Fathers and Sons Read online

  Translator’s Note

  The Russian title of Turgenev’s novel, Ottsy i deti, means ‘Fathers and Children’. But the large majority of its translations in all languages have been titled Fathers and Sons or its equivalent from the start, often with Turgenev’s knowledge and presumably approval. It is reasonable to assume his children were male. Moreover the Russian of ‘Fathers and Sons’ sounds awkward. But it should be noted that Isaiah Berlin referred to the novel as Fathers and Children.

  A couple of things about my translation: I have by and large adhered to Turgenev’s paragraph structure but have sometimes broken up long ones. Turgenev more often refers to Odintsova, thus, by her surname alone; occasionally as Anna Sergeyevna. I have done the reverse. While Russians do make more use of women’s surnames alone, it seems more comfortable not to (except for operatic divas). I don’t understand the nuances of Turgenev’s usage if there are any. Tolstoy certainly does not refer to Karenina.

  I have used the text of the Soviet Academy of Sciences edition: I.S. Turgenev, Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy, Sochineniya, vol. 8 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1964).

  I owe thanks to Simon Dixon and David Moon for some most useful information on the contemporary value of the rouble; and to Eleo for a final encouraging and valuable reading of my text.

  Through the accident of a holiday home near by I completed this translation only a few miles from the esplanade at Ventnor where Turgenev first worked out the characters of his novel and their relationships in the late summer of 1860.

  Seaview, Isle of Wight, 2008

  Dedicated to the memory of

  Vissarion Grigoryevich BELINSKY1

  I

  ‘Well, Pyotr, can you see anything yet?’ It was 20 May 1859.1 The speaker was a gentleman a little over forty years old, wearing a dusty coat and checked trousers, who had gone out without his hat on to the low porch of an inn on the *** Highway. He was asking his manservant, a round-faced young fellow with fair down on his chin and small, colourless eyes.

  Everything about Pyotr – his turquoise earring, dyed and pomaded hair and deferential body movements – in short, everything – declared him to be a man of the modern, educated generation. He gave a supercilious glance down the road and answered, ‘Nothing, sir, I can’t see anything at all.’

  ‘Can’t you see them?’ the gentleman repeated.

  ‘No, nothing,’ the servant answered a second time.

  The gentleman sighed and sat down on a bench. Let us acquaint the reader with him while he is sitting with his feet tucked in beneath him and looking thoughtfully around.

  His name is Nikolay Petrovich Kirsanov. Ten miles from that little inn he has a decent property of 200 souls,2 or, as he now puts it since he settled the boundaries with the peasants and started a modern ‘farm’, of 5,000 acres of land. His father, a general and a veteran of the War of 1812,3 a semi-literate Russian type, coarse-grained but decent, had served in the army all his life. He commanded first a brigade, then a division, and had always lived in the provinces, where by virtue of his rank he played a fairly important role. Nikolay Petrovich was born in the south of Russia, like his elder brother Pavel, of whom we shall speak later, and till the age of fourteen he was educated at home, surrounded by ill-paid tutors, easy-going but obsequious adjutants and other regimental and staff personnel.

  His mother, née Kolyazin, as a girl had been known as Agathe4 but when she became the general’s lady, as Agafokleya Kuzminishna Kirsanova. She could be classed as a ‘barracks matriarch’. She wore splendid caps and rustling silk gowns; in church she was first to go up and kiss the cross; she spoke loudly and a great deal, in the mornings she gave her children her hand to kiss, and at night she blessed them – in short, she did exactly as she pleased.

  As a general’s son Nikolay Petrovich was destined for the army, like his brother Pavel – although not only was he far from being a hero, he even had the reputation of being ‘a bit of a softy’. But he broke his leg on the very day the news of his commission arrived. He spent two months lying in bed and for the rest of his life he had a ‘bad leg’. His father gave up on him and let him follow a civilian career. He took him to St Petersburg as soon as he was eighteen and enrolled him in the university. At the same time his brother happened to get his commission in a Guards regiment. The young men began sharing an apartment, under the distant supervision of a cousin on their mother’s side, Ilya Kolyazin, a senior civil servant. Their father returned to his army division and his spouse, and only occasionally sent his sons large sheets of grey paper scrawled in his bold clerk’s hand, the last sheet graced by the words ‘Piotr Kirsanov, Major-General’, laboriously surrounded by flourishes.

