Fathers and Sons Read online

  ‘What does a Russian need then, in your opinion? To listen to you, we are in any case living beyond the bounds of humanity, outside its laws. But really – the logic of history demands…’

  ‘What’s that logic to us? We’ll get on without it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Like this. I hope you don’t need logic to put a bit of bread into your mouth when you’re hungry. What good are all these abstractions to us?’

  Pavel Petrovich raised his hands.

  ‘After that remark I don’t understand you. You insult the Russian people. I do not understand how one can fail to acknowledge principles and rules! What guides you, then?’

  ‘Uncle, I’ve already told you we don’t recognize any authority,’ Arkady intervened.

  ‘We are guided by what we recognize as useful,’ said Bazarov. ‘The most useful course of action at present is to reject – and we reject.’

  ‘You reject everything?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘What? Not just art, poetry… but also… I hardly dare say it…’

  ‘Everything,’ Bazarov repeated with an air of ineffable calm.

  Pavel Petrovich stared at him. He hadn’t expected that answer, and Arkady even went red from pleasure.

  ‘Come now,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘You reject everything, or more precisely, you destroy everything… But one must also build.’

  ‘That’s not our concern… First one must clear the ground.’

  ‘The present condition of the people demands it,’ Arkady said seriously. ‘We must meet those demands, we don’t have the right to satisfy personal egoism.’

  It was clear that Bazarov didn’t like this last sentence, it gave off a whiff of philosophy, i.e. romanticism, for he called philosophy as well by that name; but he didn’t see the need to contradict his young pupil.

  ‘No, no!’ Pavel Petrovich exclaimed in a sudden burst of temper. ‘I don’t want to believe that you gentlemen know the Russian people properly, that you represent their needs, their aspirations! No, the Russian people aren’t what you imagine them to be. They have a hallowed respect for traditions, they are patriarchal, they can’t live without faith…’

  ‘I won’t argue with that,’ interrupted Bazarov, ‘I am even prepared to agree that on that you are right.’

  ‘But if I am right…’

  ‘That still proves nothing.’

  ‘Proves precisely nothing,’ Arkady repeated with the confidence of an experienced chess player who has foreseen an obviously dangerous move from his opponent and so is not at all thrown by it.

  ‘What do you mean proves nothing?’ Pavel Petrovich stuttered in astonishment. ‘So you’re going against your own people?’

  ‘And what if I am?’ exclaimed Bazarov. ‘Those people think that when it thunders it’s the Prophet Elijah going about the heavens in a chariot. So? Am I to agree with them? You talk of the people being Russian, but aren’t I Russian myself?’

  ‘No, you are not Russian after all you’ve just said! I cannot recognize you as a Russian.’

  ‘My grandfather ploughed the soil,’ Bazarov replied with arrogant pride. ‘Ask any one of your peasants which of us – you or me – he would first recognize as a fellow countryman. You can’t even talk to them.’

  ‘And you talk to them and at the same time you hold them in contempt.’

  ‘What of that, if they deserve contempt! You disapprove of my way of thinking, but why do you assume it’s just accidental, that it doesn’t come out of that very same national spirit you’re so keen on?’

  ‘What! So what we really need are nihilists!’

  ‘Needed or no, that’s not for us to judge. You too regard yourself as serving some purpose.’

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, no personal remarks!’ Nikolay Petrovich exclaimed, getting up from his seat.

  Pavel Petrovich smiled and, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder, made him sit down again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t lose control of myself, precisely because of that sense of dignity which Mr… which the doctor mocks so cruelly. Now let me say this,’ he went on, again addressing Bazarov, ‘perhaps you think that you are teaching something new? You’re wrong to think that. The kind of materialism you preach has been in vogue several times and it has always turned out to be groundless…’

  ‘Another foreign word,’ Bazarov interrupted. He was beginning to get angry and his face took on an ugly, almost copper colour. ‘In the first place, we preach nothing, we’re not like that…’

  ‘What do you do then?’

