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

woman can’t crush me. Amen! It’s all over! You shall not hear another word from me about it.”

Both the friends lay for some time in silence.

“Yes,” began Bazarov, “man’s a strange animal. When one gets a side view from a distance of the dead-alive life our ‘fathers’ lead here, one thinks, What could be better? You eat and drink, and know you are acting in the most reasonable, most judicious manner. But if not, you’re devoured by ennui. One wants to have to do with people if only to abuse them.”

“One ought so to order one’s life that every moment in it should be of significance,” Arkady affirmed reflectively.

“I dare say! What’s of significance is sweet, however mistaken; one could make up one’s mind to what’s insignificant even. But pettiness, pettiness, that’s what’s insufferable.”

“Pettiness doesn’t exist for a man so long as he refuses to recognise it.”

“H’m⁠ ⁠… what you’ve just said is a commonplace reversed.”

“What? What do you mean by that term?”

“I’ll tell you; saying, for instance, that education is beneficial, that’s a commonplace; but to say that education is injurious, that’s a commonplace turned upside down. There’s more style about it, so to say, but in reality it’s one and the same.”

“And the truth is⁠—where, which side?”

“Where? Like an echo I answer, Where?”

“You’re in a melancholy mood today, Yevgeny.”

“Really? The sun must have softened my brain, I suppose, and I can’t stand so many raspberries either.”

“In that case, a nap’s not a bad thing,” observed Arkady.

“Certainly; only don’t look at me; every man’s face is stupid when he’s asleep.”

“But isn’t it all the same to you what people think of you?”

“I don’t know what to say to you. A real man ought not to care; a real man is one whom it’s no use thinking about, whom one must either obey or hate.”

“It’s funny! I don’t hate anybody,” observed Arkady, after a moment’s thought.

“And I hate so many. You are a softhearted, mawkish creature; how could you hate anyone?⁠ ⁠… You’re timid; you don’t rely on yourself much.”

“And you,” interrupted Arkady, “do you expect much of yourself? Have you a high opinion of yourself?”

Bazarov paused. “When I meet a man who can hold his own beside me,” he said, dwelling on every syllable, “then I’ll change my opinion of myself. Yes, hatred! You said, for instance, today as we passed our bailiff Philip’s cottage⁠—it’s the one that’s so nice and clean⁠—well, you said, Russia will come to perfection when the poorest peasant has a house like that, and everyone of us ought to work to bring it about.⁠ ⁠… And I felt such a hatred for this poorest peasant, this Philip or Sidor, for whom I’m to be ready to jump out of my skin, and who won’t even thank me for it⁠ ⁠… and why should he thank me? Why, suppose he does live in a clean house, while the nettles are growing out of me⁠—well what do I gain by it?”

“Hush, Yevgeny⁠ ⁠… if one listened to you today one would be driven to agreeing with those who reproach us for want of principles.”

“You talk like your uncle. There are no general principles⁠—you’ve not made out that even yet! There are feelings. Everything depends on them.”

“How so?”

“Why, I, for instance, take up a negative attitude, by virtue of my sensations; I like to deny⁠—my brain’s made on that plan, and that’s all about it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you like apples?⁠—by virtue of our sensations. It’s all the same thing. Deeper than that men will never penetrate. Not everyone will tell you that, and, in fact, I shan’t tell you so another time.”

“What? and is honesty a matter of the senses?”

“I should rather think so.”

“Yevgeny!” Arkady was beginning in a dejected voice⁠ ⁠…

“Well? What? Isn’t it to your taste?” broke in Bazarov. “No, brother. If you’ve made up your mind to mow down everything, don’t spare your own legs. But we’ve talked enough metaphysics. ‘Nature breathes the silence of sleep,’ said Pushkin.”

“He never said anything of the sort,” protested Arkady.

“Well, if he didn’t, as a poet he might have⁠—and ought to have said it. By the way, he must have been a military man.”

“Pushkin never was a military man!”

“Why, on every page of him there’s, ‘To arms! to arms! for Russia’s honour!’ ”

“Why, what stories you invent! I declare, it’s positive calumny.”

“Calumny? That’s a mighty matter! What a word he’s found to frighten me with! Whatever charge you make against a man, you may be certain he deserves twenty times worse than that in reality.”

“We had better go to sleep,” said Arkady, in a tone of vexation.

“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Bazarov. But neither of them slept. A feeling almost of hostility had come over both the young men. Five minutes later, they opened their eyes and glanced at one another in silence.

“Look,” said Arkady suddenly, “a dry maple leaf has come off and is falling to the earth; its movement is exactly like a butterfly’s flight. Isn’t it strange? Gloom and decay⁠—like brightness and life.”

“Oh, my friend, Arkady Nikolaitch!” cried Bazarov, “one thing I entreat of you; no fine talk.”

“I talk as best I can.⁠ ⁠… And, I declare, its perfect despotism. An idea came into my head; why shouldn’t I utter it?”

“Yes; and why shouldn’t I utter my ideas? I think that fine talk’s positively indecent.”

“And what is decent? Abuse?”

“Ha! ha! you really do intend, I see, to walk in your uncle’s footsteps. How pleased that worthy imbecile would have been if he had heard you!”

“What did you call Pavel Petrovitch?”

“I called him, very justly, an imbecile.”

“But this is unbearable!” cried Arkady.

“Aha! family feeling spoke there,” Bazarov commented coolly. “I’ve noticed how obstinately it sticks to people. A man’s ready to give up everything and break with every prejudice; but to admit that his brother, for instance, who steals handkerchiefs, is a thief⁠—that’s too much for him. And when one comes to think of it: my brother, mine⁠—and no genius⁠ ⁠… that’s an idea no one can swallow.”

“It was a