  In 1835 Nikolay Petrovich left university with a degree, and in the same year General Kirsanov, who had been forced into retirement after a poor performance by his troops on review, came with his wife to live in St Petersburg. He intended to rent a house near the Tauride Garden and had put his name down for the English Club, but he suddenly died of a stroke. Agafokleya Kuzminishna soon followed him. She could not get used to an obscure life in the capital. The boredom of a pensioned existence consumed her.

  Meanwhile Nikolay Petrovich, while his parents were still alive and to their considerable chagrin, had managed to fall in love with the daughter of Prepolovensky, a minor civil servant who was his former landlord. She was a pretty young lady, and a ‘cultured’ one too: meaning that she read the serious articles in the ‘Science’ section of the reviews. He married her as soon as the period of mourning for his parents was over. He left the Ministry of Crown Lands – where his father had got him a position through connections – and led a life of bliss with his Masha, first in a dacha5 near the Forestry Institute, then in the city, in a small and attractive apartment with clean stairs and a chilly drawing room, and eventually in the country, where he finally settled, and where after a short time he had a son, Arkady. The couple lived very happily and quietly: they were almost never parted, they read together, sang and played duets on the piano. She planted flowers and looked after the poultry yard, he occasionally went shooting and looked after the estate, and Arkady grew and grew – also happily and quietly.

  Ten years passed like a dream. In 1847 Kirsanov’s wife died. He was hardly able to bear that blow, and his hair went grey in a few weeks. He was planning to go abroad for a little distraction… but then came 1848.6 He had no choice but to go back to the country and after a rather long period of doing nothing he occupied himself with introducing changes on his estate. In 1855 he took his son to university and spent three winters with him in St Petersburg, hardly ever going out and trying to get to know Arkady’s young classmates. The final winter he couldn’t go to Petersburg – and so we see him now in May 1859, completely grey-haired, a little plump and slightly bent: he is waiting for his son, who has just got his master’s degree as he had once done himself.

  The manservant, out of a feeling of propriety but maybe also not wishing to remain under his master’s eye, went out through the gates and lit a pipe. Nikolay Petrovich bent his head and began to study the dilapidated steps of the porch. A sturdy speckled hen sedately walked up and down the steps, firmly tapping with its big yellow feet, and a dirty cat posed curled up on the rail and gave it hostile looks. The sun was baking. A smell of warm rye bread came from the half-lit entrance of the little inn. Our Nikolay Petrovich fell into a reverie. ‘My son… a graduate… Arkasha…’ were the thoughts that went through his head. He tried to think of something else, and the same thoughts came back. He remembered his dead wife… ‘She didn’t live long enough!’ he whispered sadly… A fat grey pigeon alighted on the road and hurriedly went to drink from a puddle by the well. Nikolay Petrovich started to watch it, but his ear now caught the rattle of approaching wheels…

  ‘This time they’re coming, sir,’ his servant reported, dashing in from outside the gates.

  Nikolay Petrovich jumped up and directed his eyes along the road. A tarantas appeared, harnessed to a trio of car
riage horses.7 In it he caught a glimpse of the peak of a student’s cap, and the familiar outline of a beloved face…

  ‘Arkasha! Arkasha!’ Kirsanov shouted; and he ran out waving his arms… A few moments later his lips were touching the beardless, dusty and sunburnt cheek of the young graduate.

  II

  ‘Papa, let me just give myself a shake,’ said Arkady cheerfully responding to his father’s embrace in his resonant young man’s voice, a bit hoarse from the journey, ‘otherwise I’m going to make you dirty.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,’ Nikolay Petrovich said over and over with a tender smile, giving his son’s greatcoat collar and his own coat a couple of brushes with his hand. ‘Let’s have a look at you, let’s have a look,’ he added standing back. He then moved quickly off towards the inn, giving orders: ‘Out here, out here, hurry up and bring the horses.’

  Nikolay Petrovich seemed much more nervous than his son. He seemed confused and awkward. Arkady stopped him.