  ‘This is what we do. At first, not so long ago, we were saying that our civil servants take bribes, that we have no roads, no trade, no proper courts of justice…’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re denouncers – I think that’s the term. I too agree with many of your denouncements, but…’

  ‘But then we realized that to witter away about the sores on the face of society just isn’t worth doing, it only leads to trivial and doctrinaire thinking. We came to see that our so-called progressives and denouncers are good for nothing, that we’re spending our time on nonsense, talking about some kind of art, unconscious creativity, parliamentarianism, the bar and God knows what else, when what’s at stake is people’s daily bread, when we’re suffocating under the crudest superstition, when all our public companies are going bankrupt solely because there aren’t enough honest men, when the liberation7 the government is so concerned with will probably bring us little benefit because our muzhiks are happy to rob themselves in order to go and drink themselves silly in a tavern.’

  ‘Very well,’ Pavel Petrovich interrupted. ‘You’ve made up your mind about all that and have decided not to do anything serious about it.’

  ‘We’ve decided not to do anything serious about it,’ Bazarov repeated gloomily.

  He suddenly became angry with himself for having spoken so openly in front of this gentleman.

  ‘And you just want to hurl abuse?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And that’s called nihilism?’

  ‘And that’s called nihilism,’ Bazarov repeated again, this time in a particularly insolent tone.

  Pavel Petrovich narrowed his eyes slightly.

  ‘So that’s how things are!’ he said in a strangely calm voice. ‘Nihilism is to bring succour to all our woes, and you, you are our saviours and heroes. But why do you abuse others, just like those denouncers of what’s wrong? Don’t you talk just as much hot air as everyone else?’

  ‘If there’s one thing we’re not guilty of, it’s that,’ Bazarov muttered between his teeth.

  ‘Well then, are you taking action? Or planning to take action?’

  Bazarov didn’t reply. Pavel Petrovich began to tremble but controlled himself at once.

  ‘Hm!… Taking action, destroying…’ he went on. ‘But how can one destroy without even knowing why?’

  ‘We destroy because we’re a force,’ said Arkady.

  Pavel Petrovich looked at his nephew and gave a smile.

  ‘Yes, a force. And one that doesn’t have to give an account of itself,’ said Arkady, standing straighter.

  ‘Wretched boy!’ cried Pavel Petrovich, quite unable to contain himself any longer. ‘If you’d only think what you are supporting in Russia with your second-rate phrase! No, it would try the patience of an angel! A force! There is a force in a savage Kalmuck and in a Mongol – but why do we need it? Civilization is our road, yes, yes, sir, it is. We value the fruits she bears. And don’t tell me those fruits are worthless. The humblest dauber, un barbouilleur,8 the cheap pianist who gets five kopecks for an evening, they all bring more benefit than you do, because they are representatives of civilization and not of crude Mongol force! You imagine yourselves to be advanced – only to sit in a Kalmuck cart! A force! And lastly, do remember this, you men of force – there are just four and a half of you, but the rest are millions strong. They won’t let you trample their most hallowed beliefs underfo
ot. They will crush you!’

  ‘Even if they crush us, that’s the way we have to go,’ said Bazarov. ‘We shall see what we shall see. We’re not as few as you suppose.’

  ‘What? Do you seriously think you can cope, cope with an entire nation?’

  ‘Moscow, you know, was burnt down by a penny candle,’9 answered Bazarov.

  ‘Yes, yes. First, you show us almost Satanic pride, then ridicule. This, this is what grabs the interest of the young, this is what rules the hearts of inexperienced boys! There’s one here sitting next to you, he almost worships you, just look at him.’ (Arkady turned away and frowned.) ‘And this infection has already spread far and wide. I’m told our painters in Rome don’t set foot in the Vatican. They think Raphael10 almost an idiot because he is an “authority”, but they themselves are disgustingly feeble and unproductive, their own imagination doesn’t go beyond A Maiden at the Fountain,11 try as they will! And the maiden is execrably painted. You think they’re heroes, don’t you?’

  ‘I think,’ Bazarov objected, ‘that Raphael isn’t worth a brass farthing, and that they are no better than him.’

