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

back, with a mysterious smile on the half-closed, half-opened eyes and lips, told her, it seemed, in a flash something at which she herself was confused.⁠ ⁠…

“No,” she made up her mind at last. “God knows what it would lead to; he couldn’t be played with; peace is anyway the best thing in the world.”

Her peace of mind was not shaken; but she felt gloomy, and even shed a few tears once though she could not have said why⁠—certainly not for the insult done her. She did not feel insulted; she was more inclined to feel guilty. Under the influence of various vague emotions, the sense of life passing by, the desire of novelty, she had forced herself to go up to a certain point, forced herself to look behind herself, and had seen behind her not even an abyss, but what was empty⁠ ⁠… or revolting.

XIX

Great as was Madame Odintsov’s self-control, and superior as she was to every kind of prejudice, she felt awkward when she went into the dining-room to dinner. The meal went off fairly successfully, however. Porfiry Platonovitch made his appearance and told various anecdotes; he had just come back from the town. Among other things, he informed them that the governor had ordered his secretaries on special commissions to wear spurs, in case he might send them off anywhere for greater speed on horseback. Arkady talked in an undertone to Katya, and diplomatically attended to the princess’s wants. Bazarov maintained a grim and obstinate silence. Madame Odintsov looked at him twice, not stealthily, but straight in the face, which was bilious and forbidding, with downcast eyes, and contemptuous determination stamped on every feature, and thought: “No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… no.”⁠ ⁠… After dinner, she went with the whole company into the garden, and seeing that Bazarov wanted to speak to her, she took a few steps to one side and stopped. He went up to her, but even then did not raise his eyes, and said hoarsely⁠—

“I have to apologise to you, Anna Sergyevna. You must be in a fury with me.”

“No, I’m not angry with you, Yevgeny Vassilyitch,” answered Madame Odintsov; “but I am sorry.”

“So much the worse. Any way, I’m sufficiently punished. My position, you will certainly agree, is most foolish. You wrote to me, ‘Why go away?’ But I cannot stay, and don’t wish to. Tomorrow I shall be gone.”

“Yevgeny Vassilyitch, why are you⁠ ⁠…”

“Why am I going away?”

“No; I didn’t mean to say that.”

“There’s no recalling the past, Anna Sergyevna⁠ ⁠… and this was bound to come about sooner or later. Consequently I must go. I can only conceive of one condition upon which I could remain; but that condition will never be. Excuse my impertinence, but you don’t love me, and you never will love me, I suppose?”

Bazarov’s eyes glittered for an instant under their dark brows.

Anna Sergyevna did not answer him. “I’m afraid of this man,” flashed through her brain.

“Goodbye, then,” said Bazarov, as though he guessed her thought, and he went back into the house.

Anna Sergyevna walked slowly after him, and calling Katya to her, she took her arm. She did not leave her side till quite evening. She did not play cards, and was constantly laughing, which did not at all accord with her pale and perplexed face. Arkady was bewildered, and looked on at her as all young people look on⁠—that’s to say, he was constantly asking himself, “What is the meaning of that?” Bazarov shut himself up in his room; he came back to tea, however. Anna Sergyevna longed to say some friendly word to him, but she did not know how to address him.⁠ ⁠…

An unexpected incident relieved her from her embarrassment; a steward announced the arrival of Sitnikov.

It is difficult to do justice in words to the strange figure cut by the young apostle of progress as he fluttered into the room. Though, with his characteristic impudence, he had made up his mind to go into the country to visit a woman whom he hardly knew, who had never invited him; but with whom, according to information he had gathered, such talented and intimate friends were staying, he was nevertheless trembling to the marrow of his bones; and instead of bringing out the apologies and compliments he had learned by heart beforehand, he muttered some absurdity about Evdoksya Kukshin having sent him to inquire after Anna Sergyevna’s health, and Arkady Nikolaevitch’s too, having always spoken to him in the highest terms.⁠ ⁠… At this point he faltered and lost his presence of mind so completely that he sat down on his own hat. However, since no one turned him out, and Anna Sergyevna even presented him to her aunt and her sister, he soon recovered himself and began to chatter volubly. The introduction of the commonplace is often an advantage in life; it relieves overstrained tension, and sobers too self-confident or self-sacrificing emotions by recalling its close kinship with them. With Sitnikov’s appearance everything became somehow duller and simpler; they all even ate a more solid supper, and retired to bed half-an-hour earlier than usual.

“I might now repeat to you,” said Arkady, as he lay down in bed, to Bazarov, who was also undressing, what you once said to me, “Why are you so melancholy? One would think you had fulfilled some sacred duty.” For some time past a sort of pretence of free-and-easy banter had sprung up between the two young men, which is always an unmistakable sign of secret displeasure or unexpressed suspicions.

“I’m going to my father’s tomorrow,” said Bazarov.

Arkady raised himself and leaned on his elbow. He felt both surprised, and for some reason or other pleased. “Ah!” he commented, “and is that why you’re sad?”

Bazarov yawned. “You’ll get old if you know too much.”

“And Anna Sergyevna?” persisted Arkady.

“What about Anna Sergyevna?”

“I mean, will she let you go?”

“I’m not her paid man.”

Arkady grew thoughtful, while Bazarov lay down and turned with his face to the wall.

Some minutes went by in silence. “Yevgeny?” cried