Fathers and Sons (18 page)

An unforeseen circumstance rescued her: the butler announced the arrival of Sitnikov.

It is difficult to find the words to describe the flying entrance of the young progressive. Having decided with his customary
bravado to go to the country and visit a woman he barely knew, who had never invited him, but who according to his intelligence
had staying with her these clever friends of his, he was scared witless all the same; instead of producing ready-prepared
excuses and greetings, he mumbled out some rubbish about Yevdoksiya Kukshina having sent him to inquire about Anna Sergeyevna’s
health, and also about Arkady Nikolayevich having always talked to him about her in such glowing terms… At this point he stumbled
and got so confused that he sat down on his own hat. However, since no one showed him the door and since Anna Sergeyevna introduced
him to her aunt and sister, he soon recovered himself and chattered away for all he was worth. The appearance of vulgarity
often serves a purpose in life: it reduces the tension in strings that are drawn too tight and calms down feelings that are
overly confident or forgetful, reminding them how closely related vulgarity is to them. With Sitnikov’s coming everything
somehow became cruder – and simpler. Everyone even had more appetite for supper and went off to bed half an hour earlier than
usual.

‘I can now say to you what you once said to me,’ said Arkady, lying in bed, to Bazarov, who also had undressed: ‘“Why are
you so gloomy?” You must have carried out some sacred duty.’

For some time the two young men had developed a kind of bantering between themselves that was only easy on the surface: that
is always a sign of secret dissatisfaction or suppressed suspicions.

‘Tomorrow I’m going to see my old man,’ said Bazarov.

Arkady raised himself and leant on his elbow. He was both surprised and for some reason pleased.

‘Aha!’ he said. ‘So that’s what making you gloomy?’

Bazarov yawned.

‘Ask too many questions…’

‘And what does Anna Sergeyevna…?’ Arkady went on.

‘What has Anna Sergeyevna got to do with it?’

‘I mean, will she let you go?’

‘I’m not her servant.’

Arkady became thoughtful, and Bazarov got into bed and turned his face to the wall.

Some minutes of silence passed.

‘Yevgeny!’ Arkady exclaimed at last.

‘What?’

‘I’ll leave tomorrow with you.’

Bazarov didn’t answer.

‘Only I’ll go home,’ Arkady went on. ‘We’ll travel together as far as the hamlet of Khokhlovsk, and there you can take horses
from Fedot. I’d like to meet your parents but I’m afraid I’d be a nuisance to them and to you. You’ll be coming later to stay
with us again, won’t you?’

‘I’ve left my things with you,’ Bazarov answered without turning round.

‘Why doesn’t he ask me why I am going?’ Arkady thought. ‘And just as suddenly as he is. Really, why am I going, and why is
he?’ he went on in his thoughts. He couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to his own question, and his heart was full of a kind
of bitterness. He felt it would be difficult for him to leave this way of life to which he’d become so accustomed; but for
him to stay on his own was a bit odd. ‘Something must have happened between them,’ he said to himself. ‘What’s the point
of my hanging around her after he’s gone? I’ll really get on her nerves, and I’ll lose everything else.’ He began to visualize
Anna Sergeyevna; then gradually another face eclipsed the beautiful features of the young widow.

‘I’ll miss Katya too!’ he whispered into his pillow – on to which he had already shed a tear… Suddenly he shook his head and
said loudly:

‘Why the hell has that idiot Sitnikov showed up?’

Bazarov first shifted in bed and then said this:

‘My friend, I see you’re still pretty thick. The Sitnikovs of this world are essential to us. You’ve got to understand I absolutely
need idiots like that. The gods need someone to do the dirty work!’

‘Oho!’ Arkady thought to himself, and for a moment the boundless scope of Bazarov’s egotism now opened up to him. ‘So you
and I are gods! That is, you are – aren’t I one of the idiots?’

‘Yes, you’re still pretty thick,’ Bazarov repeated glumly.

Anna Sergeyevna expressed no particular surprise when Arkady told her the next day that he was leaving with Bazarov. She seemed
distracted and tired. Katya silently gave him a serious look, the princess even crossed herself
¹
underneath her shawl in such a way that he couldn’t but notice it. But Sitnikov was thrown into a panic. He had just come
down to breakfast in a new outfit (not a Slavophile one this time). The previous day he had astonished the manservant assigned
to him by the quantities of linen he had brought with him. Now his friends were abandoning him! He danced about a bit, rushed
around like a driven hare on the edge of a wood – and suddenly announced, in a kind of frightened shriek, that he too was
going to leave. Anna Sergeyevna didn’t stop him.

