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

“So it seems,” Nikolai Petrovitch said the same day after dinner to his brother, as he sat in his study, “you and I are behind the times, our day’s over. Well, well. Perhaps Bazarov is right; but one thing I confess, makes me feel sore; I did so hope, precisely now, to get on to such close intimate terms with Arkady, and it turns out I’m left behind, and he has gone forward, and we can’t understand one another.”

“How has he gone forward? And in what way is he so superior to us already?” cried Pavel Petrovitch impatiently. “It’s that high and mighty gentleman, that nihilist, who’s knocked all that into his head. I hate that doctor fellow; in my opinion, he’s simply a quack; I’m convinced, for all his tadpoles, he’s not got very far even in medicine.”

“No, brother, you mustn’t say that; Bazarov is clever, and knows his subject.”

“And his conceit’s something revolting,” Pavel Petrovitch broke in again.

“Yes,” observed Nikolai Petrovitch, “he is conceited. But there’s no doing without that, it seems; only that’s what I did not take into account. I thought I was doing everything to keep up with the times; I have started a model farm; I have done well by the peasants, so that I am positively called a ‘Red Radical’ all over the province; I read, I study, I try in every way to keep abreast with the requirements of the day⁠—and they say my day’s over. And, brother, I begin to think that it is.”

“Why so?”

“I’ll tell you why. This morning I was sitting reading Pushkin.⁠ ⁠… I remember, it happened to be The Gipsies⁠ ⁠… all of a sudden Arkady came up to me, and, without speaking, with such a kindly compassion on his face, as gently as if I were a baby, took the book away from me, and laid another before me⁠—a German book⁠ ⁠… smiled, and went away, carrying Pushkin off with him.”

“Upon my word! What book did he give you?”

“This one here.”

And Nikolai Petrovitch pulled the famous treatise of Büchner, in the ninth edition, out of his coattail pocket.

Pavel Petrovitch turned it over in his hands. “Hm!” he growled. “Arkady Nikolaevitch is taking your education in hand. Well, did you try reading it?”

“Yes, I tried it.”

“Well, what did you think of it?”

“Either I’m stupid, or it’s all⁠—nonsense. I must be stupid, I suppose.”

“Haven’t you forgotten your German?” queried Pavel Petrovitch.

“Oh, I understand the German.”

Pavel Petrovitch again turned the book over in his hands, and glanced from under his brows at his brother. Both were silent.

“Oh, by the way,” began Nikolai Petrovitch, obviously wishing to change the subject, “I’ve got a letter from Kolyazin.”

“Matvy Ilyitch?”

“Yes. He has come to⁠—to inspect the province. He’s quite a bigwig now; and writes to me that, as a relation, he should like to see us again, and invites you and me and Arkady to the town.”

“Are you going?” asked Pavel Petrovitch.

“No; are you?”

“No, I shan’t go either. Much object there would be in dragging oneself over forty miles on a wild-goose chase. Mathieu wants to show himself in all his glory. Damn him! he will have the whole province doing him homage; he can get on without the likes of us. A grand dignity, indeed, a privy councillor! If I had stayed in the service, if I had drudged on in official harness, I should have been a general-adjutant by now. Besides, you and I are behind the times, you know.”

“Yes, brother; it’s time, it seems, to order a coffin and cross one’s arms on ones breast,” remarked Nikolai Petrovitch, with a sigh.

“Well, I’m not going to give in quite so soon,” muttered his brother. “I’ve got a tussle with that doctor fellow before me, I feel sure of that.”

A tussle came off that same day at evening tea. Pavel Petrovitch came into the drawing-room, all ready for the fray, irritable and determined. He was only waiting for an excuse to fall upon the enemy; but for a long while an excuse did not present itself. As a rule, Bazarov said little in the presence of the “old Kirsanovs” (that was how he spoke of the brothers), and that evening he felt out of humour, and drank off cup after cup of tea without a word. Pavel Petrovitch was all aflame with impatience; his wishes were fulfilled at last.

The conversation turned on one of the neighbouring landowners. “Rotten aristocratic snob,” observed Bazarov indifferently. He had met him in Petersburg.

“Allow me to ask you,” began Pavel Petrovitch, and his lips were trembling, “according to your ideas, have the words ‘rotten’ and ‘aristocrat’ the same meaning?”

“I said ‘aristocratic snob,’ ” replied Bazarov, lazily swallowing a sip of tea.

“Precisely so; but I imagine you have the same opinion of aristocrats as of aristocratic snobs. I think it my duty to inform you that I do not share that opinion. I venture to assert that everyone knows me for a man of liberal ideas and devoted to progress; but, exactly for that reason, I respect aristocrats⁠—real aristocrats. Kindly remember, sir” (at these words Bazarov lifted his eyes and looked at Pavel Petrovitch), “kindly remember, sir,” he repeated, with acrimony⁠—“the English aristocracy. They do not abate one iota of their rights, and for that reason they respect the rights of others; they demand the performance of what is due to them, and for that reason they perform their own duties. The aristocracy has given freedom to England, and maintains it for her.”

“We’ve heard that story a good many times,” replied Bazarov; “but what are you trying to prove by that?”

“I am tryin’ to prove by that, sir” (when Pavel Petrovitch was angry he intentionally clipped his words in this way, though, of course, he knew very well that such forms are not strictly grammatical. In this fashionable whim could be discerned a survival of the habits of the times of Alexander. The exquisites of those days, on the rare occasions when they spoke their own language, made use