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

Madame Odintsov, “but we will have more talk together. But now I hear my aunt coming to tea; we must spare her.”

Anna Sergyevna’s aunt, Princess H⁠⸺, a thin little woman with a pinched-up face, drawn together like a fist, and staring ill-natured-looking eyes under a grey front, came in, and, scarcely bowing to the guests, she dropped into a wide velvet covered armchair, upon which no one but herself was privileged to sit. Katya put a footstool under her feet; the old lady did not thank her, did not even look at her, only her hands shook under the yellow shawl, which almost covered her feeble body. The Princess liked yellow; her cap, too, had bright yellow ribbons.

“How have you slept, aunt?” inquired Madame Odintsov, raising her voice.

“That dog in here again,” the old lady muttered in reply, and noticing Fifi was making two hesitating steps in her direction, she cried, “Ss⁠—ss!”

Katya called Fifi and opened the door for him.

Fifi rushed out delighted, in the expectation of being taken out for a walk; but when he was left alone outside the door, he began scratching and whining. The princess scowled. Katya was about to go out.⁠ ⁠…

“I expect tea is ready,” said Madame Odintsov.

“Come gentlemen; aunt, will you go in to tea?”

The princess got up from her chair without speaking and led the way out of the drawing-room. They all followed her in to the dining-room. A little page in livery drew back, with a scraping sound, from the table, an armchair covered with cushions, devoted to the princess’s use; she sank into it; Katya in pouring out the tea handed her first a cup emblazoned with a heraldic crest. The old lady put some honey in her cup (she considered it both sinful and extravagant to drink tea with sugar in it, though she never spent a farthing herself on anything), and suddenly asked in a hoarse voice, “And what does Prince Ivan write?”

No one made her any reply. Bazarov and Arkady soon guessed that they paid no attention to her though they treated her respectfully.

“Because of her grand family,” thought Bazarov.⁠ ⁠…

After tea, Anna Sergyevna suggested they should go out for a walk; but it began to rain a little, and the whole party, with the exception of the princess, returned to the drawing-room. The neighbour, the devoted card-player, arrived; his name was Porfiry Platonitch, a stoutish, greyish man with short, spindly legs, very polite and ready to be amused. Anna Sergyevna, who still talked principally with Bazarov, asked him whether he’d like to try a contest with them in the old-fashioned way at preference? Bazarov assented, saying “that he ought to prepare himself beforehand for the duties awaiting him as a country doctor.”

“You must be careful,” observed Anna Sergyevna; “Porfiry Platonitch and I will beat you. And you, Katya,” she added, “play something to Arkady Nikolaevitch; he is fond of music, and we can listen, too.”

Katya went unwillingly to the piano; and Arkady, though he certainly was fond of music, unwillingly followed her; it seemed to him that Madame Odintsov was sending him away, and already, like every young man at his age, he felt a vague and oppressive emotion surging up in his heart, like the forebodings of love. Katya raised the top of the piano, and not looking at Arkady, she said in a low voice⁠—

“What am I to play you?”

“What you like,” answered Arkady indifferently.

“What sort of music do you like best?” repeated Katya, without changing her attitude.

“Classical,” Arkady answered in the same tone of voice.

“Do you like Mozart?”

“Yes, I like Mozart.”

Katya pulled out Mozart’s Sonata-Fantasia in C minor. She played very well, though rather over correctly and precisely. She sat upright and immovable, her eyes fixed on the notes, and her lips tightly compressed, only at the end of the sonata her face glowed, her hair came loose, and a little lock fell on to her dark brow.

Arkady was particularly struck by the last part of the sonata, the part in which, in the midst of the bewitching gaiety of the careless melody, the pangs of such mournful, almost tragic suffering, suddenly break in.⁠ ⁠… But the ideas stirred in him by Mozart’s music had no reference to Katya. Looking at her, he simply thought, “Well, that young lady doesn’t play badly, and she’s not bad-looking either.”

When she had finished the sonata, Katya without taking her hands from the keys, asked, “Is that enough?” Arkady declared that he could not venture to trouble her again, and began talking to her about Mozart; he asked her whether she had chosen that sonata herself, or someone had recommended it to her. But Katya answered him in monosyllables; she withdrew into herself, went back into her shell. When this happened to her, she did not very quickly come out again; her face even assumed at such times an obstinate, almost stupid expression. She was not exactly shy, but diffident, and rather overawed by her sister, who had educated her, and who had no suspicion of the fact. Arkady was reduced at last to calling Fifi to him, and with an affable smile patting him on the head to give himself an appearance of being at home.

Katya set to work again upon her flowers.

Bazarov meanwhile was losing and losing. Anna Sergyevna played cards in masterly fashion; Porfiry Platonitch, too, could hold his own in the game. Bazarov lost a sum which, though trifling in itself, was not altogether pleasant for him. At supper Anna Sergyevna again turned the conversation on botany.

“We will go for a walk tomorrow morning,” she said to him; “I want you to teach me the Latin names of the wild flowers and their species.”

“What use are the Latin names to you?” asked Bazarov.

“Order is needed in everything,” she answered.

“What an exquisite woman Anna Sergyevna is!” cried Arkady, when he was alone with his friend in the room assigned to them.

“Yes,” answered Bazarov, “a female with brains. Yes, and she’s seen life too.”

“In what sense do you