‘I have a very quiet carriage,’ the wretched young man added, turning to Arkady. ‘I can give you a lift, and Yevgeny Vasilyevich
can take your
tarantas
, so it’ll be that much easier.’

‘But really, it’s quite out of your way, and it’s a long way to my home.’

‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. I’ve a lot of time to spare, and I’ve got business round there.’

‘Vodka business?’ Arkady asked rather too scornfully.

But Sitnikov was in such despair that, unusually for him, he didn’t even laugh.

‘I assure you, my carriage is extremely quiet,’ he muttered, ‘and there’ll be room for everyone.’

‘Don’t say no and disappoint Monsieur Sitnikov,’ said Anna Sergeyevna…

Arkady looked at her and bowed his head low.

The guests left after breakfast. Saying goodbye to Bazarov, Anna Sergeyevna gave him her hand and said:

‘We’ll meet again, won’t we?’

‘As you wish,’ answered Bazarov.

‘In that case we will.’

Arkady went out first on to the porch and got into Sitnikov’s carriage. The butler deferentially helped him, and Arkady could
gladly have hit him or burst into tears. Bazarov settled himself in the
tarantas
. When they got to Khokhlovsk, Arkady waited for Fedot, the innkeeper, to harness the horses. He went up to the
tarantas
, gave Bazarov a smile as he used to and said:

‘Yevgeny, take me with you. I want to come and stay with you.’

‘Get in,’ said Bazarov through his teeth.

When Sitnikov, who was walking round the wheels of his carriage gaily whistling, heard this, he could only gawp in astonishment
while Arkady coolly took his belongings out of the carriage, got in next to Bazarov – and, with a polite bow to his former
fellow-traveller, shouted, ‘Let’s be off!’ The
tarantas
rolled on and soon disappeared from view… This time Sitnikov was really thrown and gave his driver a look, but the driver
was playing with his whip around the tail of one of the side-horses. Then Sitnikov jumped into the carriage, and, shouting
to two passing muzhiks to ‘Put your caps back on, idiots!’, he made his way to the town, where he arrived very late. The next
day at Kukshina’s he really went for those two ‘awful arrogant louts’.

When Arkady got into the
tarantas
next to Bazarov, he gripped his hand firmly and for a long while didn’t say anything. Bazarov seemed to understand and to
appreciate both
the handshake and the silence. The previous night he had neither slept nor smoked, and he had eaten next to nothing for some
days. His cap was pulled down over his forehead, emphasizing his profile below it, drawn and melancholy.

‘Well, my friend,’ he said at last, ‘give me a cigar… And would you look, is my tongue yellow?’

‘It is,’ Arkady answered.

‘Thought so… and the cigar tastes bad. The engine’s falling apart.’

‘You really have changed recently,’ said Arkady.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll get over it. One thing’s tiresome – my mother’s so soft-hearted: if you don’t eat ten times a day
and put on a paunch, she gets all upset. My father’s fine, he’s been everywhere himself and has had a tough and varied life.
No, I can’t smoke,’ he added, tossing his cigar into the dust of the road.

‘How far is it to your place, fifteen miles?’ Arkady asked.

‘Yes, fifteen miles. But why don’t you ask this wise fellow?’

He pointed to the muzhik sitting on the box, Fedot’s driver.

But the wise fellow answered, ‘Who knows – they haven’t measured the miles round here,’ and went on muttering curses at his
shaft-horse for ‘kicking with her noddle’, that is, tossing her head.

‘Yes, yes,’ Bazarov went on, ‘let that be a lesson to you, my young friend, an instructive example. It’s the devil’s own mess!
Every man is hanging on a thread, any moment an abyss can open up beneath him, but he still has to go and think up all manner
of troubles for himself and ruin his life.’

‘What are you hinting at?’ Arkady asked.

‘I’m not hinting at anything, I’m saying straight out that you and I have both behaved very stupidly. What’s the point of
talking about it! But I’ve noticed in the clinic that the patient who gets angry with his pain always manages to overcome
it.’

‘I don’t fully understand you,’ said Arkady. ‘I don’t think you’ve got anything to complain about.’

