' 'For myself.'
' 'What—yourself? How is that? What sort of a cut? Where is it?'
' 'Right here, on my finger. I went to the village today—you know, where they brought that peasant with typhus from. They were about to perform an autopsy on him for some reason or other, and I've had no practice on that sort of thing for a long while.'
' 'Well?'
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' 'Well, so I asked the district doctor to let me do it; and so I cut myself.'
'Vasili Ivanovich suddenly turned all white and, without uttering a word, rushed to his study, from which he returned at once carrying a bit of lunar caustic. Bazarov was about to take it and leave.
' 'For dear God's sake,' said his father, 'let me do this myself.'
Bazarov smiled.
' 'What a devoted practitioner!'
' 'Don't laugh, please. Let me see your finger. The cut isn't so great. Doesn't that hurt?'
' 'Press harder; don't be afraid.'
'Vasili Ivanovich stopped. ''What do you think, Eugene—wouldn't it be better to cauterize it with a hot iron?'
'That should have been done sooner; but now, if you get down to brass tacks, even the lunar caustic is useless. If I've been infected, it's too late now.'
' 'What —too late — ' Vasili Ivanovich could scarcely articulate the words.
' 'Of course! It's more than four hours ago.'
'Vasili Ivanovich cauterized the cut a little more.
' 'Why, didn't the district doctor have any lunar caustic?'
' 'No.'
'My God, how is it possible? A doctor—and he hasn't got such an indispensable thing as that!'
' 'You ought to have a look at his lancets,' Bazarov observed, and walked out.'
Bazarov has become infected, falls ill, has a partial recovery, and then a relapse that brings him to the crisis of the disease.
Anna is sent for, arrives with a German physician, who tells her there is no hope, and she goes to Bazarov's bedside.
'Well, thanks,' Bazarov repeated. 'This is a regal action. They say that monarchs visit the dying, too.' 'Eugene Vasilyich, I hope—'
'Eh, Anna Sergeievna, let's speak the truth. It's all over with me. I'm caught under the wheel. And now it turns out it was useless to think of the future. Death is an old trick, yet it strikes everyone as something new. So far I have no craven fear of it—and later on a coma will come, and—' he whistled and made a feeble nugatory gesture. 'Well, what am I to say to you?
That I loved you? There was no sense in that even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already decomposing. I'd do better to say how fine you are! Even now you're standing there, so beautiful—'
'Anna gave an involuntary shudder.
' 'Never mind, don't be upset. Sit over there. Don't come close to me — after all, my illness is contagious.'
'Anna swiftly crossed the room and sat down in the armchair near the divan on which Bazarov was lying.
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' 'Magnanimous one!' he whispered. 'Oh, how near and how young and fresh and pure ... in this loathsome room! . . . Well, good-by! Live long, that's the best thing of all, and make the most of it while there is time. Just see, what a hideous spectacle: a worm half crushed, but writhing still. And yet I, too, thought: I'd accomplish so many things, I wouldn't die, not me! If there were any problem—well, I was a giant! And now all the problem the giant has is how to die decently, although that makes no difference to anyone either. Never mind; I'm not going to wag my tail.'. . .
'Bazarov put his hand to his brow.
'Anna bent down to him. 'Eugene Vasiliyich, I'm here—'
'He at once took his hand away and raised himself. 'Good-by,' he said with sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with a last gleam. 'Good-by. Listen—you know I didn't kiss you that time. Breathe on the dying lamp and let it go out—'
'Anna put her lips to his forehead. 'Enough!' he murmured, and dropped back on the pillow. 'Now . . . darkness—'
'Anna went softly out. 'Well?' Vasih Ivanovich asked her in a whisper. 'He has fallen asleep,' she answered, barely audible.
'Bazarov was not fated to awaken. Toward evening he sank into complete unconsciousness, and the following day he died.
. . .
'And when finally he had breathed his last, and a universal lamentation arose throughout the house, Vasili Ivanovich was seized by a sudden frenzy.
' 'I said I would rebel,' he screamed hoarsely, with his face flaming and distorted, shaking his fist in the air, as though threatening someone, 'and I will rebel.'
'But Arina Vlasievna, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both prostrated themselves together.
' 'Side by side,' Anfisushka related afterward in the servants' quarters, 'they let their poor heads droop, like lambs at noonday — '
'But the sultriness of noonday passes, and evening comes, and night, and then follows the return to the calm refuge, where sleep is sweet for the tortured and the weary.'
In the epilogue, chapter 28, everyone is marrying, in the pairing-off device. Notice here the didactic and slightly humorous attitude. Fate takes over but still under Turgenev's direction.
'Anna has recently married, not of love but out of conviction, one of the future leaders of Russia, a very intelligent man, a lawyer, possessed of strong practical sense, firm will, and remarkable eloquence — still young, good-natured, and cold as ice. . . . The Kirsanovs, father and son, live at Maryino; their fortunes are on the mend. Arkadi has become zealous in the management of the estate, and the 'farm' is now yielding a rather good revenue. . . . Katya has a son, little Nikolay, while Mitya runs about ever so lively and talks beautifully. ... In Dresden, on the Bruhl Terrace, between two and four o'clock—the most fashionable time for walking—you may meet a man about fifty, by now altogether gray, and apparently afflicted with gout, but still handsome, exquisitely dressed, and with that special stamp which is gained only by moving a long time in the higher strata of society. That is Pavel Petrovich. From Moscow he had gone abroad for the sake of his health, and has settled down in Dresden, where he associates for the most part with Englishmen and Russian visitors. . . . Kukshina, too, found herself abroad. . . . With two or three just such young chemists, who don't know oxygen from nitrogen, but are filled with skepticism and self-respect, Sitnikov is knocking about Petersburg, also getting ready to be great, and, according to his own assertions, is carrying on Bazarov's 'work.' . . .
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'There is a small village graveyard in one of the remote nooks of Russia. Like almost all our graveyards, it presents a woebegone appearance. . . . But among these graves there is one untouched by man, untrampled by beast; the birds alone perch thereon and sing at dawn. An iron railing runs around it; two young firs are there, one planted at each end.
'Eugene Bazarov is buried in this grave. Often, from the little village not far off, an old couple, decrepit by
