Fathers and Sons Page 4

  Nikolay Petrovich looked at him through the fingers of the hand with which he was continuing to rub his forehead. Something stabbed his heart. But here he blamed himself.

  ‘These are our fields now,’ he said after a long silence.

  ‘And aren’t those our woods ahead?’ Arkady asked.

  ‘Yes, they are. Only I’ve sold them. They’re going to be felling them this year.’

  ‘Why did you sell them?’

  ‘I needed the money. And also this land is going to the peasants.’

  ‘Who aren’t paying you rent?’

  ‘That’s their business. But they will one day.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the woods,’ said Arkady and began to look around.

  The country through which they were driving could hardly be called picturesque. Fields, nothing but fields, rolled gently up and down, stretching to the horizon. Here and there they could see small woods and winding gullies, covered with sparse, low-growing bushes, which looked just the way they are shown on old maps from the time of Catherine the Great.7 They passed streams with crumbling banks and tiny ponds with broken dams. There were little villages of low huts beneath dark roofs, with thatch often half gone, and crooked threshing barns with walls of woven wattle and gaping doors, next to empty threshing floors. There were churches, brick ones with plaster peeling here and there, wooden ones with crosses askew and ruined cemeteries.

  Arkady’s heart slowly sank. As if it had been planned, all the peasants they passed were dressed in rags and riding wretched little horses. The willows by the road stood like tattered beggars, with torn bark and broken branches. Emaciated, rough-skinned cows, all bone, hungrily munched the grass in the ditches; they looked as if they’d just been torn from the murderous claws of some awesome beast. And on that beautiful spring day the pitiful sight of these exhausted animals called up the spectre of unending, cheerless winter with its blizzards and frosts and snow…

  ‘No,’ thought Arkady, ‘this country is poor, it doesn’t have either prosperity or industry. It mustn’t, mustn’t remain like this, changes are essential… but how are we to achieve them, where do we begin?…’

  Those were Arkady’s reflections… and while he was thinking, spring was coming into its own. Everything around was green and gold, everything gently and lavishly rippled and glistened in the quiet breath of a warm breeze, every single plant – trees, bushes and grass. Everywhere larks burst into an endless flow of song. Lapwings cried circling above the low-lying fields or silently ran through the tussocky grass. The cranes made beautiful specks of black as they walked through the tender green of the young spring corn. They disappeared in the rye, now just brushed with white, and from time to time only their heads showed above its rippling haze. Arkady looked and looked, and his thoughts gradually became feeble and vanished… He threw off his overcoat and looked at his father so cheerfully, so much like a little boy that Nikolay Petrovich again gave him a hug.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘We just have to climb this little hill and we’ll be able to see the house. We’re going to have a wonderful life together, Arkasha. You’ll help me with the farming, if you don’t get bored with it. You and I must now become really close and get to know each other properly, mustn’t we?’

  ‘Of course we must,’ said Arkady, ‘but what a beautiful day it is!’

  ‘To welcome you, Arkady dear. Yes, spring is here in all its glory. But I must say I agree with Pushkin – do you remember in Eugene Onegin:8

  ‘Spring, spring – season of love and passion,

  Your coming fills my heart with gloom,

  Your…’

  ‘Arkady!’ Bazarov’s voice rang out from the tarantas. ‘Pass me over a match, I haven’t got anything to light my pipe.’

  Nikolay Petrovich fell silent, and Arkady, who had been beginning to listen to him with some amazement, though not without sympathy, quickly took a silver match box from his pocket and sent it over to Bazarov with Pyotr.

  ‘Would you like a cigar?’ Bazarov shouted again.

  ‘Yes, please,’ answered Arkady.

  Pyotr came back to the carriage and handed him the box and a fat black cigar, which Arkady at once lit. It gave off such a strong and acrid smell of rank tobacco that Nikolay Petrovich, who had never smoked in his life, had to turn away his nose, but unobtrusively so as not to hurt his son’s feelings. A quarter of an hour later both carriages stopped in front of the steps of a new wooden house, painted grey and with a red iron roof. This was Marino, also known as New Town, or, as the peasants called it, Poor Man’s Farm.

