Fathers and Sons

Thenichka, therefore, liked Bazarov, and Bazarov liked Thenichka. Indeed, no sooner did he speak to her than his face would undergo a change, and, assuming a bright, almost a good-humoured, expression, exchange its habitual superciliousness for something like playful solicitude. Meanwhile she grew more beautiful daily. In the lives of young women there is a season when they begin to unfold and bloom like the roses in summer: and to that period Thenichka had just come. Everything, even the July heat then prevalent, contributed to it. Dressed in a gown of some light white material, she looked even lighter and whiter than it; and though she escaped actual sunburn, the heated air imparted to her cheeks and ears a faint tan, and, permeating her frame with gentle indolence, imbued her exquisite eyes with dreamy languor. No longer could she do any work; she could only let her hands sink upon her lap, and there remain. Seldom going even for a stroll, she spent the most of her time in a state of gently querulous and panting, but not distasteful, inertia.

"You should go and bathe as often as you can," Nikolai Petrovitch said to her one day (he had had a large, canopied bathing-place constructed in one of the last few ponds on the estate).

"Ah!" she gasped. "Even to walk to the pond half-kills me: and to walk back from it half-kills me again. There is no shade in the garden, you see."

"True," he agreed, wiping his forehead.

At seven o'clock one morning, when Bazarov was returning from a walk, he encountered Thenichka in the midst of a lilac clump which, though past the season of flowering, was still green and leafy. As usual, she had a white scarf thrown over her head, and beside the bench on which she was sitting there was a bunch of red and white roses with the dew yet glistening on their petals. He bade her good morning.

"It is you, then, Evgenii Vasilitch!" she exclaimed as she put aside a corner of her scarf to look at him – a movement which bared her arm to the elbow.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he seated himself beside her. "Is it a nosegay you are making?"

"Yes, for the breakfast table. Nikolai Petrovitch is so fond of such things."

"But breakfast is not yet. What a waste of flowers!"

"I know, but I gather them now because later the weather becomes too hot for walking. This is the only time when it is possible even to breathe. The heat makes me faint, and I am afraid of falling ill with it."

"Mere fancy. Let me feel your pulse."

He took her hand in his, and found the pulse to be beating with such regularity that he did not trouble even to count its throbs.

"You will live to be a hundred," he said as he relinquished her wrist.

"God preserve me from that!" exclaimed she.

"Why so? Surely you would like to live a long time?"

"Yes – I should; but not for a hundred years. You see, my grandmother lived to be eighty-five, but suffered terribly. Long before she died she had a constant cough, and was also blind and deaf and crooked, and had become a burden to herself. What would be the use of a life like that?"

"You think that it is better to be young?"

"I do. And why not?"

"How is it better? Tell me that."

"How is it better? Oh, as long as one is young one can do what one wants to do – one can walk about, and carry things, and not be dependent upon other folk. Is not that the best way?"

"I do not know. At all events I care not whether I be young or old."

"What makes you say that? Surely you cannot mean it?"

"No? Well, think of what my youth means to me. I am a lonely man, a man without home or – "

"But all depends upon yourself."

"No, it does not. I only wish that some one would take pity upon my loneliness!"

She glanced at him, but said nothing. After a pause she resumed:

"What is that book of yours?"

"This? It is a learned, scholarly work."

"How you study! Do you never grow tired of it? By this time, I should think, you must know everything."

"Indeed I do not… But try reading a few lines of the book."

"I should never understand them. Is it a Russian book?" (She took the heavily bound volume into her hands.)

"What a large book!" she continued.

"Yes. Also, it is a Russian book."

"Nevertheless I should not be able to understand it.

"I do not want you to understand it. I merely want to be able to watch you as you read. For when you read you twitch your little nose most charmingly!"

She began to read aloud a page "on Creosote," but soon burst out laughing, and replaced the book upon the bench, whence it slipped to the ground.

"I love to see you laugh," said Bazarov.

"Say no more," she interrupted.

"Also, I love to hear you speak. Your voice is like the bubbling of a brook."

She turned away her head, and fell to sorting her flowers. Presently she resumed:

"Why do you love to hear me speak? You must have talked to many much finer and cleverer ladies?"

