Fathers and Sons (29 page)

Sometimes Bazarov would go out to the village and start up a conversation with a muzhik, sarcastic as usual. ‘Well, mate,’
he would say to him, ‘give me your views on life. They tell us that in you lie Russia’s strength and the future. A new age
in history is beginning with you, and you’ll be giving us a true language and our laws.’ The muzhik would either not answer
or utter something like the following: ‘Well we can… because we also, that is…that’s our boundary, like.’ Bazarov interrupted
him: ‘Explain to me the world of your
mir
, your commune – and is it the same
mir
which rests on three fishes?’
²

‘It’s the earth, sir, that rests on three fishes,’ was the muzhik’s soothing reply, given in a genial patriarchal singsong,
‘but set up against our
mir
you know we’ve got the master’s will – because you are our fathers. And the stricter the master’s demands, the dearer they
are to his muzhik.’

Once, after hearing a speech like that, Bazarov scornfully shrugged his shoulders, and the muzhik went on his way home.

‘What was he going on about?’ he was asked by another muzhik, middle-aged and sombre-visaged, who had witnessed
his conversation with Bazarov in the distance from the door of his hut. ‘Was it the rent we haven’t paid?’

‘What rent, my friend!’ the first muzhik replied and his voice now had no trace of the patriarchal singsong. On the contrary
it had in it something rough and grim. ‘He was just blathering something or other, he was itching to talk. Of course, he’s
a master, what can he understand?’

‘Nothing!’ replied the other muzhik. They shook out their caps and straightened their belts, and both began discussing their
own affairs and needs. Alas! The Bazarov who had scornfully shrugged his shoulders, who knew how to talk to the muzhiks (as
he had boasted during his quarrel with Pavel Petrovich), that self-confident Bazarov didn’t even suspect that in their eyes
he remained some kind of buffoon…

However, he finally found himself an occupation. Vasily Ivanovich was binding up a muzhik’s injured leg, but the old man’s
hands shook, and he couldn’t cope with the bandages. His son helped him and from then on began to take a part in his practice,
at the same time continuing to mock both the methods he himself counselled and his father, who immediately applied them. But
Bazarov’s mocking remarks didn’t upset Vasily Ivanovich at all; they even reassured him. Holding together his greasy dressing-gown
over his stomach with his fingers and smoking his pipe, he listened to Bazarov with delight, and the more edge there was in
his sallies the more genially his delighted father laughed, showing every one of his black teeth. He even repeated his sallies,
which were often crude and absurd, and, for example, for several days he kept on repeating ‘that comes last at number nine’
quite irrelevantly, just because his son had used that expression on learning he was going to morning service. ‘Thank God!
He’s stopped being depressed!’ he whispered to his wife. ‘He really worked me over today. Wonderful!’ Moreover the thought
that he had such an assistant made him ecstatic and filled him with pride. ‘Yes, yes, my dear,’ he would say to some peasant
woman in a man’s coat and horned headdress as he gave her a bottle of Goulard water
³
or a pot of henbane ointment, ‘you must thank God every minute that I have my son staying with
me. You’re being given the most scientific and up-to-date treatment, do you realize that? The Emperor of the French, Napoleon
⁴
himself, doesn’t have a better doctor.’ And the woman, who had come to complain she’d been taken by the ‘cramps’ (though
she couldn’t have explained the meaning of these words), only bowed and reached into her bodice, where she had four eggs wrapped
in the corner of a towel.

Bazarov once pulled a tooth for a visiting cloth pedlar, and, although the tooth could be classed as ordinary, Vasily Ivanovich
kept it as a rarity and, showing it to Father Aleksey, kept repeating:

‘Look at those roots! Yevgeny’s so strong! The pedlar jumped right into the air… I think that oak there would have come out!…’

‘Most commendable!’ Father Aleksey said finally, not knowing what to answer and how to get away from the old man’s raptures.

One day a muzhik from the neighbouring village brought Vasily Ivanovich his brother, who had typhus. The poor man lay face
down on a bundle of straw and was dying; dark blotches covered his body, and he had long lost consciousness. Vasily Ivanovich
expressed his regret that no one had sought medical help earlier and stated that there was no hope. And in fact the muzhik
didn’t get his brother home: he died in the cart.

Three days later Bazarov came into his father’s room and asked if he had any lunar caustic.
⁵

‘Yes, I do. Why do you need it?’

