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

the corners turned down, bearing the name of Sitnikov, on one side in French, on the other in Slavonic characters.) “I hope you are not coming from the Governor’s?”

“It’s no use to hope; we come straight from him.”

“Ah! in that case I will call on him too.⁠ ⁠… Yevgeny Vassilyitch, introduce me to your⁠ ⁠… to the⁠ ⁠…”

“Sitnikov, Kirsanov,” mumbled Bazarov, not stopping.

“I am greatly flattered,” began Sitnikov, walking sidewise, smirking, and hurriedly pulling off his really over-elegant gloves. “I have heard so much.⁠ ⁠… I am an old acquaintance of Yevgeny Vassilyitch, and, I may say⁠—his disciple. I am indebted to him for my regeneration.⁠ ⁠…”

Arkady looked at Bazarov’s disciple. There was an expression of excitement and dullness imprinted on the small but pleasant features of his well-groomed face; his small eyes, that seemed squeezed in, had a fixed and uneasy look, and his laugh, too, was uneasy⁠—a sort of short, wooden laugh.

“Would you believe it,” he pursued, “when Yevgeny Vassilyitch for the first time said before me that it was not right to accept any authorities, I felt such enthusiasm⁠ ⁠… as though my eyes were opened! Here, I thought, at last I have found a man! By the way, Yevgeny Vassilyitch, you positively must come to know a lady here, who is really capable of understanding you, and for whom your visit would be a real festival; you have heard of her, I suppose?”

“Who is it?” Bazarov brought out unwillingly.

“Kukshina, Eudoxie, Evdoksya Kukshin. She’s a remarkable nature, émancipée in the true sense of the word, an advanced woman. Do you know what? We’ll all go together to see her now. She lives only two steps from here. We will have lunch there. I suppose you have not lunched yet?”

“No; not yet.”

“Well, that’s capital. She has separated, you understand, from her husband; she is not dependent on anyone.”

“Is she pretty?” Bazarov cut in.

“N-no, one couldn’t say that.”

“Then, what the devil are you asking us to see her for?”

“Fie; you must have your joke.⁠ ⁠… She will give us a bottle of champagne.”

“Oh, that’s it. One can see the practical man at once. By the way, is your father still in the gin business?”

“Yes,” said Sitnikov, hurriedly, and he gave a shrill spasmodic laugh. “Well? Will you come?”

“I don’t really know.”

“You wanted to see people, go along,” said Arkady in an undertone.

“And what do you say to it, Mr. Kirsanov?” Sitnikov put in. “You must come too; we can’t go without you.”

“But how can we burst in upon her all at once?”

“That’s no matter. Kukshina’s a brick!”

“There will be a bottle of champagne?” asked Bazarov.

“Three!” cried Sitnikov; “that I answer for.”

“What with?”

“My own head.”

“Your father’s purse would be better. However, we are coming.”

XIII

The small gentleman’s house in the Moscow style, in which Avdotya Nikitishna, otherwise Evdoksya, Kukshin, lived, was in one of the streets of X⁠⸺, which had been lately burnt down; it is well known that our provincial towns are burnt down every five years. At the door, above a visiting card nailed on all askew, there was a bell-handle to be seen, and in the hall the visitors were met by someone, not exactly a servant, nor exactly a companion, in a cap⁠—unmistakable tokens of the progressive tendencies of the lady of the house. Sitnikov inquired whether Avdotya Nikitishna was at home.

“Is that you, Victor?” sounded a shrill voice from the adjoining room. “Come in.”

The woman in the cap disappeared at once.

“I’m not alone,” observed Sitnikov, with a sharp look at Arkady and Bazarov as he briskly pulled off his overcoat, beneath which appeared something of the nature of a coachman’s velvet jacket.

“No matter,” answered the voice. “Entrez.”

The young men went in. The room into which they walked was more like a working study than a drawing-room. Papers, letters, fat numbers of Russian journals, for the most part uncut, lay at random on the dusty tables; white cigarette ends lay scattered in every direction. On a leather-covered sofa, a lady, still young, was half reclining. Her fair hair was rather dishevelled; she wore a silk gown, not perfectly tidy, heavy bracelets on her short arms, and a lace handkerchief on her head. She got up from the sofa, and carelessly drawing a velvet cape trimmed with yellowish ermine over her shoulders, she said languidly, “Good morning, Victor,” and pressed Sitnikov’s hand.

“Bazarov, Kirsanov,” he announced abruptly in imitation of Bazarov.

“Delighted,” answered Madame Kukshin, and fixing on Bazarov a pair of round eyes, between which was a forlorn little turned-up red nose, “I know you,” she added, and pressed his hand too.

Bazarov scowled. There was nothing repulsive in the little plain person of the emancipated woman; but the expression of her face produced a disagreeable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her, “What’s the matter; are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? What are you in a fidget about?” Both she and Sitnikov had always the same uneasy air. She was extremely unconstrained, and at the same time awkward; she obviously regarded herself as a good-natured, simple creature, and all the while, whatever she did, it always struck one that it was not just what she wanted to do; everything with her seemed, as children say, done on purpose, that’s to say, not simply, not naturally.

“Yes, yes, I know you, Bazarov,” she repeated. (She had the habit⁠—peculiar to many provincial and Moscow ladies⁠—of calling men by their surnames from the first day of acquaintance with them.) “Will you have a cigar?”

“A cigar’s all very well,” put in Sitnikov, who by now was lolling in an armchair, his legs in the air; “but give us some lunch. We’re awfully hungry; and tell them to bring us up a little bottle of champagne.”

“Sybarite,” commented Evdoksya, and she laughed. (When she laughed the gum showed above her upper teeth.) “Isn’t it true, Bazarov; he’s a Sybarite?”

“I like comfort in life,” Sitnikov brought out, with dignity. “That does not prevent my being a Liberal.”

“No, it does; it does