"I assure you, nevertheless, that all the I fine and clever ladies' in the world are worth less than your little finger."

"Oh, come!" And she crossed her hands.

Bazarov picked up the book.

"It is a work on medicine," he observed. "Why did you throw it away?"

"It is a work on medicine?" she re-echoed, and turned to him again. "Do you know, ever since you gave me those capsules – you remember them, do you not? – Mitia has slept splendidly! I can never sufficiently thank you. You are indeed good!"

"But the physician ought to be paid his fee," remarked he with a smile. "Doctors never do their work for nothing."

Upon this she raised her eyes. They looked all the darker for the brilliant glare which was beating upon the upper portion of her face. As a matter of fact, she was trying to divine whether he was speaking in earnest or in jest.

"Of course I should be delighted to pay you!" she said. "But first I must mention the matter to Nikolai Petrovitch."

"What?" he exclaimed. "You really think it is money I want? No, I do not require of you money."

"What, then?" she queried.

"What? Well, guess."

"How can I guess?"

"Then I must tell you. I want, I want – I want one of those roses."

She burst into a peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with delight at the request. Yet the laughter was accompanied with a certain sense of relief. Bazarov eyed her.

"Ah, you must excuse my laughing, Evgenii Vasilitch," she said (bending over the seat of the bench, she fumbled among the roses). "Which sort should you prefer? A red rose or a white one?"

"A red one, and not too large."

"Then take this one," she said, sitting up again. Yet even as she spoke she drew back her outstretched hand, and, biting her lips, glanced in the direction of the entrance to the arbour, and listened intently.

"What is it?" asked Bazarov. "Do you hear Nikolai Petrovitch coming?"

"No. Besides, every one has gone out to the fields. Nor do I fear any one except Paul Petrovitch. I merely thought that, that – "

"You thought what?"

"That some one might be coming this way. It seems I was wrong. Take this rose."

She handed Bazarov the gift.

"Why do you fear Paul Petrovitch?" he asked.

"I do so because he frightens me – when I speak to him he returns me no answer; he just stares at me in a meaning sort of way. You, too, do not like him, I believe? It was with him that you had such a quarrel, was it not? What it was all about I do not know, but at least I know that you worsted him like, like With a gesture she signified the manner in which she considered Bazarov to have routed Paul Petrovitch.

"And, had he worsted me," he inquired, "would you have taken my part?"

"How could I? We should have agreed no better than you and he."

"You think so? Then let me tell you that a certain little hand could twist me around its little finger."

"Whose hand is that?"

"I expect you can guess. But smell this rose which you have just given me."

She bent forward in the direction of the flower, and as she did so her scarf slipped from her head to her shoulders, and revealed a mass of dark, soft, fluffy, glossy hair.

"Wait," said Bazarov. "I, too, will smell the rose." And, reaching forward, he kissed her full on her parted lips.

She started back, and pressed her hands against his breast as though to repel him; but so weak was the act of repulsion that he found it possible to renew and to prolong his kiss.

Suddenly there sounded from among the lilac bushes a dry cough, and just as Thenichka darted to the other end of the bench Paul Petrovitch appeared, bowed slightly to the pair, said with a sort of melancholy acidity in his tone: "It is you, then?" and turned on his heel and departed. The next moment Thenichka picked up her roses and rushed from the arbour. As she passed Bazarov she whispered in his ear: "That was indeed wrong of you, Evgenii Vasilitch!" And the words voiced a note of reproach that was palpably genuine and unfeigned.

Instantly Bazarov's thoughts recurred to another scene in which he had recently taken part, and he became conscience-stricken, as also contemptuous of himself, and vexed. He shook his head, congratulated himself ironically on his folly, and departed to his room.

As for Paul Petrovitch, he left the garden and walked slowly into the forest. He remained there a considerable time; and, on returning to breakfast, looked so dark of mien that Nikolai Petrovitch inquired anxiously whether he were not ill.

"As you know," replied the other quietly, "I suffer habitually from biliousness."

XXIV

Two hours later he knocked at Bazarov's door.

