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

find him here, and meant to suggest his coming a walk with me. That’s what he is always asking for. They have sent you some shoes from the town; go and try them on; I noticed only yesterday your old ones are quite shabby. You never think enough about it, and you have such charming little feet! Your hands are nice too⁠ ⁠… though they’re large; so you must make the most of your little feet. But you’re not vain.”

Anna Sergyevna went farther along the path with a light rustle of her beautiful gown; Katya got up from the grass, and, taking Heine with her, went away too⁠—but not to try on her shoes.

“Charming little feet!” she thought, as she slowly and lightly mounted the stone steps of the terrace, which were burning with the heat of the sun; “charming little feet you call them.⁠ ⁠… Well, he shall be at them.”

But all at once a feeling of shame came upon her, and she ran swiftly upstairs.

Arkady had gone along the corridor to his room; a steward had overtaken him, and announced that Mr. Bazarov was in his room.

“Yevgeny!” murmured Arkady, almost with dismay; “has he been here long?”

“Mr. Bazarov arrived this minute, sir, and gave orders not to announce him to Anna Sergyevna, but to show him straight up to you.”

“Can any misfortune have happened at home?” thought Arkady, and running hurriedly up the stairs, he at once opened the door. The sight of Bazarov at once reassured him, though a more experienced eye might very probably have discerned signs of inward agitation in the sunken, though still energetic face of the unexpected visitor. With a dusty cloak over his shoulders, with a cap on his head, he was sitting at the window; he did not even get up when Arkady flung himself with noisy exclamations on his neck.

“This is unexpected! What good luck brought you?” he kept repeating, bustling about the room like one who both imagines himself and wishes to show himself delighted. “I suppose everything’s all right at home; everyone’s well, eh?”

“Everything’s all right, but not everyone’s well,” said Bazarov. “Don’t be a chatterbox, but send for some kvass for me, sit down, and listen while I tell you all about it in a few, but, I hope, pretty vigorous sentences.”

Arkady was quiet while Bazarov described his duel with Pavel Petrovitch. Arkady was very much surprised, and even grieved, but he did not think it necessary to show this; he only asked whether his uncle’s wound was really not serious; and on receiving the reply that it was most interesting, but not from a medical point of view, he gave a forced smile, but at heart he felt both wounded and as it were ashamed. Bazarov seemed to understand him.

“Yes, my dear fellow,” he commented, “you see what comes of living with feudal personages. You turn a feudal personage yourself, and find yourself taking part in knightly tournaments. Well, so I set off for my father’s,” Bazarov wound up, “and I’ve turned in here on the way⁠ ⁠… to tell you all this, I should say, if I didn’t think a useless lie a piece of foolery. No, I turned in here⁠—the devil only knows why. You see, it’s sometimes a good thing for a man to take himself by the scruff of the neck and pull himself up, like a radish out of its bed; that’s what I’ve been doing of late.⁠ ⁠… But I wanted to have one more look at what I’m giving up, at the bed where I’ve been planted.”

“I hope those words don’t refer to me,” responded Arkady with some emotion; “I hope you don’t think of giving me up?”

Bazarov turned an intent, almost piercing look upon him.

“Would that be such a grief to you? It strikes me you have given me up already, you look so fresh and smart.⁠ ⁠… Your affair with Anna Sergyevna must be getting on successfully.”

“What do you mean by my affair with Anna Sergyevna?”

“Why, didn’t you come here from the town on her account, chicken? By the way, how are those Sunday schools getting on? Do you mean to tell me you’re not in love with her? Or have you already reached the stage of discretion?”

“Yevgeny, you know I have always been open with you; I can assure you, I will swear to you, you’re making a mistake.”

“Hm! That’s another story,” remarked Bazarov in an undertone. “But you needn’t be in a taking, it’s a matter of absolute indifference to me. A sentimentalist would say, ‘I feel that our paths are beginning to part,’ but I will simply say that we’re tired of each other.”

“Yevgeny⁠ ⁠…”

“My dear soul, there’s no great harm in that. One gets tired of much more than that in this life. And now I suppose we’d better say goodbye, hadn’t we? Ever since I’ve been here I’ve had such a loathsome feeling, just as if I’d been reading Gogol’s effusions to the governor of Kalouga’s wife. By the way, I didn’t tell them to take the horses out.”

“Upon my word, this is too much!”

“Why?”

“I’ll say nothing of myself; but that would be discourteous to the last degree to Anna Sergyevna, who will certainly wish to see you.”

“Oh, you’re mistaken there.”

“On the contrary, I am certain I’m right,” retorted Arkady. “And what are you pretending for? If it comes to that, haven’t you come here on her account yourself?”

“That may be so, but you’re mistaken anyway.”

But Arkady was right. Anna Sergyevna desired to see Bazarov, and sent a summons to him by a steward. Bazarov changed his clothes before going to her; it turned out that he had packed his new suit so as to be able to get it out easily.

Madame Odintsov received him not in the room where he had so unexpectedly declared his love to her, but in the drawing-room. She held her finger tips out to him cordially, but her face betrayed an involuntary sense of tension.

“Anna Sergyevna,” Bazarov hastened to say, “before everything else I