‘If you don’t fully understand me, then I’ll tell you this: in my view – it’s better to break stones on the road than for
a woman to get control of even the tip of your finger. That’s just a load of…’
Bazarov almost uttered his favourite word ‘romanticism’ but refrained and said ‘nonsense’. ‘You won’t believe me now, but
I tell you that you and I went into a world of women and we liked it. But getting out of that sort of world is like plunging
into cold water on a hot day. A man should never become involved in such nonsense; in the words of an excellent Spanish saying,
a man should be fierce. Now, you there, my clever friend,’ he added, turning to the muzhik sitting on the box, ‘do you have
a wife?’

The muzhik turned, showing the two friends his flat features and short-sighted eyes.

‘A wife? Yes, I do. Of course I have a wife.’

‘Do you beat her?’

‘Do I beat my wife? Occasionally. But not without a reason.’

‘Very good. Well, and does she beat you?’

The muzhik gave a tug at the reins.

‘What a thing to say, sir. Making a joke of everything…’ He was visibly offended.

‘Do you hear that, Arkady Nikolayevich? But you and I were beaten… that’s what it means to be educated.’

Arkady gave a forced laugh, but Bazarov turned away his head and didn’t open his mouth for the whole of the rest of the journey.

The fifteen miles seemed to Arkady like thirty. But finally the little village where Bazarov’s parents lived came into sight
on the slope of a low hill. Next to the village in a young birch wood stood a little thatched manor house. Two muzhiks were
standing by the first village hut, quarrelling. ‘You’re a big swine,’ said one to the other, ‘worse than a little piglet.’
‘And your wife’s a witch,’ the other retorted.

‘This familiarity,’ Bazarov said to Arkady, ‘this playful language should lead you to the conclusion that my father’s peasants
aren’t too badly treated. And there he is coming out on to the porch of his house. That’s him, it’s him – I can see his face.
But hey, hey! How grey he’s gone, poor old fellow!’

Bazarov leant out of the
tarantas
, while Arkady looked over his friend’s shoulder and saw standing on the porch of the little manor house a tall thin man with
untidy hair and a fine, aquiline nose, dressed in an old uniform coat worn open. He was standing legs apart, smoking a long
pipe and screwing up his eyes against the sun. The horses stopped.

‘You’ve come at last,’ Bazarov’s father said, continuing to smoke although his chibouk pipe was shaking between his fingers.
‘Well, get out, get out and let’s have a kiss.’

He began to embrace his son… ‘Yenyusha, Yenyusha’ – they could hear a tremulous woman’s voice. The door opened and there appeared
on the porch a small, plump old woman in a white cap and a multi-coloured jacket. She exclaimed, stumbled and probably would
have fallen if Bazarov hadn’t held her. She at once put her chubby little arms round his neck, pressed her head to his chest,
and there was silence. They could only hear her broken sobs.

Old Bazarov took a deep breath and screwed up his eyes even more than before.

‘Well, that’s enough, Arisha, that’s enough! Stop it,’ he said, exchanging a look with Arkady, who was standing stock-still
by the
tarantas
, while the muzhik on the box even turned away his head. ‘That’s quite out of order! Stop it, stop it!’

‘Oh, Vasily Ivanych,’ the old woman mumbled, ‘it’s been so long since my boy, my darling Yenyushenka…’ and without removing
her arms she moved her wrinkled face, all wet with tears and full of tenderness, away from Bazarov and then again pressed
her head against him.

‘Well, yes, of course, it’s all in the nature of things,’ said Vasily Ivanych, ‘only it’d be better if we went inside. Yevgeny’s
brought a guest here. You must excuse us,’ he added, turning to Arkady, with a small click of his heels, ‘you understand,
feminine frailty, well… and a mother’s heart too…’

However, his own lips and eyebrows were twitching, and his
chin trembled… but it was obvious he wanted to control himself and to appear almost unmoved. Arkady bowed.

‘Come on, Mother, really,’ said Bazarov and led the exhausted old woman into the house. Having put her into a comfortable
chair, he again gave his father a quick hug and introduced Arkady to him.

‘I am so pleased to meet you,’ said Vasily Ivanych, ‘only you mustn’t be too critical of us. I have a simple house, army style.
Arina Vlasyevna, do please calm down. Pull yourself together. This gentleman who’s come to stay is going to think badly of
you.’

‘Sir,’ said the old woman through her tears, ‘I don’t have the honour of knowing your name…’

‘Arkady Nikolaich,’ Vasily Ivanovich proclaimed, prompting in a low voice.