  ‘Papa,’ he said, ‘let me introduce you to my good friend Bazarov whom I’ve written to you about so often. He’s been kind enough to agree to come and stay with us.’

  Nikolay Petrovich quickly turned round. He went up to a tall man in a long tasselled cloak who had just got out of the carriage and firmly grasped the red and gloveless hand which Bazarov at first didn’t offer him.

  ‘I’m really delighted,’ he began, ‘and thank you for deciding to visit us. I hope… may I ask your name and your father’s?’

  ‘Yevgeny Vasilyev,’1 Bazarov answered in a slow, manly voice. He opened the collar of his cloak, and Nikolay Petrovich saw his full face – long and thin, a broad forehead, a nose flat on top and quite pointed at the end, big greenish eyes and drooping sandy side whiskers. His face, lit up by a calm smile, radiated confidence and intellect.

  ‘I hope you won’t get bored with us, my dear Yevgeny Vasilyevich,’ Nikolay Petrovich went on.

  Bazarov moved his thin lips a fraction but didn’t reply and only raised his cap. His light-brown hair was long and thick, but didn’t hide the massive contours of his large skull.

  ‘So, Arkady,’ Nikolay Petrovich began again, turning to his son, ‘shall they harness the horses right away? Or do you want to rest?’

  ‘We’ll rest at home, Papa. Tell them to harness the horses.’

  ‘Right away, right away,’ his father agreed. ‘Hey, Pyotr, do you hear? Get them going, lad, and be quick about it.’

  Pyotr – who as a modern servant hadn’t come up to kiss the young master’s hand but only bowed to him from a distance – disappeared again through the gates.

  ‘I’ve got the carriage here, and there are three horses too for your tarantas,’ Nikolay Petrovich said fussily. Meanwhile Arkady was drinking water from an iron cup the hostess of the inn had brought him, and Bazarov lit his pipe and went up to the driver, who was unharnessing the horses. ‘Only the carriage is for two, and I don’t know if your friend…’

  ‘He’ll go in the tarantas,’ Arkady interrupted in a low voice. ‘Please don’t stand on any ceremony with him. He’s a marvellous fellow, so straightforward – you’ll see.’

  Nikolay Petrovich’s coachman led out the horses.

  ‘Well, get a move on, Big Beard!’ Bazarov said to the driver.

  ‘Did you hear what the gentleman called you, Mityukha?’ said another driver, standing by with his hands stuck in the back slits of his sheepskin coat. ‘Big Beard is what you are.’

  Mityukha just gave his cap a twitch and pulled the reins from the sweat-covered shaft-horse.2

  ‘Hurry up, hurry up, lads, lend a hand,’ exclaimed Nikolay Petrovich, ‘you’ll get something for a drink!’

  In a few minutes the horses were harnessed. Father and son got in the carriage, and Pyotr climbed up on to the box. Bazarov jumped into the tarantas and leant his head against a leather pillow – and both carriages moved off.

  III

  ‘So here we are, at last you’ve finished university and come home,’ said Nikolay Petrovich, patting Arkady’s shoulder and knee. ‘At last!’

  ‘And how is Uncle? Is he well?’ asked Arkady, who for all the genuine, almost childish joy he felt wanted to move the conversation as quickly as possible from high emotion to the commonplace.

  ‘He is. He thought of driving with me to meet you but for some reason he changed his mind.’

  ‘And were you waiting for me long?’ asked Arkady.

  ‘About five hours.’

  ‘You’re so good to me, Papa!’

  Arkady quickly turned to his father and gave his cheek a smacking kiss. Nikolay Petrovich laughed quietly.

  ‘I’ve got a wonderful horse for you!’ he began. ‘You’ll see. And your room has been papered.’

  ‘And is there a room for Bazarov?’

  ‘We’ll find one for him.’

  ‘Please be nice to him, Papa. I can’t tell you how much I value him as a friend.’

  ‘Did you meet him quite recently?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought I didn’t see him last winter. What’s he studying?’

  ‘His main subject is natural science, but he knows everything. Next year he aims to qualify as a doctor.’

  ‘Ah! He’s a medic,’ Nikolay Petrovich remarked and fell silent for a moment. ‘Pyotr,’ he added pointing. ‘Aren’t those our peasants?’

