Part 9

"Possibly," he said. "Certainly you ought to know best. But, since you desire to argue, let us argue. While looking at those views of Saxon Switzerland, I heard you remark that they could not interest me. This you said, I presume, because you suppose me to be lacking in the artistic sense. Well, I am so. But might not those pictures be interesting to me solely from the geological point of view--from the standpoint of an observer, say, of the formation of mountains?"

"Pardon me, but, as a geologist, you would prefer to resort to some special work on that science, not to a few pictures."

"Oh, not necessarily. For a picture may instantly present what a book could set forth only in a hundred pages."

Anna Sergievna made no reply.

"Well," she resumed, leaning forward upon the table--a movement which brought her face closer to Bazarov's, "since you possess not a grain of the artistic instinct, how do you contrive to get on without it?"

"Rather, I would ask you: What is the artistic instinct able to effect?"

"It is able at least to help one to examine and to instruct one's fellow man."

Bazarov smiled.

"In the first place," he retorted, "the prime requisite in that connection is experience of life; and, in the second place, the study of detached personalities is scarcely worth the trouble. For all we human beings are alike, in body as in spirit. In each of us there is an identical brain, an identical spleen, an identical heart, an identical pair of lungs, an identical stock of the so-called moral qualities (trifling variations between which we need not take into account). Therefore from a single specimen of the human race may all the rest be judged. In fact, human beings are like trees in a forest. You never find a botanist studying its individual trunks."

Katia, who had been arranging her flowers, glanced at Bazarov in amazement, and, in so doing, encountered his keen, contemptuous gaze, and blushed to her ears. Anna Sergievna shook her head.

"Trees in a forest!" she exclaimed. "Think you, then, that there is no difference between the wise man and the fool, the good and the bad?"

"No, I do not," replied Bazarov. "On the contrary, I believe that such differences do exist. The point is that they exist only as between the sound and the ailing. For instance, a consumptive's lungs are not as yours and mine; yet they have been fashioned precisely as our own have been. Also, whereas, to a certain extent, we know whence bodily disorders arise, _moral_ disorders come of faulty education, the thousand and one follies with which the human brain is afflicted, in short, any irregular condition of the social body. Rectify that body, and moral sickness will soon cease to be."

Speaking as though he were saying to himself, "Believe me or not as you like, it is all one to me," Bazarov drew his long fingers through his whiskers, while his eyes glowed like coals.

"Then you think," pursued Anna Sergievna, "that, once the social body has been rectified, stupid and evil people will cease to exist?"

"At all events, once the social body is properly organised, the fact that a man be wise or stupid, good or bad, will cease to be of importance."

"Ah! I understand! That is because we all possess an identical spleen?"

"Precisely so, madam."

She turned to Arkady.

"And what is your opinion, Arkady Nikolaievitch?" she enquired.

"I agree with Evgenii," was his reply as, in his turn, he received a glance of astonishment from Katia.

"I am surprised, gentlemen," said Madame. "However, I can hear my aunt approaching, so let us spare her ears, and discuss this later."

Anna Sergievna's aunt--a small, spare woman with a mallet-shaped face, a pair of narrow, malicious eyes, and a grey false front--bestowed scarcely so much as a bow upon the guests, but at once relapsed into a huge velvet armchair which no one but herself was allowed to use. And even when Katia hastened to place for her a footstool, the old woman did not thank her, nor even look at her, but chafed her hands under the yellow shawl which covered the whole of her frail figure. Beyond all things was she fond of yellow; wherefore she had had her cap trimmed with ribands of the same hue.

"Have you slept well, Auntie?" Madame Odintsov inquired with a raising of her voice.

"That dog is here again!" the old woman muttered on noticing that Fifi was taking an irresolute step or two in her direction. "Turn the beast out, I say! Out with it!"

Calling Fifi, Katia opened the door for the animal to leave the room; whereupon, though it bounded out in joyous mood (under the impression that it was about to be taken for a walk), it no sooner found itself marooned outside than it fell to whining and scratching at the panels; which caused the Princess to frown, and necessitated Katia's exit to rectify matters.

"Tea is ready, I believe," Madame Odintsov continued. "Gentlemen, pray come. Will you have some tea, Auntie?"