  IV

  No crowd of house serfs spilled out on to the steps to greet the gentlemen: a single twelve-year-old girl appeared. She was followed out of the house by a young fellow who looked very like Pyotr, in a grey livery jacket with white crested buttons. This was Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov’s manservant. He silently opened the carriage door and unfastened the leather apron of the tarantas. Nikolay Petrovich, his son and Bazarov went through a dark, almost empty hall – through a doorway there was a glimpse of a young woman’s face – into a drawing room furnished in the latest fashion.

  ‘We’re home,’ said Nikolay Petrovich, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his hair. ‘The main thing now is to have some supper and rest.’

  ‘It’d be no bad thing to have a bite to eat,’ said Bazarov, stretching, and he sank down on to a sofa.

  ‘Yes, yes, let’s have supper, let’s have it right away.’ Nikolay Petrovich for no obvious reason stamped his feet. ‘And here’s Prokofyich.’

  A white-haired man entered: about sixty, thin and swarthy, wearing a brown tail coat with copper buttons and a pink kerchief round his neck. He gave a grin, kissed Arkady’s hand and, bowing to the guest, went over to the door and put his hands behind his back.

  ‘So, Prokofyich,’ began Nikolay Petrovich, ‘he’s come home to us at last… So? How do you think he looks?’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ the old man said and grinned again, but then quickly brought his thick eyebrows together in a frown. ‘Would you like me to serve?’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Yes, yes, please. But won’t you first go to your room, Yevgeny Vasilyich?’

  ‘No thanks, no need. Just tell them to stick my case in there and this old thing too,’ he added, taking off his cloak.

  ‘Certainly. Prokofyich, take the gentleman’s coat.’ (Prokofyich, looking puzzled, took Bazarov’s ‘old thing’ in both hands and went off on tiptoe, holding it high above his head.) ‘And, Arkady, don’t you want to go to your room for a minute?’

  ‘Yes, I must clean myself up,’ Arkady answered and moved towards the door. But at that moment a man came into the drawing room. He was of medium height and wore a dark English suit, a fashionable low-cut cravat and patent leather boots. It was Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov. He looked about forty-five. His short-cut grey hair shone with the dark sheen of new silver.1 His features, while revealing irritability, were unlined; they were exceptionally regular and clean-cut, as if chiselled with delicate, light strokes, and showed the remains of remarkable good looks. His brilliant, dark, elongated eyes were particularly fine. Arkady’s uncle’s whole way of holding himself displayed elegance and breeding; he had kept a young man’s grace and that upright carriage, standing very straight, which usually disappears after thirty.

  Pavel Petrovich took his shapely hand, with its long pink polished nails, out of his trouser pocket – a hand whose looks were set off by the snowy whiteness of a cuff fastened by a link set with a single big opal – and offered it to his nephew. Having first given him a European ‘shake hands’2 he then kissed him three times in the Russian way, that is, he three times brushed Arkady’s cheek with his scented moustache and said, ‘Welcome.’

  Nikolay Petrovich introduced his brother to Bazarov. Pavel Petrovich gave a slight inclination of his graceful torso and a half smile, but he didn’t offer his hand and even put it back in his pocket.

  ‘I was beginnin
g to think you wouldn’t come today,’ he began in a pleasant voice, amiably rocking back and forth, shifting his shoulders and displaying fine white teeth. ‘Did something happen on the way?’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ answered Arkady, ‘we just got held up a bit. But we’re now hungry as wolves. Papa, make Prokofyich hurry up, and I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Wait, I’ll come with you,’ exclaimed Bazarov, suddenly getting up from the sofa. Both young men went out.

  ‘Who is that person?’ asked Pavel Petrovich.

  ‘A friend of Arkasha’s; he says he’s a very clever man.’

  ‘Is he going to be staying with us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That hairy creature?’

  ‘Well yes.’

  Pavel Petrovich drummed his nails on the table.

  ‘I find Arkady s’est dégourdi,’3 he commented. ‘I’m glad he’s back.’