  ‘Bravo! Bravo! Do listen, Arkady… That’s how the modern young should talk! And indeed, if you think about it, they are bound to follow you! Previously young people had to study; they didn’t want to be thought ignoramuses and so they were forced to work. But now they only have to say “Everything in the world is rubbish” – and the world’s their oyster. The young are happy. And with reason, they were once simply dimwits but now they’ve become nihilists.’

  ‘Now you’ve been let down by your vaunted sense of personal dignity,’ Bazarov said calmly while Arkady went red and his eyes flashed. ‘Our argument has gone too far… I think we’d better stop it. And I’ll be prepared to agree with you,’ he added standing up, ‘when you show me a single institution in our society, in the private or public sphere, which doesn’t demand total, unsparing rejection.’

  ‘I will show you millions of such institutions,’ exclaimed Pavel Petrovich, ‘millions of them! The peasant commune, for example.’12

  A cold smile curled Bazarov’s lips.

  ‘Now, on the subject of the commune,’ he said ‘you’d better have a chat to your brother. I think he’s now come to know from experience what the commune is like, and its collective responsibility, and the temperance movement, and little things of that sort.’

  ‘Then what about the family, the family as it exists among our peasants!’ Pavel Petrovich shouted.

  ‘I think you’d better not look into that question either in too much detail. I imagine you’ve heard of incest between men and their sons’ wives? Listen, Pavel Petrovich, give yourself a couple of days, you won’t hit on anything right away. Review all the classes of our society and think very carefully about each one, while Arkady and I go and…’

  ‘Mock everything,’ Pavel Petrovich continued.

  ‘No, dissect frogs. Come on, Arkady. Goodbye, gentlemen!’

  The two friends went out. The brothers remained alone and at first just looked at each other.

  At last Pavel Petrovich spoke. ‘There you see modern youth! Those are our heirs!’

  ‘Our heirs,’ Nikolay Petrovich repeated with a heavy sigh. During the whole argument he’d been sitting as if he were on hot coals, only giving the odd furtive, pained glance at Arkady. ‘Do you know, Brother, what I’ve remembered? I once had a quarrel with our dead mamma. She shouted and wouldn’t listen to me. In the end I said to her, “You can’t understand me; we belong to two different generations.” She was terribly offended, but I thought to myself, “What’s one to do? The pill is bitter but it has to be swallowed.” Now our turn has come, and our heirs can say to us, “You don’t belong to our generation. Swallow the pill.”’

  ‘You are much too indulgent and modest,’ Pavel Petrovich objected. ‘On the contrary I am convinced that you and I have much more right on our side than these young gentlemen, although perhaps our language may be slightly old-fashioned, vieilli,13 and we don’t have that arrogant self-assurance… And the modern young are so affected! You ask one, do you want red or white wine. “I have an habitual preference for red!” he answers in a bass voice and with such a pompous expression, as if the whole universe were looking at him at that moment…’

  ‘Do you want any more tea,’ said Fenechka, putting her head round the door. She hadn’t been brave enough to come into the drawing room while she could hear the argument.

  ‘No, you can tell them to take the samovar away,’ said Nikolay Petrovich, getting up to greet her. Pavel Petrovich brusquely said ‘bon soir’14 to him and went off to his study.

  XI

  Half an hour later Nikolay Petrovich went into the garden, to his favourite arbour. His thoughts were gloomy. For the first time he recognized how far he and his son had grown apart. He foresaw that with every day the distance between them would become greater and greater. So there had been no point in his having spent whole days during those winters in St Petersburg poring over the most recent publications; no point in his listening carefully to the conversations of the young; no point in his pleasure at getting a word in during their heated discussions. ‘My brother says we are right,’ he thought, ‘and setting all vanity aside, I do myself think they are further from the truth than we are, but at the same time I feel they have something which we don’t, some advantage over us… Youth? No, not just youth. Doesn’t their advantage lie in their being less marked by class than we are?’

  Nikolay Petrovich sunk his head and rubbed his face with his hand.

