Fathers and Sons (19 page)

‘You must forgive my silliness.’ The old woman blew her nose and, leaning her head first right then left, she carefully wiped
one eye after the other. ‘Forgive me. You see, I thought I would die without seeing again my da…a…arling.’

‘But you have now, madame,’ Vasily Ivanovich interrupted. ‘Tanyushka,’ he said, turning to a barefoot girl of about thirteen
in a bright-red cotton dress, who had timorously put her head round the door, ‘bring your mistress a glass of water – and
mind you bring it on a tray – and may I invite you, gentlemen,’ he added with a kind of old-fashioned playfulness, ‘into a
half-pay veteran’s study?’

‘Yenyushechka, let me give you just one more hug,’ Arina Vlasyevna moaned. Bazarov bent down towards her. ‘You’ve become so
handsome!’

‘Handsome or not,’ said Vasily Ivanovich, ‘but as people say, he’s a real
homme fait.
¹
And now, Arina Vlasyevna, I hope that, having sated your mother’s heart, you’ll also think of feeding your dear guests, because,
as you know, you can’t get nightingales to sing on just stories.’

The old woman got up from her armchair.

‘The table will be laid right away, Vasily Ivanych. I’ll run round to the kitchen myself and tell them to put on the samovar.
You’ll have everything, just everything. It’s three years I haven’t seen him, three years I haven’t given him anything to
eat or drink – that’s hard.’

‘Well, mistress, see to it all and don’t let us down. Gentlemen, please follow me. And here’s Timofeich come to greet you,
Yevgeny. And I think he’s pleased to see you, the old rascal. What? You’re pleased to see him, aren’t you, old rascal? Be
so good as to follow me.’

And Vasily Ivanovich bustled ahead, scraping and shuffling along in his worn-down slippers.

His whole small house consisted of six tiny rooms. One of them, to which he took our friends, was called the study. A table
with massive legs, piled with papers that were black with dust as if they had been smoked, took up the entire space between
the two windows. On the walls hung Turkish rifles, whips, a sabre, a couple of maps, some kind of anatomical drawings, a portrait
of Hufeland,
²
a monogram woven out of hair in a black frame and a diploma framed under glass. A leather couch, in places worn through and
torn, stood between two huge cupboards of Karelian birch: their shelves were crammed higgledy-piggledy with books, boxes,
stuffed birds, tins and glass flasks. In a corner stood a broken electrical machine.

‘I warned you, my dear guest, that we live here like in army camp, so to speak…’

‘Stop it, why are you apologizing?’ Bazarov interrupted. ‘Kirsanov knows very well that we’re not rich as Croesus and that
you don’t live in a palace. Where are we going to put him, that’s the problem?’

‘Excuse me, Yevgeny, I’ve got an excellent room in the wing. He’ll be very comfortable there.’

‘So you’ve got a wing now?’

‘Of course, where the bathhouse is,’ Timofeich interjected. ‘That is, next door to the bathhouse,’ Vasily Ivanovich quickly
interrupted. ‘It’s summer now…
³
I’ll go round there and give the orders. And, Timofeich, you bring in his things. Yevgeny, you of course will be getting
my study.
Suum cuique.
’
⁴

‘That’s what he’s like. The funniest old fellow and the very best,’ Bazarov added as soon as Vasily Ivanovich had gone out.
‘Just as odd a fellow as yours, but in a different way. He talks a great deal.’

‘And I think your mother’s a lovely woman,’ said Arkady.

‘Yes, she has no pretensions. You just see what a dinner she’ll give us.’

‘We didn’t expect you today, sir. They didn’t bring the beef,’ said Timofeich, who had just dragged in Bazarov’s trunk.

‘We’ll do without beef, if there isn’t any there’s nothing we can do. They say poverty isn’t a vice.’

‘How many serfs does your father own?’ Arkady suddenly asked.

‘The property isn’t his but my mother’s. As far as I remember, fifteen.’

‘They’re twenty-two in all,’ said Timofeich crossly.

They heard the shuffling of slippers, and Vasily Ivanovich appeared again.

‘Your room will be ready to receive you in a few minutes,’ he solemnly announced, ‘Arkady… Nikolaich? I think I’ve got your
name right. And here is your servant,’ he added, pointing to a boy who had come in with him, with a closely cropped head and
wearing a dark-blue tunic that had gone at the elbows and borrowed boots. ‘His name is Fedka. I say once again, although my
son tells me not to, don’t be too critical. But he can fill a pipe. You do smoke?’

‘Yes, but usually I smoke cigars,’ Arkady answered.

‘You’re so sensible. I myself have a preference for cigars, but in our remote parts it’s exceptionally difficult to obtain
them.’

