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The beginning of chapter 10 well illustrates another typical Turgenev device — an intonation that we hear in the epilogues of his short novels, or, as here, when the author finds it necessary to pause and survey the arrangement and distribution of his characters. Here is how it goes—it is really a pause for station identification. Bazarov is classified through the reactions of other people toward him:
'Everyone in the house had grown used to him, to his careless manners and his monosyllabic and abrupt speech. Fenichka in particular had become so used to him that one night she sent to wake him up. Mitya had had convulsions. And Bazarov had come and, half joking, half yawning after his wont, had stayed two hours with her and relieved the child. On the other hand Pavel Kirsanov had grown to detest Bazarov with all the strength of his soul; he regarded him as proud, impudent, cynical, and plebian. He suspected that Bazarov had no respect for him—him, Pavel Kirsanov. Nikolay Petrovich was rather afraid of the young 'nihilist,' and entertained doubts whether his influence over Ar-kadi was for the good, but he willingly listened to him and was willingly present at his scientific and chemical experiments. Bazarov had brought his microscope with him and busied himself with it for hours on end. The servants, too, took to him, though he poked fun at them; they felt that, after all, he was one with them under the skin, that he was not a master. . . . The boys on the farm simply ran after the 'doctor' like puppies. The old man Prokofyich was the only one who did not like him; he handed him the dishes at table with a surly face. . . . Prokofyich in his own way was quite as much of an aristocrat as Pavel Kirsanov.'
Now for the first time in the novel we have the tedious Eavesdropping Device, which has been so well described in regard to Lermontov:
'One day they had lingered rather late before returning home; Nikolay Petrovich went to meet them in the garden, and as he reached the arbor he suddenly heard the quick steps and the voices of the two young men. They were walking on the other side of the arbor and could not see him.
' 'You don't know my father well enough,' Arkadi was saying. 'Your father's a good fellow,' Bazarov pronounced, 'but he's a back number; his act is finished.'
'Nikolay Petrovich strained his ears. Arkadi made no answer.
'The 'back number' remained standing motionless for a couple of minutes and then slowly shuffled off home.
'The day before yesterday I saw him reading Pushkin,' Bazarov went on in the meantime. 'Explain to him, please, that it's of no earthly use. For he isn't a little boy, after all; it's time to drop all such rubbish. The very idea of being romantic at this time of day! Give him something useful to read.'
' 'Such as what?' asked Arkadi.
' 'Oh, I think Buchner's
' 'That's what I think,' Arkadi observed approvingly,
It would seem that Turgenev is casting around for some artificial structures to enliven his story: 'Stoff und Kraft' (Matter and Force) provides a little comic relief. Then a new puppet is produced in Matthew Kolyazin, the cousin of the Kirsanovs, who had been brought up by Uncle Kolyazin. This Matthew Kolyazin, who happens to be a governmental inspector, checking on the activities of the local town mayor, will be instrumental in permitting Turgenev to arrange matters in such a way that Arkadi and Bazarov will take a trip to town, which trip in its turn will provide Bazarov with his meeting with a fascinating lady, not unrelated to Uncle Pavel's Princess R.
In the second round of the fight between Uncle Pavel and Bazarov they come to grips at evening tea two weeks after their first fight. (The intervening meals, of which there have been perhaps as many as fifty—three per day multiplied by fourteen
—are only vaguely imagined by this reader.) But the ground must be cleared first:
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The conversation turned to one of the neighboring landowners. 'Trash; just a miserable little aristocrat,' indifferently remarked Bazarov, who had met the fellow in Petersburg.
' 'Allow me to ask you,' began Pavel Petrovich, and his lips began to tremble, 'according to your conceptions the words
'trash' and 'aristocrat' signify one and the same thing.'
''I said 'just a miserable little aristocrat,' ' replied Bazarov, lazily swallowing a sip of tea. . . .
'Pavel Petrovich turned white.
'That's an entirely different matter. I'm under no compulsion whatever to explain to you now why I sit twiddling my thumbs, as you are pleased to put it. I wish to tell you merely that aristocracy is a principle, and in our time none but immoral or frivolous people can live without principles.' . . .
'Pavel Petrovich puckered up his eyes a little. 'So that's it!' he observed in a strangely composed voice. 'Nihilism is to cure all our woes, and you, you are our heroes and saviors. So. But why do you berate others—even those same denunciators, say?
Don't you do as much chattering as all the others?' . . . 'Our argument has gone too far; it's better to cut it short, I think. But I'll be quite ready to agree with you,' Bazarov added, getting up, 'when you bring forward a single institution in our present mode of life, either domestic or social, which does not call forth complete and merciless repudiation. . . .
'Take my advice, Pavel Petrovich, give yourself a couple of days to think about it; you're not likely to find anything right off.
Go through all our classes and think rather carefully over each one, and in the meantime Arkadi and I will-'
'Go on scoffing over everything,' Pavel Petrovich broke in. 'No, we will go on dissecting frogs. Come Arkadi. Good-by for the present, gentlemen.' '
Curiously enough, Turgenev is still engaged in describing the minds of his characters, in setting up his scenes rather than in having the protagonists act. This is especially clear in chapter 11 where the two brothers Pavel and Nikolay are compared, and where occurs incidentally that charming little landscape ('Evening had come, the sun had hid behind a small aspen grove which lay a quarter of a mile from the garden; its shadow spread endlessly across the still fields. . . .') The next chapters are devoted to Arkadi's and Bazarov's visit to town. The town appears now as a middle point and a structural link between the Kirsanov country seat and the Bazarov country place, which is twenty-five miles from the town in another direction.
Some rather obvious grotesque personages are shown. Mme. Odintsov is first mentioned in a conversation at the house of a feminist progressive lady: 'Are there any pretty women here?' inquired Bazarov, as he drank up a third glass of wine.
'Yes, there are,' answered Eudoxia, 'but then they're all such empty-headed creatures.
'Arkadi turned and saw a tall woman in a black dress standing at the door of the room. He was struck by the dignity of her carriage. Her bare arms lay gracefully along her slender waist; gracefully some light sprays of fuchsia drooped from her gleaming hair on to her sloping shoulders; her clear eyes looked out from under a somewhat overhanging white brow, with a tranquil and intelligent expression—tranquil, precisely, and not pensive—and a scarcely perceptible smile hovered on her lips. Her face radiated a gracious and gentle force. . . .
'Bazarov's attention, too, was directed to Mme. Odintsov.
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' 'Who in the world is she?' he remarked. 'She's different from the rest of the females here.' ' Arkadi is presented to her and asks her for the next mazurka.
'Arkadi made up his mind that he had never before met such an attractive woman. He could not get the sound of her voice out of his ears; the very folds of her dress seemed to hang upon her differently from all other women—more gracefully and amply—and her movements were peculiarly smooth and natural.'
