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

face wearing a forced smile, in a dingy frame, nothing more could be made out; while above Fenitchka, General Yermolov, in a Circassian cloak, scowled menacingly upon the Caucasian mountains in the distance, from beneath a little silk shoe for pins which fell right on to his brows.

Five minutes passed; bustling and whispering could be heard in the next room. Pavel Petrovitch took up from the chest of drawers a greasy book, an odd volume of Masalsky’s Musketeer, and turned over a few pages.⁠ ⁠… The door opened, and Fenitchka came in with Mitya in her arms. She had put on him a little red smock with embroidery on the collar, had combed his hair and washed his face; he was breathing heavily, his whole body working, and his little hands waving in the air, as is the way with all healthy babies; but his smart smock obviously impressed him, an expression of delight was reflected in every part of his little fat person. Fenitchka had put her own hair too in order, and had arranged her kerchief; but she might well have remained as she was. And really is there anything in the world more captivating than a beautiful young mother with a healthy baby in her arms?

“What a chubby fellow!” said Pavel Petrovitch graciously, and he tickled Mitya’s little double chin with the tapering nail of his forefinger. The baby stared at the siskin, and chuckled.

“That’s uncle,” said Fenitchka, bending her face down to him and slightly rocking him, while Dunyasha quietly set in the window a smouldering perfumed stick, putting a halfpenny under it.

“How many months old is he?” asked Pavel Petrovitch.

“Six months; it will soon be seven, on the eleventh.”

“Isn’t it eight, Fedosya Nikolaevna?” put in Dunyasha, with some timidity.

“No, seven; what an idea!” The baby chuckled again, stared at the chest, and suddenly caught hold of his mother’s nose and mouth with all his five little fingers. “Saucy mite,” said Fenitchka, not drawing her face away.

“He’s like my brother,” observed Pavel Petrovitch.

“Who else should he be like?” thought Fenitchka.

“Yes,” continued Pavel Petrovitch, as though speaking to himself; “there’s an unmistakable likeness.” He looked attentively, almost mournfully, at Fenitchka.

“That’s uncle,” she repeated, in a whisper this time.

“Ah! Pavel! so you’re here!” was heard suddenly the voice of Nikolai Petrovitch.

Pavel Petrovitch turned hurriedly round, frowning; but his brother looked at him with such delight, such gratitude, that he could not help responding to his smile.

“You’ve a splendid little cherub,” he said, and looking at his watch, “I came in here to speak about some tea.”

And, assuming an expression of indifference, Pavel Petrovitch at once went out of the room.

“Did he come of himself?” Nikolai Petrovitch asked Fenitchka.

“Yes; he knocked and came in.”

“Well, and has Arkasha been in to see you again?”

“No. Hadn’t I better move into the lodge, Nikolai Petrovitch?”

“Why so?”

“I wonder whether it wouldn’t be best just for the first.”

“N⁠ ⁠… no,” Nikolai Petrovitch brought out hesitatingly, rubbing his forehead. “We ought to have done it before.⁠ ⁠… How are you, fatty?” he said, suddenly brightening, and going up to the baby, he kissed him on the cheek; then he bent a little and pressed his lips to Fenitchka’s hand, which lay white as milk upon Mitya’s little red smock.

“Nikolai Petrovitch! what are you doing?” she whispered, dropping her eyes, then slowly raising them. Very charming was the expression of her eyes when she peeped, as it were, from under her lids, and smiled tenderly and a little foolishly.

Nikolai Petrovitch had made Fenitchka’s acquaintance in the following manner. He had once happened three years before to stay a night at an inn in a remote district town. He was agreeably struck by the cleanness of the room assigned to him, the freshness of the bed-linen. Surely the woman of the house must be a German? was the idea that occurred to him; but she proved to be a Russian, a woman of about fifty, neatly dressed, of a good-looking, sensible countenance and discreet speech. He entered into conversation with her at tea; he liked her very much. Nikolai Petrovitch had at that time only just moved into his new home, and not wishing to keep serfs in the house, he was on the lookout for wage-servants; the woman of the inn on her side complained of the small number of visitors to the town, and the hard times; he proposed to her to come into his house in the capacity of housekeeper; she consented. Her husband had long been dead, leaving her an only daughter, Fenitchka. Within a fortnight Arina Savishna (that was the new housekeeper’s name) arrived with her daughter at Maryino and installed herself in the little lodge. Nikolai Petrovitch’s choice proved a successful one. Arina brought order into the household. As for Fenitchka, who was at that time seventeen, no one spoke of her, and scarcely anyone saw her; she lived quietly and sedately, and only on Sundays Nikolai Petrovitch noticed in the church somewhere in a side place the delicate profile of her white face. More than a year passed thus.

One morning, Arina came into his study, and bowing low as usual, she asked him if he could do anything for her daughter, who had got a spark from the stove in her eye. Nikolai Petrovitch, like all stay-at-home people, had studied doctoring and even compiled a homoeopathic guide. He at once told Arina to bring the patient to him. Fenitchka was much frightened when she heard the master had sent for her; however, she followed her mother. Nikolai Petrovitch led her to the window and took her head in his two hands. After thoroughly examining her red and swollen eye, he prescribed a fomentation, which he made up himself at once, and tearing his handkerchief in pieces, he showed her how it ought to be applied. Fenitchka listened to all he had to say, and then was going. “Kiss the master’s hand, silly girl,” said Arina. Nikolai Petrovitch did not give her his