Fathers and Children

'Don't worry yourself,' said Bazarov; 'I know how to behave myself—I'm not a booby.'

Going up to Fenitchka, he took off his cap.

'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began, with a polite bow. 'I'm a harmless person, and a friend of Arkady Nikolaevitch's.'

Fenitchka got up from the garden seat and looked at him without speaking.

'What a splendid baby!' continued Bazarov; 'don't be uneasy, my praises have never brought ill-luck yet. Why is it his cheeks are so flushed? Is he cutting his teeth?'

'Yes,' said Fenitchka; 'he has cut four teeth already, and now the gums are swollen again.'

'Show me, and don't be afraid, I'm a doctor.'

Bazarov took the baby up in his arms, and to the great astonishment both of Fenitchka and Dunyasha the child made no resistance, and was not frightened.

'I see, I see.... It's nothing, everything's as it should be; he will have a good set of teeth. If anything goes wrong, tell me. And are you quite well yourself?'

'Quite, thank God.'

'Thank God, indeed—that's the great thing. And you?' he added, turning to Dunyasha.

Dunyasha, a girl very prim in the master's house, and a romp outside the gates, only giggled in answer.

'Well, that's all right. Here's your gallant fellow.'

Fenitchka received the baby in her arms.

'How good he was with you!' she commented in an undertone.

'Children are always good with me.' answered Bazarov; 'I have a way with them.'

'Children know who loves them,' remarked Dunyasha.

'Yes, they certainly do,' Fenitchka said. 'Why, Mitya will not go to some people for anything.'

'Will he come to me?' asked Arkady, who, after standing in the distance for some time, had gone up to the arbour.

He tried to entice Mitya to come to him, but Mitya threw his head back and screamed, to Fenitchka's great confusion.

'Another day, when he's had time to get used to me,' said Arkady indulgently, and the two friends walked away.

'What's her name?' asked Bazarov.

'Fenitchka ... Fedosya,' answered Arkady.

'And her father's name? One must know that too.'

'Nikolaevna.'

'Bene. What I like in her is that she's not too embarrassed. Some people, I suppose, would think ill of her for it. What nonsense! What is there to embarrass her? She's a mother—she's all right.'

'She's all right,' observed Arkady,—'but my father.'

'And he's right too,' put in Bazarov.

'Well, no, I don't think so.'

'I suppose an extra heir's not to your liking?'

'I wonder you're not ashamed to attribute such ideas to me!' retorted Arkady hotly; 'I don't consider my father wrong from that point of view; I think he ought to marry her.'

'Hoity-toity!' responded Bazarov tranquilly. 'What magnanimous fellows we are! You still attach significance to marriage; I did not expect that of you.'

The friends walked a few paces in silence.

'I have looked at all your father's establishment,' Bazarov began again. 'The cattle are inferior, the horses are broken down; the buildings aren't up to much, and the workmen look confirmed loafers; while the superintendent is either a fool, or a knave, I haven't quite found out which yet.'

'You are rather hard on everything to-day, Yevgeny Vassilyevitch.'

'And the dear good peasants are taking your father in to a dead certainty. You know the Russian proverb, 'The Russian peasant will cheat God Himself.''

'I begin to agree with my uncle,' remarked Arkady; 'you certainly have a poor opinion of Russians.'

'As though that mattered! The only good point in a Russian is his having the lowest possible opinion of himself. What does matter is that two and two make four, and the rest is all foolery.'

'And is nature foolery?' said Arkady, looking pensively at the bright-coloured fields in the distance, in the beautiful soft light of the sun, which was not yet high up in the sky.

'Nature, too, is foolery in the sense you understand it. Nature's not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.'

At that instant, the long drawn notes of a violoncello floated out to them from the house. Some one was playing Schubert's Expectation with much feeling, though with an untrained hand, and the melody flowed with honey sweetness through the air.

'What's that?' cried Bazarov in amazement.

'It's my father.'

'Your father plays the violoncello?'

'Yes.'

'And how old is your father?'

'Forty-four.'

Bazarov suddenly burst into a roar of laughter.

'What are you laughing at?'

'Upon my word, a man of forty-four, a paterfamilias in this out-of-the-way district, playing on the violoncello!'

Bazarov went on laughing; but much as he revered his master, this time Arkady did not even smile.

CHAPTER X

About a fortnight passed by. Life at Maryino went on its accustomed course, while Arkady was lazy and enjoyed himself, and Bazarov worked. Every one in the house had grown used to him, to his careless manners, and his curt and abrupt speeches. Fenitchka, in particular, was so far at home with him that one night she sent to wake him up; Mitya had had convulsions; and he had gone, and, half joking, half-yawning as usual, he stayed two hours with her and relieved the child. On the other hand Pavel Petrovitch had grown to detest Bazarov with all the strength of his soul; he regarded him as stuck-up, impudent, cynical, and vulgar; he suspected that Bazarov had no respect for him, that he had all but a contempt for him—him, Pavel Kirsanov!

Nikolai Petrovitch was rather afraid of the young 'nihilist,' and was doubtful whether his influence over Arkady was for the good; but he was glad to listen to him, and was glad to be present at his scientific and chemical experiments. Bazarov had brought with him a microscope, and busied himself for hours together with it. The servants, too, took to him, though he made fun of them; they felt, all the same, that he was one of themselves, not a master. Dunyasha was always ready to giggle with him, and used to cast significant and stealthy glances at him when she skipped by like a rabbit; Piotr, a man vain and stupid to the last degree, for ever wearing an affected frown on his brow, a man whose whole merit consisted in the fact that he looked civil, could spell out a page of reading, and was diligent in brushing his coat—even he smirked and brightened up directly Bazarov paid him any attention; the boys on the farm simply ran after the 'doctor' like puppies. The old man Prokofitch was the only one who did not like him; he handed him the dishes at table with a surly face, called him a 'butcher' and 'an upstart,' and declared that with his great whiskers he looked like a pig in a stye. Prokofitch in his own way was quite as much of an aristocrat as Pavel Petrovitch.

The best days of the year had come—the first days of June. The weather kept splendidly fine; in the distance, it is true, the cholera was threatening, but the inhabitants of that province had had time to get used to its visits. Bazarov used to get up very early and go out for two or three miles, not for a walk—he couldn't bear walking