‘That’s enough whingeing from you,’ Bazarov interrupted again. ‘Better sit down here on the couch and let me have a look at
you.’

Vasily Ivanovich laughed and sat down. He was very like his son in features, only his forehead was lower and his mouth a little
wider, and he kept moving the entire time and shrugging his shoulders as if his clothes were too tight under the arms; he
blinked and coughed and fidgeted with his fingers, whereas his son displayed a kind of relaxed immobility.

‘Whingeing!’ Vasily Ivanovich repeated. ‘Yevgeny, don’t think I want to make our guest feel sorry for us by saying we live
so far out in the sticks. On the contrary, I’m of the opinion that for a thinking man there’s no such thing as the sticks.
At least I try in so far as I am able not to let the grass grow under my feet, as people say, not to lag behind the times.’

Vasily Ivanovich took out of his pocket a new yellow silk handkerchief which he’d gone to get as he hurried to Arkady’s room,
and went on speaking, waving the handkerchief in the air.

‘I’m not talking now of the fact, for example, that I have made painful sacrifices. I’ve put my peasants on quit-rent
⁵
and given them the land in return for half the crop. That I thought my duty, and in this case common sense dictated it, although
other landowners don’t even think about that. I’m talking of science, of education.’

‘Yes, I see you have the
Friend of Health
⁶
from 1855,’ Bazarov remarked.

‘An old colleague sends it on to me out of friendship,’ Vasily Ivanovich said quickly, ‘but we do have, for example, some
notion of phrenology,’ he added, addressing himself, however, more to Arkady and pointing to a small white plaster head in
the cupboard, divided up into numbered squares. ‘We’ve heard too of Schönlein and Rademacher.’
⁷

‘Do folk in the province of *** still believe in Rademacher?’

Vasily Ivanovich coughed.

‘In the province of… Of course, gentlemen, you know better. How can we keep up with you? You’ve come to take our place. In
my day too there was a Hoffman, a humoral pathologist, and a Brown with his “Vitalism”,
⁸
who seemed very funny, but they too once had their day. In your eyes some new man has taken their place, whom you worship,
but in twenty years’ time he too probably will be laughed at.’

‘I’ll say to you as a consolation,’ said Bazarov, ‘that now we generally laugh at medical science and don’t acknowledge any
masters.’

‘How is that? Don’t you want to be a doctor?’

‘I do, but one thing doesn’t stand in the way of the other.’

Vasily Ivanovich poked his middle finger into his pipe, in which there still was some hot ash.

‘Well, maybe, maybe – I’m not going to argue. So what am I? A retired army doctor,
voilà tout
,
⁹
who’s now become an agronomist. I served in your grandfather’s brigade,’ (again he addressed Arkady) ‘yes, yes, I’ve seen
a lot in my time. I’ve mixed in every kind of society, there’s no one I haven’t met! I… this man whom you see in front of
you has taken the pulse of Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky.
¹⁰
And the men of 14 December from the Army of the South
¹¹
– you understand whom I’m talking about’ (and here Vasily Ivanovich meaningfully pursed his lips) ‘– I knew them all, every
one. Well, that was nothing to do with me. I just know how to use a lancet, and that’s it! But your grandfather was very respected,
a true soldier.’

‘Come on, he was a real dolt,’ Bazarov said lazily.

‘Oh, Yevgeny, your language! Please… Of course, General Kirsanov wasn’t one of the…’

‘Enough of him,’ Bazarov interrupted. ‘As we were driving up here I was pleased to see your little birch wood, it’s come on
well.’

Vasily Ivanovich livened up.

‘And just look at my little garden now! I’ve planted every tree myself. I have fruit, and soft fruit, and all kinds of medicinal
herbs. You young gentlemen may be very clever, but still old Paracelsus
¹²
expressed a hallowed truth: “
In herbis, verbis et lapidibus…
”
¹³
I’ve given up practising, you know, but a couple of times a week I have to get up to my old tricks. If they come for advice,
one can’t send them out on their ear. Sometimes the poor come for help. And there are no doctors here at all. One of my local
neighbours, a retired major, also acts as a doctor – think of that. I ask whether he’s studied any medicine… I am told, no,
he hasn’t, he’s more of a philanthropist… Ha ha, a philanthropist! Eh? That’s good! Ha ha! Ha ha!’

‘Fedka, fill me a pipe,’ Bazarov said grimly.

‘Another doctor here comes to see a patient,’ Vasily Ivanovich went on with a kind of desperation, ‘but the patient’s already
gone
ad patres
.
¹⁴
The servant won’t let the doctor in and says,
“You’re not needed now.” The doctor wasn’t expecting that, he’s nonplussed and asks, “So, did your master have the hic-coughs
before he died?” “He did, sir.” “Did he hiccough a lot?” “Yes, he did, a lot.” “Ah – that’s good.” So back he goes. Ha ha
ha!’

