Fathers and Sons (9 page)

One morning Arina came into his study and, bowing low, as she usually did, asked if he could do something to help her daughter,
who had had a spark from the stove in her eye. Nikolay Petrovich, like all landowners living on their estates, dabbled in
medicine and had even ordered a homoeopathic medicine chest. He at once told Arina to bring in the patient. When she learnt
the master had summoned her, Fenechka was very scared but still she followed her mother in. Nikolay Petrovich took her up
to the window and held her head in both his hands. Having carefully examined her red and inflamed eye, he prescribed an eyewash,
which he made up himself then and there, and, ripping up his handkerchief, he showed her how to soak the compress. When he
had finished, Fenechka was about to leave. ‘Kiss the master’s hand, you stupid girl,’ Arina said to her. Nikolay Petrovich
wouldn’t give her his hand and, embarrassed himself, kissed her on the parting of her bowed head. Fenechka’s eye soon mended,
but the impression she had made on Nikolay Petrovich didn’t pass so quickly. He kept seeing that pure, delicate, timidly raised
face. He felt that soft hair under the palms of his hands, saw those innocent, slightly open lips, showing pearly teeth gleaming
moistly in the sun. He started looking closely at her in church and tried to engage her in conversation. At first she was
shy of him, and one evening, seeing him coming towards her on a narrow footpath people had trampled through a rye field, she
went and hid in the tall, thick rye, full of wormwood and cornflowers, so he shouldn’t catch sight of her. He could see her
head behind the golden lattice of heads of rye, through which she looked out like a little wild animal, and he shouted to
her in a friendly voice:

‘Good evening, Fenechka! I don’t bite.’

‘Good evening,’ she whispered, staying behind her barrier.

She was gradually becoming used to him, though she was still shy in his presence, when her mother Arina suddenly died from
cholera. Where was Fenechka to go? She had inherited her mother’s love of order, her good sense and her reserve; but
she was so young, so alone; Nikolay Petrovich himself was so kind and gentle… There is no need to finish the story…

‘So my brother came in to see you?’ Nikolay Petrovich asked her. ‘He just knocked and came in?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s good. Let me give Mitya a rock.’

And Nikolay Petrovich began to toss him almost up to the ceiling, to the baby’s great pleasure and to the no small anxiety
of his mother, who at every toss stretched out her arms towards his bare legs.

But Pavel Petrovich went back to his elegant study, with its walls, papered in a handsome dark grey, displaying weapons hung
on a multicoloured Persian rug, with its walnut furniture upholstered in dark-green velveteen, a ‘Renaissance’ bookcase of
old black oak and bronze statuettes on a magnificent writing table, with its fireplace
⁶
… He threw himself on a couch, put his hands behind his head and remained motionless, staring at the ceiling almost in desperation.
Did he want to conceal the expression on his face from the very walls, or was there another reason? He got up, opened the
heavy curtains at the windows and again threw himself down on the couch.

Bazarov too met Fenechka that same day. He and Arkady were walking in the garden, and he was explaining to him why some young
trees hadn’t rooted, especially the oaks.

‘You ought to be planting more silver poplars here, and firs, and limes, I suppose, and putting in some good topsoil. Now
that arbour has taken well,’ he added, ‘because acacia and lilac are good children, they don’t need any care. Look, someone’s
there.’

Fenechka was sitting in the arbour with Dunyasha and Mitya. Bazarov stopped, and Arkady nodded to Fenechka like an old friend.

‘Who’s that?’ Bazarov asked him as soon as they had gone past. ‘She’s so pretty!’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘It’s obvious. There’s only one pretty one.’

Now without embarrassment Arkady explained to him in a few words who Fenechka was.

‘Aha!’ said Bazarov. ‘Your father knows what’s good for him. I like your father, I really do! Good for him. But I should meet
her,’ he added and walked back to the arbour.

‘Yevgeny!’ Arkady shouted after him in a fright. ‘For God’s sake be careful.’

‘Don’t be so worried,’ said Bazarov. ‘I’ve been around, I’ve lived in cities.’

When he came up to Fenechka he took off his cap.

‘May I introduce myself,’ he began, bowing politely, ‘I’m a friend of Arkady Nikolaich – and a peaceable fellow.’

Fenechka got up from the bench and looked at him silently.

‘What a splendid little boy!’ Bazarov went on. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t yet brought bad luck
¹
to anyone. Why are his cheeks so red? Is he teething?’

