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

and stood up for his bishop; drank two small glasses of wine, but refused a third; accepted a cigar from Arkady, but did not proceed to smoke it, saying he would take it home with him. The only thing not quite agreeable about him was a way he had of constantly raising his hand with care and deliberation to catch the flies on his face, sometimes succeeding in smashing them. He took his seat at the green table, expressing his satisfaction at so doing in measured terms, and ended by winning from Bazarov two roubles and a half in paper money; they had no idea of even reckoning in silver in the house of Arina Vlasyevna.⁠ ⁠… She was sitting, as before, near her son (she did not play cards), her cheek, as before, propped on her little fist; she only got up to order some new dainty to be served. She was afraid to caress Bazarov, and he gave her no encouragement, he did not invite her caresses; and besides, Vassily Ivanovitch had advised her not to “worry” him too much. “Young men are not fond of that sort of thing,” he declared to her. (It’s needless to say what the dinner was like that day; Timofeitch in person had galloped off at early dawn for beef; the bailiff had gone off in another direction for turbot, gremille, and crayfish; for mushrooms alone forty-two farthings had been paid the peasant women in copper); but Arina Vlasyevna’s eyes, bent steadfastly on Bazarov, did not express only devotion and tenderness; in them was to be seen sorrow also, mingled with awe and curiosity; there was to be seen too a sort of humble reproachfulness.

Bazarov, however, was not in a humour to analyse the exact expression of his mother’s eyes; he seldom turned to her, and then only with some short question. Once he asked her for her hand “for luck”; she gently laid her soft, little hand on his rough, broad palm.

“Well,” she asked, after waiting a little, “has it been any use?”

“Worse luck than ever,” he answered, with a careless laugh.

“He plays too rashly,” pronounced Father Alexey, as it were compassionately, and he stroked his beard.

“Napoleon’s rule, good Father, Napoleon’s rule,” put in Vassily Ivanovitch, leading an ace.

“It brought him to St. Helena, though,” observed Father Alexey, as he trumped the ace.

“Wouldn’t you like some currant tea, Enyusha?” inquired Arina Vlasyevna.

Bazarov merely shrugged his shoulders.

“No!” he said to Arkady the next day. I’m off from here tomorrow. I’m bored; I want to work, but I can’t work here. I will come to your place again; I’ve left all my apparatus there too. In your house one can at any rate shut oneself up. While here my father repeats to me, ‘My study is at your disposal⁠—nobody shall interfere with you,’ and all the time he himself is never a yard away. And I’m ashamed somehow to shut myself away from him. It’s the same thing too with mother. I hear her sighing the other side of the wall, and if one goes in to her, one’s nothing to say to her.”

“She will be very much grieved,” observed Arkady, “and so will he.”

“I shall come back again to them.”

“When?”

“Why, when on my way to Petersburg.”

“I feel sorry for your mother particularly.”

“Why’s that? Has she won your heart with strawberries, or what?”

Arkady dropped his eyes. “You don’t understand your mother, Yevgeny. She’s not only a very good woman, she’s very clever really. This morning she talked to me for half-an-hour, and so sensibly, interestingly.”

“I suppose she was expatiating upon me all the while?”

“We didn’t talk only about you.”

“Perhaps; lookers-on see most. If a woman can keep up half-an-hour’s conversation, it’s always a hopeful sign. But I’m going, all the same.”

“It won’t be very easy for you to break it to them. They are always making plans for what we are to do in a fortnight’s time.”

“No; it won’t be easy. Some demon drove me to tease my father today; he had one of his rent-paying peasants flogged the other day, and quite right too⁠—yes, yes, you needn’t look at me in such horror⁠—he did quite right, because he’s an awful thief and drunkard; only my father had no idea that I, as they say, was cognisant of the facts. He was greatly perturbed, and now I shall have to upset him more than ever.⁠ ⁠… Never mind! Never say die! He’ll get over it!”

Bazarov said, “Never mind”; but the whole day passed before he could make up his mind to inform Vassily Ivanovitch of his intentions. At last, when he was just saying good night to him in the study, he observed, with a feigned yawn⁠—

“Oh⁠ ⁠… I was almost forgetting to tell you.⁠ ⁠… Send to Fedot’s for our horses tomorrow.”

Vassily Ivanovitch was dumbfounded. “Is Mr. Kirsanov leaving us, then?”

“Yes; and I’m going with him.”

Vassily Ivanovitch positively reeled. “You are going?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… I must. Make the arrangements about the horses, please.”

“Very good.⁠ ⁠…” faltered the old man; “to Fedot’s⁠ ⁠… very good⁠ ⁠… only⁠ ⁠… only.⁠ ⁠… How is it?”

“I must go to stay with him for a little time. I will come back again later.”

“Ah! For a little time⁠ ⁠… very good.” Vassily Ivanovitch drew out his handkerchief, and, blowing his nose, doubled up almost to the ground. “Well⁠ ⁠… everything shall be done. I had thought you were to be with us⁠ ⁠… a little longer. Three days.⁠ ⁠… After three years, it’s rather little; rather little, Yevgeny!”

“But, I tell you, I’m coming back directly. It’s necessary for me to go.”

“Necessary.⁠ ⁠… Well! Duty before everything. So the horses shall be in readiness. Very good. Arina and I, of course, did not anticipate this. She has just begged some flowers from a neighbour; she meant to decorate the room for you.” (Vassily Ivanovitch did not even mention that every morning almost at dawn he took counsel with Timofeitch, standing with his bare feet in his slippers, and pulling out with trembling fingers one dog’s-eared rouble note after another, charged him with various purchases, with special reference