"I feel that I must apologise for disturbing you in your pursuits," he said as he seated himself near the window and rested both hands upon a fine ivory-headed cane which he had brought with him (as a rule he did not carry one). "But the fact is that circumstances compel me to request five minutes of your time."

"The whole of my time is at your disposal," replied Bazarov, across whose features, as Paul Petrovitch had crossed the threshold, there had flitted a curious expression.

"No; five minutes will be sufficient. I have come to ask you a simple question."

"And what might that question be?"

"Listen. When first you came to stay in my brother's house, and I had not yet been forced to deny myself the pleasure of conversing with you, it fell to my lot to hear you hold forth on many different subjects. But, unless my memory deceives me, never once did the conversation between you and myself, or in my presence, happen to fall upon the subject of the duel or single combat. Would you, therefore, mind putting yourself out to the extent of giving me the benefit of your views on the subject mentioned?"

Bazarov, who had risen to receive his visitor, now reseated himself upon the edge of the table, and folded his arms upon his breast.

"My views are as follows," he replied. "From the theoretical standpoint, the duel is a sheer absurdity. From the practical standpoint, it is another matter altogether."

"You intend to convey (if I have understood you aright?) that, apart from your theoretical views on the duel, you would not, in practice, allow yourself to be insulted without subsequently demanding satisfaction?"

"You have guessed my meaning precisely."

"Good! It is a view which I am indeed glad to hear you express, in that it delivers me from a dilemma."

"You mean, from a state of indecision?"

"They are one and the same thing. I express myself in this manner to the end that you may understand me. I am not one of your college rats. Consequently I repeat that through your words I am relieved of the necessity of resorting to what would have been a painful expedient. To speak plainly, I have made up my mind to fight you."

Bazarov raised his eyebrows a little.

"To fight me?" he said.

"Yes, to fight you."

"And for what reason – if you do not mind telling me?"

"For a reason which I might explain, but concerning which I prefer to remain silent. Suffice it for me to intimate that your presence offends me, that I detest and despise your person, and (should the foregoing be insufficient) that I – "

"Enough!" interrupted Bazarov. His eyes had flashed even as Paul's had done. "Further explanations would be superfluous. You have presumed to whet upon me your chivalrous spirit; wherefore, though I might have refused it, I will afford you satisfaction to the top of your bent."

"I have to express to you my sincere obligation. From the first did I feel encouraged to hope that you would accept my challenge without constraining me to resort to more forcible measures."

"In other words, and speaking without metaphor, to that cane?" said Bazarov in a tone of supreme indifference.

"Well, that is fair enough. Further insults are not needed – nor would you have found the offering of them altogether free from danger. Pray, therefore, remain a gentleman. It is as one that I accept your challenge."

"Good!" replied Paul Petrovitch; and he laid aside his cane. "Next, a few words on the subject of the conditions of our duel. First, pray be so good as to inform me whether or not you deem it necessary to resort to the formality of some such small difference of opinion as might serve as an ostensible excuse for my challenge?"

"I think that unnecessary. Such things are best done without formalities of any kind."

"I agree – that is to say, I, like you, consider that to go into the true reasons for our antagonism would be inexpedient. Let us therefore allege to the world that we could not abide one another. What need would there be to say more?"

"What indeed?" echoed Bazarov in a tone decidedly ironical.

"Also, with regard to the actual conditions of the duel. Inasmuch as we have no seconds – for where could we find them? – "

"Quite so. Where indeed?"

"I have the honour to propose to you the following. Let us fight to-morrow morning – say, at six o'clock: the rendezvous to be behind the copse, the weapons to be pistols, and the distance ten paces."

"Ten paces. Quite so! You and I abhor each other even at ten paces."

"Eight, then, if you wish?"

"The same applies to eight."

"And the number of shots to be two apiece. Also, in case either of us should fall, let each of us previously place in his pocket a letter laying upon himself the entire blame for his demise."

"To that condition I wholly demur," said Bazarov.

"I think that you are straying into the pages of a French novel, and away from reality."

"Possibly I am. But, also, you will agree that to incur an unmerited suspicion of murder is a prospect not pleasant to contemplate?"

"I do. Yet still there remains another method of avoiding such an awkward imputation. That is to say, though we shall have no seconds, we can have a witness."