  Pyotr looked where his master was pointing. Several carts drawn by horses with no bridles were clattering along a narrow track. Each held one or at most two peasants, in open sheepskin coats.

  ‘Indeed they are, sir,’ pronounced Pyotr.

  ‘Where are they going, to the town?’

  ‘One must assume so. To the tavern,’ he added scornfully, inclining slightly towards the driver as if asking for his opinion. But the driver didn’t stir. He was a fellow of the old school and didn’t hold with new-fangled views.

  ‘I’m having a lot of trouble with the peasants this year,’ Nikolay Petrovich went on, turning to his son. ‘They aren’t paying their quit-rent.1 What can we do?’

  ‘And are you happy with the hired labourers?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nikolay Petrovich said in a low voice. ‘The trouble is that people are getting at them. And there is still no real will to work. They are ruining the harnesses. But their ploughing hasn’t been too bad. It’ll all come right in the end. So are you becoming interested in farming?’

  ‘It’s such a pity you’ve no shade at home,’ Arkady remarked, not answering the last question.

  ‘I’ve put up a big awning above the balcony on the north side,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘Now we can have dinner outside.’

  ‘It’ll look pretty suburban… but none of that matters. The air is so good here! It smells so wonderful! I really think there’s nowhere in the world where the air smells as good as in this bit of country! And the sky…’

  Arkady suddenly stopped speaking, looked surreptitiously behind him out of the corner of his eye and fell silent.

  ‘Of course,’ remarked Nikolay Petrovich, ‘you were born here, so everything here must seem special to you…’

  ‘But, Papa, it makes no difference where a man is born.’

  ‘Still…’

  ‘No, it makes absolutely no difference.’

  Nikolay Petrovich looked sideways at his son and the carriage went another quarter of a mile before their conversation resumed.

  ‘I can’t remember if I wrote to tell you,’ Nikolay Petrovich began, ‘your old nanny Yegorovna died.’

  ‘Did she? Poor old woman! And is Prokofyich still alive?’

  ‘He is and he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s just as grumpy. Generally speaking you won’t find big changes at Marino.’

  ‘Do you still have the same bailiff?’2

  ‘I’ve changed my bailiff. I decided I wouldn’t any longer employ old house serfs3 who’d been freed, or at any rate I wouldn’t give them jobs involving responsibility.’ (Arkady looked meaningfully at Pyotr.) ‘Il est
libre, en effet,’4 Nikolay Petrovich said in a low voice, ‘but he’s just a valet. My new bailiff’s a townsman.5 He seems a sensible fellow. I’m giving him 250 roubles a year.6 By the way,’ added Nikolay Petrovich, rubbing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand, which with him was always a sign of embarrassment, ‘I told you just now you wouldn’t find any changes at Marino… That’s not quite true. I feel I ought to warn you, although…’

  He faltered for a moment and went on, now speaking in French.

  ‘A strict moralist would find my frankness inappropriate, but firstly this is something which can’t be concealed, and secondly you know I’ve always had definite principles about the relationship of father and son. Of course you are quite entitled to condemn me. At my age… In a word, the… the girl, of whom you’ve probably already heard…’

  ‘You mean Fenechka?’ Arkady asked, casually.

  Nikolay Petrovich went red.

  ‘Please don’t say her name so loudly… Well, yes… she’s now living with me. I’ve put her in the main house… there were two small rooms free. But all that can be changed.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Papa, why?’

  ‘Your friend will be staying with us… it’s awkward…’

  ‘Please don’t worry about Bazarov. He’s above that kind of thing.’

  ‘And then there’s you,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘The trouble is the rooms in the wing are so bad.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Papa,’ Arkady went on, ‘you seem to be apologizing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘Of course, I ought to be ashamed of myself,’ answered Nikolay Petrovich, getting redder and redder.

  ‘Stop it, Papa, do me a favour and just stop it!’ Arkady gave him a tender smile. ‘Why’s he apologizing?’ he thought to himself, overcome by indulgent tenderness towards his kind, soft-hearted father, which was mixed with the sense of a sort of secret superiority. ‘Stop it, please,’ he said again, involuntarily enjoying the consciousness of his own maturity and freedom.