The Princess rose from her chair in silence, and headed a procession to the dining-room, where a Cossack footman pulled a padded armchair from under the table (like the last, it was reserved for the Princess alone), and she subsided into its depths. Katia poured out tea, and handed her aunt the first cup--a cup adorned with a coat-of-arms; whereafter the old woman added some honey to the beverage (she looked upon tea-drinking with sugar as a sin of extravagance, and the more so since never at any time would she consent to spend an unnecessary kopeck), and then asked hoarsely:

"What has Prince Ivan to say in his letter?"

No one answered, and in time Bazarov and Arkady apprised the fact that, though treated, certainly, with respect, the old woman attracted no one's serious attention.

"They keep her here for show," Bazarov reflected. "She is kept because she comes of a princely house."

Tea over, Anna Sergievna proposed a walk; but since at that moment a drop of rain came pattering down, the company (with the exception of the Princess) returned to the drawing-room. Presently the neighbour addicted to a game of cards came in, and proved to be one Porphyri Platonitch--a stout, grey-headed, affable, diverting individual who, in addition, could boast of a pair of legs as shapely as though turned with a lathe. Anna Sergievna then inquired of Bazarov (with whom she had again been in conversation) whether he would care to join them in the old-fashioned game of "Preferences"; and he consented on the ground that he could not too soon prepare himself for the post of a district physician.

"But take care," remarked his hostess. "Porphyri Platonitch and I are not unlikely to beat you. Meanwhile, do you, Katia, go and play something on the piano for the benefit of Arkady Nikolaievitch. I know that he loves music, and we too shall be glad to listen to you."

Reluctantly Katia approached the piano; nor, in spite of Arkady's fondness for music, did he follow her any more eagerly.

The truth of it was that he felt himself to be being "got rid of" by Madame Odintsov, and already there was simmering in his heart, as in the heart of any young man of his age, that vague, oppressive feeling which is the harbinger of love.

Raising the lid of the piano, Katia murmured under her breath, and without looking at Arkady:

"What shall I play?"

"Anything you wish," he replied with indifference.

"But what sort of music do you _prefer_?" she persisted with unchanged attitude.

"Classical music," was the reply delivered with equal nonchalance.

"Mozart?"

"Certainly--Mozart."

So Katia produced the Viennese master's Sonata-Fantasia in C minor. She played it well, but coldly, and not with any excess of precision. Likewise, she kept her lips compressed, her eyes upon the keys, and her form erect and motionless. Only towards the close of the piece did her face kindle at all, while at the same moment a tiny curl detached itself from her loosely-bound hair, and fell over her dusky forehead.

Arkady also felt moved by the closing portion of the Sonata--the portion where the charming, careless gaiety of the melody gives place to sudden bursts of mournful, almost tragic lamentation. Yet the thoughts which Mozart's strains aroused in him bore no relation to Katia. He merely looked at her now and then, and reflected:

"She plays well; nor is she bad-looking."

The Sonata over, Katia inquired, without removing her hands from the keyboard: "Is that enough?" and Arkady replied that he would not think of troubling her further. Then he went on to talk of Mozart, and to ask her whether she herself had selected the Sonata, or whether it had been selected for her by some one. Katia answered in monosyllables, and from time to time went into hiding, retired into herself; and on each occasion of this sort she made her reappearance but reluctantly, and with a face composed to a stubborn, almost a stupid, air. Yet she was not timid so much as diffident and a trifle overawed by the presence of the sister who had brought her up (not that the sister in question ever suspected it). Finally, she returned to her flowers, and Arkady found himself reduced to calling Fifi to his side, and stroking the dog's head with a kindly smile.

As for Bazarov, he had to pay forfeit after forfeit, for Anna Sergievna was fairly clever at cards, and Porphyri Platonitch was a player fully able to look after himself. Consequently the young doctor rose a loser, not by a considerable sum, but by one which, at all events, was sufficient to be scarcely agreeable. After supper Anna Sergievna started a discussion on botany.

"I wish you would take me for a walk to-morrow morning," she said. "I want you to teach me the Latin names of our field flowers, and also their characteristics."

"But how could the Latin names benefit you?" he inquired.

"System is in all things necessary," she replied.

"A truly wonderful woman!" Arkady commented the same evening, on finding himself alone with his friend in the bedroom.

"Yes," replied Bazarov. "She certainly possesses brains. Also, she has dreamed dreams."

"In what sense?"

"In the best sense, my friend--in the very best sense, O Arkady Nikolaievitch. Certain also am I that she manages her property well. But the marvellous phenomenon is not she, but her sister."

"What? That hoyden?"