‘I need… to cauterize a cut.’

‘On whom?’

‘On myself.’

‘What do you mean, on yourself? Why? What is this cut? Where is it?’

‘Here on my finger. Today I went over to the village, you know – the one they brought the muzhik with typhus from. For some
reason they were going to do an autopsy, and it’s a long time since I had any practice in that.’

‘So then what?’

‘So I asked the district doctor – and, well, I cut myself.’

Vasily Ivanovich went all pale and without a word rushed to his study. He came back at once with a piece of lunar caustic
in his hand. Bazarov was going to take it and go out.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Vasily Ivanovich, ‘let me do this myself.’

Bazarov smiled ironically.

‘You are a glutton for practice!’

‘Please don’t make jokes. Show me your finger. The cut isn’t big. Is that painful?’

‘Press harder, don’t be frightened.’

Vasily Ivanovich stopped.

‘What do you think, Yevgeny, wouldn’t it be better to cauterize it with iron?’

‘We should have done that before. But now, in real terms, even the lunar caustic is no use. If I’ve got infected, it’s too
late now.’

‘How… too late?’ – Vasily Ivanovich could hardly bring out the words.

‘It surely is that. It’s been a bit more than four hours since then.’

Vasily Ivanovich cauterized the cut a little more.

‘Didn’t the district doctor have any lunar caustic?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘My God, how can that be! A doctor – and he doesn’t have such an essential thing.’

‘You should have seen his lancets,’ said Bazarov and went out. Till that evening and in the course of the next day Vasily
Ivanovich picked on every excuse to go into his son’s room, and, though he not only didn’t mention his cut but even made an
effort to speak about wholly extraneous subjects, he nonetheless looked so fixedly into his eyes and observed him so nervously
that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to leave. Vasily Ivanovich gave him his word not to worry, especially since Arina
Vlasyevna, from whom of course he concealed everything, was beginning to nag him why he wasn’t sleeping and what was the matter
with him. He held out for two whole days although he very much didn’t like his son’s look – he
watched him furtively all the time… but on the third day at dinner he couldn’t contain himself any more. Bazarov was sitting
with his head slumped and hadn’t touched a single dish.

‘Why aren’t you eating, Yevgeny?’ he asked, putting on an unconcerned expression. ‘I think they’ve cooked the food nicely.’

‘I’m not hungry, so I don’t eat.’

‘Don’t you have any appetite? What about your head?’ he added in a timid voice. ‘Does it ache?’

‘Yes, it does. Why shouldn’t it ache?’

Arina Vlasyevna sat up and listened alertly.

‘Don’t get angry, Yevgeny, please,’ Vasily Ivanovich went on. ‘But won’t you let me take your pulse?’

Bazarov raised himself a bit.

‘Without taking it I can tell you I have a fever.’

‘And have you been shivering?’

‘Yes, I have. I’ll go and lie down, and send me in some lime tea. I must have caught a chill.’

‘So that’s why I heard you coughing last night,’ said Arina Vlasyevna.

‘I caught a chill,’ Bazarov repeated and went out.

Arina Vlasyevna busied herself with making the lime tea while Vasily Ivanovich went into the next room and silently tore his
hair.

Bazarov didn’t get up that day and spent the whole night in a heavy semi-conscious slumber. At one in the morning he opened
his eyes with an effort, and in the light of the icon lamp he saw his father’s pale face above him. He asked him to go. Vasily
Ivanovich obeyed but very soon came back on tiptoe and kept his eyes on his son, half screened by the doors of a cupboard.
Arina Vlasyevna too didn’t go to bed; from time to time she opened the study door a crack and came to listen ‘how Yenyusha
is breathing’ and to look at Vasily Ivanovich. She could only see his hunched and motionless back, but even that gave her
some comfort. In the morning Bazarov tried to get up. His head turned and he had a nose-bleed and he went back to bed again.
Vasily Ivanovich ministered to him, and Arina
Vlasyevna came into his room and asked him how he felt. ‘Better,’ he replied and turned to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich gestured
to his wife to leave, with both hands. She bit her lip so as not to cry and went out.

