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

yellow silk handkerchief, which he had had time to snatch up on the way to Arkady’s room, and flourishing it in the air, he proceeded: “I am not now alluding to the fact that, for example, at the cost of sacrifices not inconsiderable for me, I have put my peasants on the rent-system and given up my land to them on half profits. I regarded that as my duty; common sense itself enjoins such a proceeding, though other proprietors do not even dream of it; I am alluding to the sciences, to culture.”

“Yes; I see you have here The Friend of Health for 1855,” remarked Bazarov.

“It’s sent me by an old comrade out of friendship,” Vassily Ivanovitch made haste to answer; “but we have, for instance, some idea even of phrenology,” he added, addressing himself principally, however, to Arkady, and pointing to a small plaster head on the cupboard, divided into numbered squares; “we are not unacquainted even with Schenlein and Rademacher.”

“Why do people still believe in Rademacher in this province?” asked Bazarov.

Vassily Ivanovitch cleared his throat. “In this province.⁠ ⁠… Of course, gentlemen, you know best; how could we keep pace with you? You are here to take our places. In my day, too, there was some sort of a Humouralist school, Hoffmann, and Brown too with his vitalism⁠—they seemed very ridiculous to us, but, of course, they too had been great men at one time or other. Someone new has taken the place of Rademacher with you; you bow down to him, but in another twenty years it will be his turn to be laughed at.”

“For your consolation I will tell you,” observed Bazarov, “that nowadays we laugh at medicine altogether, and don’t bow down to anyone.”

“How’s that? Why, you’re going to be a doctor, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but the one fact doesn’t prevent the other.”

Vassily Ivanovitch poked his third finger into his pipe, where a little smouldering ash was still left. “Well, perhaps, perhaps⁠—I am not going to dispute. What am I? A retired army-doctor, volla-too; now fate has made me take to farming. I served in your grandfather’s brigade,” he addressed himself again to Arkady; “yes, yes, I have seen many sights in my day. And I was thrown into all kinds of society, brought into contact with all sorts of people! I myself, the man you see before you now, have felt the pulse of Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky! They were in the southern army, in the fourteenth, you understand” (and here Vassily Ivanovitch pursed his mouth up significantly). “Well, well, but my business was on one side; stick to your lancet, and let everything else go hang! Your grandfather was a very honourable man, a real soldier.”

“Confess, now, he was rather a blockhead,” remarked Bazarov lazily.

“Ah, Yevgeny, how can you use such an expression! Do consider.⁠ ⁠… Of course, General Kirsanov was not one of the⁠ ⁠…”

“Come, drop him,” broke in Bazarov; “I was pleased as I was driving along here to see your birch copse; it has shot up capitally.”

Vassily Ivanovitch brightened up. “And you must see what a little garden I’ve got now! I planted every tree myself. I’ve fruit, and raspberries, and all kinds of medicinal herbs. However clever you young gentlemen may be, old Paracelsus spoke the holy truth: in herbis verbis et lapidibus.⁠ ⁠… I’ve retired from practice, you know, of course, but two or three times a week it will happen that I’m brought back to my old work. They come for advice⁠—I can’t drive them away. Sometimes the poor have recourse to me for help. And indeed there are no doctors here at all. There’s one of the neighbours here, a retired major, only fancy, he doctors the people too. I asked the question, ‘Has he studied medicine?’ And they told me, ‘No, he’s not studied; he does it more from philanthropy.’⁠ ⁠… Ha! ha! ha! from philanthropy! What do you think of that? Ha! ha! ha!”

“Fedka, fill me a pipe!” said Bazarov rudely.

“And there’s another doctor here who just got to a patient,” Vassily Ivanovitch persisted in a kind of desperation, “when the patient had gone ad patres; the servant didn’t let the doctor speak; you’re no longer wanted, he told him. He hadn’t expected this, got confused, and asked, ‘Why, did your master hiccup before his death?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Did he hiccup much?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Ah, well, that’s all right,’ and off he set back again. Ha! ha! ha!”

The old man was alone in his laughter; Arkady forced a smile on his face. Bazarov simply stretched. The conversation went on in this way for about an hour; Arkady had time to go to his room, which turned out to be the anteroom attached to the bathroom, but was very snug and clean. At last Tanyusha came in and announced that dinner was ready.

Vassily Ivanovitch was the first to get up. “Come, gentlemen. You must be magnanimous and pardon me if I’ve bored you. I daresay my good wife will give you more satisfaction.”

The dinner, though prepared in haste, turned out to be very good, even abundant; only the wine was not quite up to the mark; it was almost black sherry, bought by Timofeitch in the town at a well-known merchant’s, and had a faint coppery, resinous taste, and the flies were a great nuisance. On ordinary days a serf-boy used to keep driving them away with a large green branch; but on this occasion Vassily Ivanovitch had sent him away through dread of the criticism of the younger generation. Arina Vlasyevna had had time to dress: she had put on a high cap with silk ribbons and a pale blue flowered shawl. She broke down again directly she caught sight of her Enyusha, but her husband had no need to admonish her; she made haste to wipe away her tears herself, for fear of spotting her shawl. Only the young men ate anything; the master and mistress of the house had dined long ago. Fedka waited