‘Yes,’ said Fenechka, ‘four teeth have come through, and now his gums are swollen again.’

‘Show me… don’t be scared, I’m a doctor.’

Bazarov took the baby in his arms, and to the amazement of both Fenechka and Dunyasha Mitya offered no resistance and wasn’t
frightened.

‘I see, I see… It’s fine, all’s well. He’ll have a good mouth of teeth. Tell me if anything happens. And is your own health
good?’

‘Yes, thank God.’

‘Thank God indeed, that’s the best thing. And how’s yours?’

Dunyasha, a girl who was very prim in the house but full of fun once outside the gates, just answered him with a snort of
laughter.

‘Excellent. Here’s your champion back.’

Fenechka took the baby into her arms.

‘He was so quiet with you,’ she said in a low voice.

‘All children are with me,’ answered Bazarov, ‘I have a secret.’

‘Children know who loves them,’ remarked Dunyasha.

‘They do,’ Fenechka added. ‘Now Mitya just won’t go into some people’s arms.’

‘Will he come to me?’ asked Arkady who, having stood at a distance for a while, now had come up to the arbour.

He beckoned to Mitya, but Mitya threw back his head and began to cry, to Fenechka’s great embarrassment.

‘Another time, when he’s got used to me,’ Arkady said indulgently, and the two friends went off.

‘What’s her name?’ asked Bazarov.

‘Fenechka… Fedosya,’ answered Arkady.

‘And her father’s? One should know that too.’

‘Nikolayevna.’

‘
Bene
.
²
I like her for not being too embarrassed. I suppose some people would have criticized her for that. What nonsense! What’s
there to be embarrassed about? She’s a mother – and she’s right.’

‘She is right,’ said Arkady, ‘but my father…’

‘He’s right too,’ Bazarov interrupted.

‘No, I don’t find that.’

‘You obviously don’t like there being another little heir.’

‘You ought to be ashamed to think I’d have such thoughts!’ Arkady answered angrily. ‘I don’t find my father wrong from that
point of view; I consider he should marry her.’

‘Oh-ho!’ Bazarov said calmly. ‘What nobility of spirit! You still attach some significance to marriage. I didn’t expect that
from you.’

The friends took several steps in silence.

‘I’ve seen your father’s whole set-up,’ Bazarov began again. ‘The cattle are poor, and the horses in bad shape. The buildings
too aren’t up to much, and the labourers look complete and utter idlers; and the bailiff is either a fool or a rogue: which
– I haven’t yet worked out properly.’

‘You’re being severe today, Yevgeny Vasilyevich.’

‘And the good muzhiks will absolutely swindle your father. You know the proverb “The Russian muzhik will have God himself
for his breakfast.”’

‘I’m beginning to agree with my uncle,’ said Arkady. ‘You have a decidedly poor opinion of Russians.’

‘Who cares! The Russian’s sole virtue lies in his having a very low opinion of himself. The important thing is that twice
two makes four, and everything else is a load of nonsense.’

‘And is nature a load of nonsense?’ said Arkady, looking pensively into the distance at the many colours of the fields in
the mellow and beautiful light of the sun, which was now low in the sky.

‘Nature too is nonsense – in your meaning of the word nature. Nature isn’t a temple but a workshop, and man is a workman in
it.’

At that very moment the lingering notes of a cello came to them. Someone was playing Schubert’s
Erwartung
,
³
with feeling if with a hand that lacked practice, and the sweet melody filled the air like the smell of honey.

‘What’s that?’ said Bazarov with surprise.

‘It’s my father.’

‘Your father plays the cello?’

‘Yes.’

‘How old is your father?’

‘Forty-four.’

Bazarov suddenly roared with laughter.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘For pity’s sake! A man of forty-four, a
pater familias
,
⁴
living in the province of *** – and he plays the cello.’

Bazarov went on laughing, but Arkady, for all the reverence he bore his master, this time didn’t even smile.