It was as if everything in the house had gone dark. Everyone’s face looked drawn, and a strange quiet reigned: they took away
a noisy cock from the yard to the village, who for a long time just couldn’t understand why they were doing this to him. Bazarov
continued to lie with his head to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich tried to put various questions to him, but they tired Bazarov,
and the old man sat still in his chair, just cracking his knuckles from time to time. He went into the garden for a few minutes
and stood there like a statue, as if he’d been struck by some inexplicable shock (an expression of shock never left his face).
Then he returned to his son and tried to avoid his wife’s questions. Finally she grabbed his hand and asked him feverishly,
almost threateningly, ‘What’s the matter with him?’ He pulled his thoughts together and made himself give her a smile in reply,
but to his own horror, instead of a smile somehow there came out a laugh. In the morning he had sent for the doctor. He thought
he should warn his son of this so he didn’t become angry.

Bazarov suddenly turned round on the couch, gave his father a fixed, blank stare and asked for a drink.

Vasily Ivanovich gave him some water and in doing so felt his forehead. He was on fire.

‘Dad,’ Bazarov began in a slow, hoarse voice, ‘my case is no good. I’m infected, and in a few days’ time you’ll be burying
me.’

Vasily Ivanovich stumbled as if someone had hit him on the legs.

‘Yevgeny!’ he stammered. ‘Why are you saying that?… For God’s sake! You’ve got a chill…’

‘Stop it,’ Bazarov interrupted him. ‘A doctor can’t talk like that. All the signs of infection are there, you know that.’

‘Where are the signs… of infection, Yevgeny?… For goodness’ sake!’

‘And what’s this?’ said Bazarov, and, pulling up the sleeve of
his shirt, he showed his father the ominous red patches that had come up.

Vasily Ivanovich shivered and went cold from terror.

‘Let’s assume,’ he said eventually, ‘let’s assume then… if… even if… this sort of… infection…’

‘Pyaemia,’ his son said quietly.

‘Yes… a kind of epidemic…’

‘
Pyaemia
, blood-poisoning,’ Bazarov repeated sternly and clearly. ‘Or have you forgotten your lecture notes?’

‘Well yes, yes, as you like… But we’ll still get you better!’

‘Not a hope! But that’s not the point. I wasn’t expecting to die so soon. To tell the truth, this piece of luck is most unpleasant.
You and Mother must both take advantage of the strength of your religion: there’s an opportunity to put it to the test.’ He
drank a bit more water. ‘But I want to ask you something… while I’m still in control of my head. You know, tomorrow or the
day after my brain will be handing in its resignation. Even now I’m not altogether sure if I’m expressing myself clearly.
While I was lying there, I kept on thinking that red dogs were running round me while you were pointing me like a blackcock.
It was as if I was drunk. Do you understand me all right?’

‘Really, Yevgeny, you’re talking quite properly.’

‘So much the better. You told me you’d sent for the doctor… That was to keep yourself happy… now do the same for me. Send
a special messenger…’

‘To Arkady Nikolaich,’ the old man interrupted.

‘What Arkady Nikolaich?’ said Bazarov hesitantly. ‘Ah yes! The fledgling! No, don’t bother him: he’s now gone and joined the
jackdaws. Don’t look surprised, I’m not raving yet. Send a special messenger to Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova. There’s a landowner
near here of that name… Do you know of her?’ (Vasily Ivanovich nodded.) ‘Say Yevgeny Bazarov sends his respects and wants
her to know he is dying. Will you do that?’

‘I will… Only can it really be possible that you will die, you, Yevgeny… Think about it yourself! After this where can there
be any justice?’

‘That I don’t know. Just send the messenger.’

‘I’ll send him this very minute and I’ll write the letter myself.’

‘No, why do that? Say he sends his respects, nothing more is needed. And now I’ll go back to my dogs. Odd! I want to fix my
thoughts on death, but nothing comes of it. I see some sort of blur… and that’s all.’

He turned again heavily to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich went out of the study and, going to his wife’s bedroom, slumped down
on his knees before the icons.

‘Pray, Arina, pray!’ he cried. ‘Our son is dying.’

The doctor, the same district doctor who didn’t have any lunar caustic, came and, after examining the patient, counselled
a policy of waiting it out. At this point he said a few words on the possibility of recovery.

‘And have you had occasion,’ Bazarov asked, ‘to see people in my position who have
not
been despatched to the Elysian Fields?’
⁶
He suddenly gripped the leg of a heavy table standing by the couch and moved it from its place.