  ‘But to reject poetry?’ he thought again. ‘Not to have a feeling for art, for nature…?’

  And he looked around him as if trying to understand how it was possible not to have a feeling for nature. Evening was now coming on. The sun had gone behind a small aspen wood which lay a quarter of a mile from his garden and cast its seemingly unending shadow over the motionless fields. A peasant was trotting on his white horse down a narrow, dark track which ran by the wood; although he was riding in shade, his whole figure was clearly visible down to a patch on his shoulder; his horse’s legs moved with a brisk regularity that was pleasing to the eye. For their part the sun’s rays went into the wood and, penetrating the undergrowth, bathed the trunks of the aspens in such a warm light that they looked like the trunks of fir trees; their foliage went almost dark blue while above them rose the azure sky tinged pink by the sunset. Swallows were flying high; the wind had dropped; lingering bees lazily, sleepily buzzed on the lilac blooms; a column of moths danced above a single protruding branch. ‘My God, how beautiful it is!’ thought Nikolay Petrovich, and some favourite lines of poetry were about to spring to his lips when he remembered Arkady and Stoff und Kraft and fell silent. He continued to sit there and continued to indulge in the pleasurable, melancholy sport of solitary reverie. He liked to dream – living in the country had developed that propensity in him. It was not so long ago that he was dreaming like this while waiting for his son at the inn, but since then a change had happened, relationships that weren’t quite clear had now been defined… so very clearly!

  He thought again of his dead wife, but not as he had known her for many years, a good and careful housewife, but as a girl with a slender waist, an innocently curious gaze and tightly plaited hair above a child’s neck. He remembered seeing her for the first time. He was then still a student. He met her on the stairs of the apartment where he was living. He bumped into her by accident, turned round to apologize and could only mumble ‘Pardon, monsieur’;1 she bowed her head, smiled and ran off as if she was frightened; then at the turn of the stairs, she gave him a quick look, put on a serious face and blushed. And then his first shy visits, the half words, half smiles, the doubts and sorrow and outbursts, and finally the breathless happiness… Where had all that gone? She became his wife, he was happy as few men on earth are… ‘But why,’ he thought, ‘couldn’t those first sweet moments last for ever and never die?’

  He didn
’t try to clarify his thoughts for himself, but he felt that he wanted to keep hold of that time of happiness with something more powerful than memory; he wanted palpably to feel his Mariya by him again, to feel the warmth of her body and her breath, and he already sensed that above him…

  ‘Nikolay Petrovich,’ came Fenechka’s voice from near by, ‘where are you?’

  He shuddered. He felt no pain or guilt… He didn’t admit even the possibility of any comparison between his wife and Fenechka, but he regretted she’d thought of looking for him. Her voice at once reminded him of his grey hairs, his age, his present state…

  The enchanted world into which he had entered, rising out of the cloudy waters of the past, shivered – and vanished.

  ‘I’m here,’ he answered, ‘I’m coming, you go in.’ ‘There’s the voice of class’ was the thought that flashed through his mind. Fenechka silently looked at him in the arbour and disappeared, and he noticed with surprise that night had fallen since he had started to dream. Everything round him was dark and quiet, and he saw before him Fenechka’s pale little face. He got up and was about to return home; but the emotions in his breast couldn’t settle, and he started to walk slowly around the garden, now pensively looking at the ground underfoot, now raising his eyes to the sky with its swarm of twinkling stars. He walked a long time, till he was almost exhausted, but the anxiety in him, a vague, questing, sad feeling, still hadn’t gone. How Bazarov would have laughed at him if he knew what was going on in his mind! Arkady himself would have censured him. Here he was, a man of forty-four, an agronomist and landowner, in tears, tears for no reason. It was a hundred times worse than the cello.

  Nikolay Petrovich went on walking and couldn’t bring himself to go back into the house, into that peaceful and cosy nest, welcoming him with all its lit windows. He hadn’t the strength to leave the darkness, the garden, the feeling of fresh air on his face, that melancholy, that sense of uneasiness…

  He met Pavel Petrovich at the bend of a path.