  There wasn’t much conversation during supper. Bazarov in particular said almost nothing but ate a great deal. Nikolay Petrovich told various stories out of what he called his ‘farmer’s life’ and talked of forthcoming government initiatives, of committees and delegates, of the need to introduce machinery and so forth. Pavel Petrovich slowly paced up and down the dining room – he never ate supper – occasionally sipping from a glass filled with red wine and even more occasionally making remarks or rather exclamations like ‘ah!’, ‘eh!’, ‘hm!’ Arkady gave them some Petersburg news but he felt a slight awkwardness, the awkwardness which tends to come over a young man who has just left boyhood and come back to a place where people have been used to seeing and thinking of him as a boy. He talked at too great length, he avoided the word ‘Papa’ and even once said ‘Father’ instead, even if in a very low voice. With too liberal a hand he poured much more wine in his glass than he wanted and drank it all. Prokofyich didn’t take his eyes from him and just chewed his lips. After supper they all went to their rooms.

  ‘Your uncle’s a strange creature,’ said Bazarov to Arkady, sitting by his bed and sucking on a small pipe. ‘Such exquisite clothes out here in the sticks, imagine! And his nails – you could send them to an exhibition!’

  ‘But there’s something you don’t know,’ Arkady answered. ‘He was a real social lion in his day. Some time I’ll tell you his story. He was extremely good-looking and turned women’s heads.’

  ‘So that’s why! It’s all for old times’ sake. It’s a pity there are no hearts to conquer here. I kept looking at him. His astonishing collar, like a piece of sculpture, and that beautifully shaven chin. Arkady Nikolaich, isn’t he ridiculous?’

  ‘I suppose he is. But, you know, he’s a good man.’

  ‘An archaic phenomenon! But your father’s a decent fellow. His quoting poetry isn’t up to much and he doesn’t understand a great deal about estate management but he’s a good sort.’

  ‘My father’s pure gold.’

  ‘Have you noticed how shy he is?’

  Arkady shook his head, as if he weren’t shy himself.

  ‘These antique romantics are amazing,’ Bazarov went on, ‘they work up their nerves till they get irritable… then their equilibrium’s all gone. Anyway, goodnight! My room has an English wash-stand but the door won’t shut. Still we must be encouraging… English wash-stands are progress!’

  Bazarov went out, and Arkady was overcome by a feeling of happiness. It was so good to sleep in his own home, in a familiar bed, under a blanket worked by beloved hands, maybe his nanny’s, tender, kind, untiring hands. Arkady thought of Yegorovna and gave a sigh and said a prayer for her to enter the kingdom of heaven… He didn’t pray for himself.

  Both he and Bazarov were soon asleep, but others in the house were awake for a long time. Nikolay Petrovich was disturbed by his son’s return. He got into bed but didn’t put out the candle and, leaning his head on his hand, he was lost in his thoughts. His brother sat up well after midnight in his study in his Gambs4 easy chair, before the feebly burning coals of a fire. Pavel Petrovich didn’t undress, only replaced his patent leather boots with backless red Chinese slippers. He held the latest issue of Galignani5 but he didn’t read. He gazed fixedly into the fire, where a bluish flame trembled, dying down, then flaring up… God knows where his thoughts wandered but they weren’t only in the past. His expression was set and grim, not like that of a man just thinking of his memories.

  And in a small back room a young woman sat on a big trunk, wearing a blue jacket with a white kerchief covering her dark hair. Fenechka listened and dozed and watched the open door, through which she could see a cot and hear the regular breathing of a sleeping baby.

  V

  Next morning Bazarov was the first to wake and went out of the house. ‘Oh ho!’ he thought, looking around him. ‘This place isn’t much to look at.’ When Nikolay Petrovich had settled boundaries1 with his peasants, he had to make his new house and grounds out of ten acres of completely flat, bare land. He built a house, service buildings and farmhouse, laid out a garden, dug a lake and two wells; but the young trees didn’t take well, the lake held little water and the wells had a brackish taste. Only an arbour of lilac and acacia thrived, where they sometimes had tea or dinner. In a few minutes Bazarov had been round all the paths of the garden, visited cattle yard and stable and come across two farm boys with whom he quickly made friends. He went off frog-hunting with them to a small swamp half a mile or so from the house.

