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

“I wonder you’re not ashamed to attribute such ideas to me!” retorted Arkady hotly; “I don’t consider my father wrong from that point of view; I think he ought to marry her.”

“Hoity-toity!” responded Bazarov tranquilly. “What magnanimous fellows we are! You still attach significance to marriage; I did not expect that of you.”

The friends walked a few paces in silence.

“I have looked at all your father’s establishment,” Bazarov began again. “The cattle are inferior, the horses are broken down; the buildings aren’t up to much, and the workmen look confirmed loafers; while the superintendent is either a fool, or a knave, I haven’t quite found out which yet.”

“You are rather hard on everything today, Yevgeny Vassilyevitch.”

“And the dear good peasants are taking your father in to a dead certainty. You know the Russian proverb, ‘The Russian peasant will cheat God Himself.’ ”

“I begin to agree with my uncle,” remarked Arkady; “you certainly have a poor opinion of Russians.”

“As though that mattered! The only good point in a Russian is his having the lowest possible opinion of himself. What does matter is that two and two make four, and the rest is all foolery.”

“And is nature foolery?” said Arkady, looking pensively at the bright-coloured fields in the distance, in the beautiful soft light of the sun, which was not yet high up in the sky.

“Nature, too, is foolery in the sense you understand it. Nature’s not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.”

At that instant, the long drawn notes of a violoncello floated out to them from the house. Someone was playing Schubert’s “Expectation” with much feeling, though with an untrained hand, and the melody flowed with honey sweetness through the air.

“What’s that?” cried Bazarov in amazement.

“It’s my father.”

“Your father plays the violoncello?”

“Yes.”

“And how old is your father?”

“Forty-four.”

Bazarov suddenly burst into a roar of laughter.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Upon my word, a man of forty-four, a paterfamilias in this out-of-the-way district, playing on the violoncello!”

Bazarov went on laughing; but much as he revered his master, this time Arkady did not even smile.

About a fortnight passed by. Life at Maryino went on its accustomed course, while Arkady was lazy and enjoyed himself, and Bazarov worked. Everyone in the house had grown used to him, to his careless manners, and his curt and abrupt speeches. Fenitchka, in particular, was so far at home with him that one night she sent to wake him up; Mitya had had convulsions; and he had gone, and, half joking, half-yawning as usual, he stayed two hours with her and relieved the child. On the other hand Pavel Petrovitch had grown to detest Bazarov with all the strength of his soul; he regarded him as stuck-up, impudent, cynical, and vulgar; he suspected that Bazarov had no respect for him, that he had all but a contempt for him⁠—him, Pavel Kirsanov!

Nikolai Petrovitch was rather afraid of the young “nihilist,” and was doubtful whether his influence over Arkady was for the good; but he was glad to listen to him, and was glad to be present at his scientific and chemical experiments. Bazarov had brought with him a microscope, and busied himself for hours together with it. The servants, too, took to him, though he made fun of them; they felt, all the same, that he was one of themselves, not a master. Dunyasha was always ready to giggle with him, and used to cast significant and stealthy glances at him when she skipped by like a rabbit; Piotr, a man vain and stupid to the last degree, forever wearing an affected frown on his brow, a man whose whole merit consisted in the fact that he looked civil, could spell out a page of reading, and was diligent in brushing his coat⁠—even he smirked and brightened up directly Bazarov paid him any attention; the boys on the farm simply ran after the “doctor” like puppies. The old man Prokofitch was the only one who did not like him; he handed him the dishes at table with a surly face, called him a “butcher” and “an upstart,” and declared that with his great whiskers he looked like a pig in a stye. Prokofitch in his own way was quite as much of an aristocrat as Pavel Petrovitch.

The best days of the year had come⁠—the first days of June. The weather kept splendidly fine; in the distance, it is true, the cholera was threatening, but the inhabitants of that province had had time to get used to its visits. Bazarov used to get up very early and go out for two or three miles, not for a walk⁠—he couldn’t bear walking without an object⁠—but to collect specimens of plants and insects. Sometimes he took Arkady with him.

On the way home an argument usually sprang up, and Arkady was usually vanquished in it, though he said more than his companion.

One day they had lingered rather late; Nikolai Petrovitch went to meet them in the garden, and as he reached the arbour he suddenly heard the quick steps and voices of the two young men. They were walking on the other side of the arbour, and could not see him.

“You don’t know my father well enough,” said Arkady.

“Your father’s a nice chap,” said Bazarov, “but he’s behind the times; his day is done.”

Nikolai Petrovitch listened intently.⁠ ⁠… Arkady made no answer.

The man whose day was done remained two minutes motionless, and stole slowly home.

“The day before yesterday I saw him reading Pushkin,” Bazarov was continuing meanwhile. “Explain to him, please, that that’s no earthly use. He’s not a boy, you know; it’s time to throw up that rubbish. And what an idea to be a romantic at this time of day! Give him something sensible to read.”

“What ought I to give him?” asked Arkady.

“Oh, I think Büchner’s Stoff und Kraft to begin with.”

“I think so too,” observed Arkady approving, “Stoff und Kraft is written