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

“You’re flirting,” he thought; “you’re bored, and teasing me for want of something to do, while I⁠ ⁠…” His heart really seemed as though it were being torn to pieces.

“Besides, you are perhaps too exacting,” he said, bending his whole frame forward and playing with the fringe of the chair.

“Perhaps. My idea is everything or nothing. A life for a life. Take mine, give up thine, and that without regret or turning back. Or else better have nothing.”

“Well?” observed Bazarov; “that’s fair terms, and I’m surprised that so far you⁠ ⁠… have not found what you wanted.”

“And do you think it would be easy to give oneself up wholly to anything whatever?”

“Not easy, if you begin reflecting, waiting and attaching value to yourself, prizing yourself, I mean; but to give oneself up without reflection is very easy.”

“How can one help prizing oneself? If I am of no value, who could need my devotion?”

“That’s not my affair; that’s the other’s business to discover what is my value. The chief thing is to be able to devote oneself.”

Madame Odintsov bent forward from the back of her chair. “You speak,” she began, “as though you had experienced all that.”

“It happened to come up, Anna Sergyevna; all that, as you know, is not in my line.”

“But you could devote yourself?”

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t like to boast.”

Madame Odintsov said nothing, and Bazarov was mute. The sounds of the piano floated up to them from the drawing-room.

“How is it Katya is playing so late?” observed Madame Odintsov.

Bazarov got up. “Yes, it is really late now; it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“Wait a little; why are you in a hurry?⁠ ⁠… I want to say one word to you.”

“What is it?”

“Wait a little,” whispered Madame Odintsov. Her eyes rested on Bazarov; it seemed as though she were examining him attentively.

He walked across the room, then suddenly went up to her, hurriedly said “Goodbye,” squeezed her hand so that she almost screamed, and was gone. She raised her crushed fingers to her lips, breathed on them, and suddenly, impulsively getting up from her low chair, she moved with rapid steps towards the door, as though she wished to bring Bazarov back.⁠ ⁠… A maid came into the room with a decanter on a silver tray. Madame Odintsov stood still, told her she could go, and sat down again, and again sank into thought. Her hair slipped loose and fell in a dark coil down her shoulders. Long after the lamp was still burning in Anna Sergyevna’s room, and for long she stayed without moving, only from time to time chafing her hands, which ached a little from the cold of the night.

Bazarov went back two hours later to his bedroom with his boots wet with dew, dishevelled and ill-humoured. He found Arkady at the writing-table with a book in his hands, his coat buttoned up to the throat.

“You’re not in bed yet?” he said, in a tone, it seemed, of annoyance.

“You stopped a long while with Anna Sergyevna this evening,” remarked Arkady, not answering him.

“Yes, I stopped with her all the while you were playing the piano with Katya Sergyevna.”

“I did not play⁠ ⁠…” Arkady began, and he stopped. He felt the tears were coming into his eyes, and he did not like to cry before his sarcastic friend.

The following morning when Madame Odintsov came down to morning tea, Bazarov sat a long while bending over his cup, then suddenly he glanced up at her.⁠ ⁠… She turned to him as though he had struck her a blow, and he fancied that her face was a little paler since the night before. She quickly went off to her own room, and did not appear till lunch. It rained from early morning; there was no possibility of going for a walk. The whole company assembled in the drawing-room. Arkady took up the new number of a journal and began reading it aloud. The princess, as was her habit, tried to express her amazement in her face, as though he were doing something improper, then glared angrily at him; but he paid no attention to her.

“Yevgeny Vassilyitch” said Anna Sergyevna, “come to my room.⁠ ⁠… I want to ask you.⁠ ⁠… You mentioned a textbook yesterday⁠ ⁠…”

She got up and went to the door. The princess looked round with an expression that seemed to say, “Look at me; see how shocked I am!” and again glared at Arkady; but he raised his voice, and exchanging glances with Katya, near whom he was sitting, he went on reading.

Madame Odintsov went with rapid steps to her study. Bazarov followed her quickly, not raising his eyes, and only with his ears catching the delicate swish and rustle of her silk gown gliding before him. Madame Odintsov sank into the same easy-chair in which she had sat the previous evening, and Bazarov took up the same position as before.

“What was the name of that book?” she began, after a brief silence.

“Pelouse et Frémy, Notions générales,” answered Bazarov. “I might though recommend you also Ganot, Traité élémentaire de physique éxpérimentale. In that book the illustrations are clearer, and in general it’s a textbook.”

Madame Odintsov stretched out her hand. “Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I beg your pardon, but I didn’t invite you in here to discuss textbooks. I wanted to continue our conversation of last night. You went away so suddenly.⁠ ⁠… It will not bore you⁠ ⁠…”

“I am at your service, Anna Sergyevna. But what were we talking about last night?”

Madame Odintsov flung a sidelong glance at Bazarov.

“We were talking of happiness, I believe. I told you about myself. By the way, I mentioned the word ‘happiness.’ Tell me why it is that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a fine evening, or a conversation with sympathetic people, it all seems an intimation of some measureless happiness existing apart somewhere rather than actual happiness⁠—such, I mean, as we ourselves are in possession of? Why is it? Or perhaps