  ‘What d’you need the frogs for, sir?’ one of the boys asked him.

  ‘This is why,’ Bazarov answered him. He had a special ability to inspire in himself the trust of the humblest people, although he never pandered to them and was quite offhand with them. ‘I cut up a frog and have a look at what’s going on inside it, and as you and I are just like frogs, except that we walk on two legs, I’ll then know what goes on inside us.’

  ‘Why d’you want to?’

  ‘So as not to make a mistake if you become ill and I have to look after you.’

  ‘Are you are a dokhtoor then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Vaska, do you hear that, the gentleman says you and me are just like frogs. That’s funny!’

  ‘I’m scared of frogs,’ commented Vaska, a boy of about seven with hair white as flax, barefoot and wearing a grey smock with a standing-up collar.

  ‘What’s there to be scared of? They don’t bite.’

  ‘Come on, philosophers, get in the water,’ said Bazarov.

  Meanwhile Nikolay Petrovich too had woken and went in to Arkady, whom he found dressed. Father and son went out on to the terrace covered by an awning. The samovar was already going, set on a table by the balustrade, between big bouquets of lilac. A small girl appeared, the same one who had been the first to greet the arrivals on the porch, and announced in a little voice:

  ‘Fedosya Nikolayevna isn’t feeling very well and can’t come to the table. She’s told me to ask you, will you pour the tea yourselves or shall she send Dunyasha?’

  ‘I’ll do it, I’ll pour myself,’ Nikolay Petrovich said hurriedly. ‘Arkady, how do you take your tea, with cream or with lemon?’

  ‘With cream,’ Arkady replied and after a short silence said in an inquiring tone, ‘Papa?’

  Nikolay Petrovich looked embarrassedly at his son.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  Arkady lowered his eyes.

  ‘Papa,’ he began, ‘I’m sorry if you find my question out of place, but with your own frankness yesterday you yourself prompt me to be frank… you’re not cross?…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You give me the courage to ask you… Isn’t Fen… isn’t my being here the reason for her not coming to pour the tea?’

  Nikolay Petrovich turned away a little.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said eventually, ‘she supposes… she feels ashamed…’

  Arkady quickly looked at his father.

  ‘She’s wrong to feel ashamed. Firstly, you know my way of thinking,’ (it gave Arkady great pleasure to utter these words) �
�and secondly, why would I want to constrain your life and habits one jot? Furthermore, I am certain you couldn’t make a bad choice. If you’ve let her live with you under one roof, she must deserve it. Anyway, a son doesn’t sit in judgement on his father, particularly a father like you who has never constrained my freedom in any way.’

  At first Arkady’s voice had trembled: he felt himself being magnanimous, yet at the same time he realized he was more or less giving his father a lecture. But a man is strongly affected by the sound of his own speeches, and Arkady spoke these words firmly, even dramatically.

  ‘Thank you, Arkasha,’ said Nikolay Petrovich in an indistinct voice, and his fingers again went to his eyebrows and forehead. ‘Your assumptions are quite correct. Of course if the girl didn’t deserve… It’s not a passing fancy. I feel awkward talking to you about it. But you understand that it was difficult for her to come in when you’re here, especially on the first day of your visit.’

  ‘In that case I’ll go and see her myself,’ exclaimed Arkady with a new onrush of generous feelings and jumped up from his chair. ‘I’ll explain to her that she has no reason to be ashamed in front of me.’

  Nikolay Petrovich also got up.

  ‘Arkady,’ he began, ‘please… how can you… there… I didn’t warn you…’

  But Arkady no longer heard him and ran from the terrace. Nikolay Petrovich looked after him and sank into his chair embarrassed. His heart began to beat faster… Did he see at that moment the inevitable strangeness of future relations between him and his son, did he recognize that his son might have shown him more respect if he had completely avoided the subject, did he blame himself for being weak – it’s difficult to say. He had all these feelings – but they were just sensations, and muddled ones. He continued to blush, and his heart was beating.