"Whom precisely, if I might ask?"

"Peter."

"Peter? What Peter?"

"Peter the valet, a man who stands at the apex of contemporary culture, and could therefore play the rôle, and perform the functions, proper to such an occasion pre-eminently comme il faut."

"I think that you are jesting, my good sir?"

"No, I am not. If you will deign to give my proposal consideration you will speedily arrive at the conviction that it is as simple as it is charged with good sense. Schiller it would be impossible to hide in a bag, but I will undertake to prepare Peter for the part, and to bring him to the rendezvous."

"Still you are pleased to jest," said Paul Petrovitch as he rose. "But as you have so kindly met me, I have not the right to make further claims upon your time. All is arranged, then? In passing, have you any pistols?"

"How should I have any pistols? I am not a man of war."

"Then perhaps you will allow me to offer you some of mine? Rest assured that they have not been fired by me for five years."

"A very comforting assurance!"

"Lastly," said Paul Petrovitch as he reached for his cane, "it only remains for me to thank you, and to leave you to your pursuits. I have the honour to bid you good-day."

"And I to say farewell until our pleasant meeting."

With which Bazarov escorted his visitor to the door.

Paul Petrovitch gone, Bazarov stood awhile in thought. Then he exclaimed:

"Splendid indeed! Yet also unutterably stupid! What a comedy to play! Talk of educated dogs dancing on their hind legs!.. However, I could not have refused him, for, otherwise, he would have struck me and then" – Bazarov turned pale, for his pride had been aroused – "well, then I should have strangled him like a kitten!"

He returned to his microscope, but found his heart to be still beating, and the coolness necessary to scientific observation to have disappeared.

"I suppose he saw us this morning," he continued to himself. "Yet surely he is not doing this on his brother's behalf? For what is there in a kiss? No; something else is in the background. Bah! What if it should be that he himself is in love with her? Yes, that is it. It is as clear as day. What a mess! Truly a horrible mess, however it be viewed! For first of all I am to have my brains blown out, and then I am to be made to leave this place! And there is Arkady to consider, and that old heifer Nikolai Petrovitch. Awkward! Awkward indeed!"

However, the day dragged its slow length along. Thenichka remained practically non-existent (in other words, she kept to her room as closely as a mouse to its hole), Nikolai Petrovitch walked about with a careworn air (it had been reported to him that mildew had begun to attack the wheat), and Paul Petrovitch's mien of icy urbanity succeeded in damping the spirits of Prokofitch himself.

Presently Bazarov sat down to write a letter to his father, but tore it up, and threw the pieces under the table.

"Should I be killed," he reflected, "my parents will hear of it soon enough. But I shall not be killed – I have yet far to wander about the world."

Next he ordered Peter to call him at dawn; and inasmuch as the order was accompanied with a mention of important business, Peter jumped to the conclusion that it was Bazarov's intention to take him to St. Petersburg. Bazarov then retired to rest. Yet, late though he had done so, he was troubled with fantastic visions. Ever before him there flitted Madame Odintsov, who was also his mother. And ever behind her there walked a black cat, which was also Thenichka. For his part, Paul Petrovitch figured as a forest which the dreamer was engaged to fight.

At length, when four o'clock arrived, Peter came to rouse him. Hastily dressing himself, he left the house with the valet. The morning was fine and fresh, and though a few wisps of cloud were trailing across the pale-blue transparency of the zenith, a light dew had coated the grass and foliage with drops, and was shining like silver on spiders' webs. The steaming earth seemed still to be seeking to detain the roseate traces of dawn in her embrace; but presently every quarter of the sky became lit up, and resounded again to the songs of larks.

Bazarov walked straight ahead until he reached the copse – then seated himself at the shadowy edge of the trees, and explained to Peter the services which he looked to the latter to perform; upon which the "cultured" menial came near to fainting, and was calmed only with an assurance that he would but have to stand at a distance, as a looker-on, and that in no case would responsibility attach to his person.

"And think," Bazarov concluded, "in what an important rôle you are about to figure!"

But Peter, extending his hands deprecatingly, only turned up his eyes, became green in the face, and went and leant against a birch tree.