About two weeks went by. Life at Marino followed its regular pattern: Arkady relaxed, and Bazarov worked. Everyone in the
house had become used to him, to his informal manners, to his brusque and laconic way of speaking. Fenechka in particular
felt so much at ease with him that one night she had him woken: Mitya had convulsions, and Bazarov came and in his usual way,
laughing a bit, yawning a bit, sat in her room for a couple of
hours and helped the little boy. Pavel Petrovich on the other hand grew to hate Bazarov with a passion: he thought him arrogant,
insolent, cynical, vulgar; he suspected Bazarov had no respect for him, almost despised him – him, Pavel Kirsanov! Nikolay
Petrovich was a bit scared of the young ‘nihilist’ and wondered whether he had a good influence on Arkady; but he found pleasure
in listening to him and being present at his physics and chemistry experiments. Bazarov had brought a microscope with him
and fiddled about with it for hours. The servants too had become attached to him although he teased them: they still felt
he was one of them and not a ‘master’. Dunyasha was happy to giggle with him and surreptitiously gave him significant glances
as she ran past him like a little quail. Pyotr, an extraordinarily conceited and stupid fellow, always anxiously wrinkling
up his forehead, whose entire virtue lay in an obsequious manner, in being able to spell out his words and in frequently brushing
his coat – he too smirked and beamed if ever Bazarov paid him any attention. The farm boys ran after the ‘dokhtoor’ like puppies.
Only old Prokofyich didn’t like him, serving him his food at table with a gloomy face. He called him a ‘horse-knacker’ and
a ‘crook’, and said that Bazarov with his side whiskers looked a real pig in a bush. Prokofyich in his own way was just as
much an aristocrat as Pavel Petrovich.

Now came the best days in the year – the first days of June. The weather was lovely. It’s true there was another threat of
cholera in the distance, but the people of the province of *** were already used to its visits. Bazarov would get up very
early and go off a mile or two away, not for a walk – he couldn’t abide walks without a purpose – but to collect grasses and
insects. He sometimes took Arkady with him. On the way back they usually argued, and Arkady was usually the loser although
he spoke more than his friend.

Once for some reason they were late back. Nikolay Petrovich went out into the garden to meet them and when he got as far as
the arbour he suddenly heard the quick footsteps and voices of the two young men. They were walking on the other side of the
arbour and couldn’t see him.

‘You don’t know my father well enough,’ said Arkady.

Nikolay Petrovich concealed himself.

‘Your father’s a good fellow,’ said Bazarov, ‘but he’s a pensioner from another age, he’s had his day.’

Nikolay Petrovich listened carefully… Arkady made no reply.

‘The pensioner’ stood motionless for a couple of minutes and went off home.

‘The other day I saw he was reading Pushkin,’ Bazarov meanwhile went on. ‘Do please explain to him that that’s no good. He
isn’t a boy. It’s time he gave up that nonsense. And what a thing to be a romantic in this day and age! Give him something
sensible to read.’

‘Like what?’ asked Arkady.

‘Well, first, I think, Büchner’s
Stoff und Kraft
.’
¹

‘I quite agree,’ Arkady said approvingly. ‘
Stoff und Kraft
is popularly written…’

‘So you and I’ve become “pensioners”,’ Nikolay Petrovich said to his brother that day after dinner as they sat in Pavel Petrovich’s
study. ‘We’ve had our day. In the end maybe Bazarov’s right. But I have to say I find one thing painful: I had hoped that
Arkady and I would find ourselves getting closer and fonder of each other, but it appears I’ve got left behind, he’s gone
off ahead of me, and we can’t understand each other.’

‘But why has he got ahead? And what sets him so far apart from us?’ Pavel Petrovich exclaimed impatiently. ‘All this has been
knocked into his head by this signor, this nihilist. I loathe the little quack. In my opinion he’s just a charlatan. I am
sure that for all his frogs he hasn’t progressed very far even in physics.’

‘No, dear Brother, don’t say that. Bazarov is a clever man and knows a lot.’

‘And that repellent self-esteem,’ Pavel Petrovich interrupted again.

‘Yes,’ Nikolay Petrovich remarked, ‘self-esteem he does have. But it seems one can’t do without it. Only this is what I don’t
understand. I think I do everything to keep up with the times. I’ve settled my peasants, set up a farm so I am even known
as a “red” all over the province. I read, I study, I generally try to be
up to the demands made on me by the modern world – and they say I’ve had my day. So, Brother, I myself am beginning to think
I may well have done.’

‘Why?’

‘This is why. Today I was sitting and reading Pushkin… I remember, my eye had been caught by “The Gypsies”
²
… Suddenly Arkady came up to me and without a word, with an expression of tender compassion, he gently removed my book, as
one does to a child, and put in front of me another book, a German one… he smiled and went off, taking Pushkin.’