The old man was the only one to laugh. Arkady gave a smile. Bazarov just stretched. The conversation went on this way for
about an hour. Arkady managed to go to his room, which turned out to be the bathhouse’s changing room, but very comfortable
and clean. Eventually Tanyusha came in and announced dinner was ready.

Vasily Ivanovich was the first to get up.

‘Gentlemen, let’s go in! I am truly sorry if I’ve bored you. Perhaps my good lady will satisfy you more than I have.’

The dinner, though prepared in haste, turned out to be excellent, even abundant. Only the wine had gone off a bit, as they
say: the almost black sherry, which Timofeich had bought from a merchant he knew in the town, had a taste which was a mixture
of copper and resin. And the flies too were a problem. Usually a house boy kept them away with a big branch of foliage; but
on this occasion Vasily Ivanovich had sent him off for fear of censure from the younger generation.

Arina Vlasyevna had managed to smarten up her appearance: she had put on a tall cap with silk ribbons and a blue fringed shawl.
She burst into tears again as soon as she saw her Yenyusha, but her husband didn’t have to reprove her: she herself quickly
wiped away her tears so as not to stain her shawl.

Only the young men ate. The master and mistress had had their dinner long before. Fedka served, clearly bothered by his unfamiliar
boots, and he was helped by a woman with one eye and a masculine face, Anfisushka by name, who performed the duties of housekeeper,
poultrywoman and laundress. Throughout the dinner Vasily Ivanovich paced up and down the room and with a completely happy,
even blissful expression on his face talked about the grave misgivings he felt about the policies of Napoleon III and the
complexity of the Italian question.
¹⁵
Arina Vlasyevna paid no attention to Arkady and didn’t press food on him. Leaning her round head on her hand – her full
cherry-red lips and the small birthmarks on her cheeks and brow emphasized its sweet-naturedness – she didn’t take her eyes
off her son and kept on sighing; she was dying to know how long he had come for but she was frightened to ask him. ‘What if
he says for two days,’ she thought, and her heart froze. After the roast Vasily Ivanovich disappeared for a moment and came
back with an opened half-bottle of champagne. ‘You see,’ he exclaimed, ‘even though we live at the back of beyond, on high
days and holidays we have the wherewithal for enjoyment!’ He poured out three goblets and a tiny glass, proposed the health
of ‘our guests beyond price’ and drank down his goblet in one, army fashion, and he made Arina Vlasyevna drink the tiny glass
to the last drop.

When it was the turn of the preserves,
¹⁶
Arkady, who couldn’t abide sweet things, nonetheless felt it his duty to sample four different kinds, all freshly made, all
the more so because Bazarov flatly declined and lit up a cigar right away. Then tea came on the scene, with cream and butter
and pretzels. Then Vasily Ivanovich took them all into the garden to admire the beauty of the evening. Walking past a bench,
he whispered to Arkady:

‘I like to philosophize in this spot and watch the sunset. That’s just the thing for a hermit. And further on, over there,
I’ve planted a few trees, Horace’s
¹⁷
favourites.’

‘What kind of tree?’ asked Bazarov, who had overheard.

‘Acacias, of course.’

Bazarov started yawning.

‘I suppose it’s time for the travellers to go to the arms of Morpheus,’
¹⁸
said Vasily Ivanovich.

‘You mean it’s time to sleep!’ said Bazarov. ‘That’s sound thinking. It’s time indeed.’

Saying goodnight to his mother, Bazarov kissed her on the forehead, and she embraced him and surreptitiously, behind his back,
made the sign of the cross over him three times. Vasily Ivanovich took Arkady to his room and wished him ‘that health-giving
repose I used to enjoy at your happy age’. And indeed Arkady slept very well in his changing room: it smelt of mint, and two
crickets chirped soporifically to each other
behind the stove. Vasily Ivanovich left Arkady to go to his study. He curled up on the couch at his son’s feet and was going
to chat to him; however, Bazarov immediately asked him to go, saying he was sleepy, but he didn’t sleep till dawn. Eyes wide
open, he stared angrily into the darkness: childhood memories had no power over him while he hadn’t yet had time to be free
of his recent bitter experiences. Arina Vlasyevna first prayed her fill, then she talked for a long, long time to Anfisushka,
who, standing stock-still before her mistress and fixing her single eye on her, communicated to her all her own observations
and thoughts about Yevgeny Vasilyevich. The old woman had become quite giddy from happiness, and wine, and cigar smoke. Her
husband started to talk to her and threw up his hands.