The copse was skirted by the road from Marino, and the light coating of dust bore no mark of having been disturbed since the previous evening, whether by wheel or by foot. Involuntarily Bazarov kept glancing along this road as, plucking and chewing stems of grass, he repeated again and again to himself: "What a piece of folly!" More than once, too, the morning air made him shiver, and Peter gaze plaintively in his direction; but Bazarov only laughed, for he at least was no coward.

At length hoofs sounded along the road, and there came into sight from behind the trees a peasant driving two horses with traces attached. As the man passed Bazarov he looked at him inquisitively, but failed to doff his cap; and this circumstance impressed Peter unfavourably, since the valet considered it a bad omen.

"Like ourselves, that peasant has risen early," thought Bazarov. "But whereas he has risen to work, we– !"

"Some one else is coming, I believe," whispered Peter.

Bazarov raised his head, and saw Paul Petrovitch, in a light check jacket and a pair of snow-white trousers, walking briskly along the road. Under his arm was a green, baize-covered box.

"Pardon me for having kept you waiting," he said with a bow to Bazarov, and then one to Peter (for even to the latter he, for the nonce, seemed to accord something of the respect due to a second). "As a matter of fact, I was loth to arouse my valet."

"I beg that you will not mention it," replied Bazarov. "We ourselves have only just arrived."

"So much the better!" And Paul Petrovitch glanced about him. "There will be no one to see us or disturb us. Are you agreeable to proceeding?"

"Quite."

"And I presume that you require no further explanations?"

"None whatsoever."

"Then kindly load these." Paul Petrovitch took from the box a brace of pistols.

"No. Do you load, while I measure the distance – my legs are longer than yours." This last Bazarov added with a dry smile. "Now, one, two, three – "

"I beg your pardon, sir," gasped Peter, who was trembling as with ague. "I beg your pardon, but might I move further away?"

"Four, five – Certainly, my good fellow! Pray do so. You can go and stand behind that tree there, and stop your ears – provided that you do not also stop your eyes. Lastly, should either Monsieur Kirsanov or myself fall, you are to run and pick up the fallen. Six, seven, eight – " Bazarov halted. "That will do, I suppose?" he added to Paul Petrovitch. "Or would you prefer me to add another couple of paces?"

"Do as you please," the other replied as he rammed home the second of the two bullets.

"Then I will add those two paces." And Bazarov scratched a line in the soil with his toe. "Here is the mark. Apropos, how many paces is each of us to retire from our respective marks?"

"Ten, I presume," said Paul Petrovitch as he proffered Bazarov a brace of pistols. "Will you kindly make choice of these?"

"I will. Nevertheless you will agree that our duel is singular, even to the point of absurdity? For pray observe the countenance of our second!"

"It is still your pleasure to jest," Paul Petrovitch responded coldly. "Of the singularity of our contest I make no denial. I merely consider it my duty to warn you that I intend to right you in grim earnest. So, à bon entendeur, salut!"

"Yet, even though we intend to exterminate one another, why should we not enjoy our jest, and thus combine utile with dulce? You have spoken to me in French. I reply in Latin."

"I repeat that I intend to fight you in grim earnest," said Paul Petrovitch; with which he moved to his place, and Bazarov, after counting ten paces from his mark, turned, and halted.

"Are you ready?" inquired Paul Petrovitch.

"I am."

"Then engage."

Bazarov started to advance, and Paul Petrovitch did the same, with his left hand thrust into his coat pocket, and his right gradually elevating the muzzle of his pistol.

"The fellow is aiming straight for my nose," thought Bazarov to himself. "And how the rascal is screwing up his eyes as he marches! This is not a wholly pleasing sensation. I had better keep my eyes fixed upon his watch-chain."

Past Bazarov's ear something suddenly whistled, while almost at the same moment there came the sound of a report.

"I seemed to hear something, but no matter," was the thought which flashed through Bazarov's brain. Then he advanced another step, and, without aiming, pulled the trigger.

As he did so Paul Petrovitch gave a faint start, and clapped his hand to his thigh, down the white trouser-leg of which there began to trickle a thin stream of blood.