touched on this subject at all? Did he reproach himself for weakness?⁠—it is hard to say; all these feelings were within him, but in the state of sensations⁠—and vague sensations⁠—while the flush did not leave his face, and his heart throbbed.

There was the sound of hurrying footsteps, and Arkady came on to the terrace. “We have made friends, dad!” he cried, with an expression of a kind of affectionate and good-natured triumph on his face. “Fedosya Nikolaevna is not quite well today really, and she will come a little later. But why didn’t you tell me I had a brother? I should have kissed him last night, as I have kissed him just now.”

Nikolai Petrovitch tried to articulate something, tried to get up and open his arms. Arkady flung himself on his neck.

“What’s this? embracing again?” sounded the voice of Pavel Petrovitch behind them.

Father and son were equally rejoiced at his appearance at that instant; there are positions, genuinely affecting, from which one longs to escape as soon as possible.

“Why should you be surprised at that?” said Nikolai Petrovitch gaily. “Think what ages I have been waiting for Arkasha. I’ve not had time