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

to good things to eat, and to red wine, which, as far as he could observe, the young men liked extremely.) “Liberty⁠ ⁠… is the great thing; that’s my rule.⁠ ⁠… I don’t want to hamper you⁠ ⁠… not⁠ ⁠…”

He suddenly ceased, and made for the door.

“We shall soon see each other again, father, really.”

But Vassily Ivanovitch, without turning round, merely waved his hand and was gone. When he got back to his bedroom he found his wife in bed, and began to say his prayers in a whisper, so as not to wake her up. She woke, however. “Is that you, Vassily Ivanovitch?” she asked.

“Yes, mother.”

“Have you come from Enyusha? Do you know, I’m afraid of his not being comfortable on that sofa. I told Anfisushka to put him on your travelling mattress and the new pillows; I should have given him our featherbed, but I seem to remember he doesn’t like too soft a bed.⁠ ⁠…”

“Never mind, mother; don’t worry yourself. He’s all right. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,” he went on with his prayer in a low voice. Vassily Ivanovitch was sorry for his old wife; he did not mean to tell her over night what a sorrow there was in store for her.

Bazarov and Arkady set off the next day. From early morning all was dejection in the house; Anfisushka let the tray slip out of her hands; even Fedka was bewildered, and was reduced to taking off his boots. Vassily Ivanitch was more fussy than ever; he was obviously trying to put a good face on it, talked loudly, and stamped with his feet, but his face looked haggard, and his eyes were continually avoiding his son. Arina Vlasyevna was crying quietly; she was utterly crushed, and could not have controlled herself at all if her husband had not spent two whole hours early in the morning exhorting her. When Bazarov, after repeated promises to come back certainly not later than in a month’s time, tore himself at last from the embraces detaining him, and took his seat in the coach; when the horses had started, the bell was ringing, and the wheels were turning round, and when it was no longer any good to look after them, and the dust had settled, and Timofeitch, all bent and tottering as he walked, had crept back to his little room; when the old people were left alone in their little house, which seemed suddenly to have grown shrunken and decrepit too, Vassily Ivanovitch, after a few more moments of hearty waving of his handkerchief on the steps, sank into a chair, and his head dropped on to his breast. “He has cast us off; he has forsaken us,” he faltered; “forsaken us; he was dull with us. Alone, alone!” he repeated several times. Then Arina Vlasyevna went up to him, and, leaning her grey head against his grey head, said, “There’s no help for it, Vasya! A son is a separate piece cut off. He’s like the falcon that flies home and flies away at his pleasure; while you and I are like funguses in the hollow of a tree, we sit side by side, and don’t move from our place. Only I am left you unchanged forever, as you for me.”

Vassily Ivanovitch took his hands from his face and clasped his wife, his friend, as warmly as he had never clasped in youth; she comforted him in his grief.

XXII

In silence, only rarely exchanging a few insignificant words, our friends travelled as far as Fedot’s. Bazarov was not altogether pleased with himself. Arkady was displeased with him. He was feeling, too, that causeless melancholy which is only known to very young people. The coachman changed the horses, and getting up on to the box, inquired, “To the right or to the left?”

Arkady started. The road to the right led to the town, and from there home; the road to the left led to Madame Odintsov’s.

He looked at Bazarov.

“Yevgeny,” he queried; “to the left?”

Bazarov turned away. “What folly is this?” he muttered.

“I know it’s folly,” answered Arkady.⁠ ⁠… “But what does that matter? It’s not the first time.”

Bazarov pulled his cap down over his brows. “As you choose,” he said at last. “Turn to the left,” shouted Arkady.

The coach rolled away in the direction of Nikolskoe. But having resolved on the folly, the friends were even more obstinately silent than before, and seemed positively ill-humoured.

Directly the steward met them on the steps of Madame Odintsov’s house, the friends could perceive that they had acted injudiciously in giving way so suddenly to a passing impulse. They were obviously not expected. They sat rather a long while, looking rather foolish, in the drawing-room. Madame Odintsov came in to them at last. She greeted them with her customary politeness, but was surprised at their hasty return; and, so far as could be judged from the deliberation of her gestures and words, she was not over pleased at it. They made haste to announce that they had only called on their road, and must go on farther, to the town, within four hours. She confined herself to a light exclamation, begged Arkady to remember her to his father, and sent for her aunt. The princess appeared very sleepy, which gave her wrinkled old face an even more ill-natured expression. Katya was not well; she did not leave her room. Arkady suddenly realised that he was at least as anxious to see Katya as Anna Sergyevna herself. The four hours were spent in insignificant discussion of one thing and another; Anna Sergyevna both listened and spoke without a smile. It was only quite at parting that her former friendliness seemed, as it were, to revive.

“I have an attack of spleen just now,” she said; “but you must not pay attention to that, and come again⁠—I say this to both of you⁠—before long.”

Both Bazarov and Arkady responded with a silent bow, took their seats in the coach, and without stopping again