"Yes, that hoyden. The hoyden contains an element of freshness and virginity and timidity and reticence and anything else you like which makes her really an object worthy of interest. Of the one you could make whatsoever you might desire, whereas of the other there is nothing to be said save that she represents a yesterday's loaf."

Arkady made no reply, and soon the two men were asleep and dreaming their own dreams.

The same night Anna Sergievna devoted much thought to her two guests. Bazarov she liked both for his total lack of affectation and for the piquancy of his criticisms; so that she seemed to divine in him something new, something which had hitherto remained unknown to her experience. All of which excited her curiosity.

And she too was a strange being. Free from all prejudice, and devoid of all strong beliefs, she rendered obeisance to nothing, and had in view no goal. Again, though much was open to her sight, and much interested her, nothing really satisfied her, and she had no wish for such satisfaction, since her intellect was at once inquiring and indifferent, and harboured doubts which never merged into insensibility, and aspirations which never swelled into unrest. True, if she had been dowered with less wealth and independence, she might have plunged into the fray, and learnt the nature of passion; but, as things stood, she took life unhastingly, and, though often finding it tedious, spent her days in a deliberate, rarely agitated manner. True, at times rainbow colours gleamed even before _her_ eyes; yet no sooner had they faded than she would draw her breath as before, and in no way regret their disappearance. Again, though, at times, her imagination exceeded the bounds of what is considered permissible by conventional morality, her blood still coursed tranquilly through her lethargic and bewitchingly shaped frame; and only when she was issuing in a warm and tender glow from her comfortable bathroom would she fall to pondering upon the futility of life, its sorrow and toil and cruelty, and feel her soul swell to sudden temerity, and begin to seethe with noble aspirations. Yet even then, let but a draught happen to blow in her direction from an open window, and at once she would shrug her shoulders, commiserate herself, come very near to losing her temper, and become conscious of nothing but the thought that the one thing necessary was to ensure that by hook or by crook that abominable draught should be averted.

Again, like all women who have never known what it is to fall in love, she was sensible of a persistent yearning for something wholly undefined. There was nothing that she actually lacked, yet she seemed to lack everything. The late Odintsov she had merely tolerated (the marriage having been one _de convenance_ only--though she would never have consented to become his wife had he not also been kindly of heart), and from the experience she had derived a certain aversion to the male sex in general, which she conceived to be composed exclusively of creatures slovenly, idle, wearisome, and weakly exacting in their habits. In fact, only once had she met (it was somewhere abroad) a man who had in any way attracted her. He had been a young Swede of a knightly countenance, honest blue eyes, and an open brow; but, for all the impression that he had made upon her, the impression in question had not prevented her from shortly afterwards returning to Russia.

"A strange man, that Bazarov," she thought to herself as she reposed in her magnificent bed with its lace-embroidered pillows and its light silken coverlet. It may be said, that, in addition to having inherited her late father's fastidious and luxurious tastes, she still cherished for that wayward, but kindhearted, parent a considerable affection, since during his lifetime he had not only adored her and cracked jokes with her on equal terms, but also accorded her his whole confidence, and made it his invariable custom to seek her advice. Of her mother she had but the scantiest of remembrance.

"Yes, a strange man is that Bazarov," she repeated; after which she stretched her limbs, smiled, clasped her hands behind her head, ran an eye over the pages of two foolish French novels, let fall the second of these volumes from her hands, and relapsed into slumber--a cold, spotless figure in spotless, fragrant white.

When breakfast was over next morning, she set forth upon the botanising expedition with Bazarov; to return home just before luncheon time. Meanwhile Arkady did not leave the house, but spent an hour with Katia, nor found the time wearisome, seeing that of her own accord Katia volunteered to repeat the Sonata. Yet the instant that his eyes beheld Madame Odintsov returning his heart leapt within him. She was crossing the garden with a slightly tired step, but with her cheeks rosy of hue, her eyes shining under her round straw hat with even greater brilliancy than usual, and her fingers twirling between them the stalk of some field flower. Also, her light mantilla had slipped to her shoulders, and the broad ribands of her hat were floating over her bosom. Behind her walked Bazarov with his usual air of superciliousness and self-assurance, while on his face there was an expression cheerful, and even good-humoured. Yet somehow, Arkady did not like that expression.

Muttering "Good-morning," Bazarov passed towards his room, while Madame Odintsov accorded the young man a negligent handshake--then similarly continued her way.

"'Good morning!'" thought Arkady to himself. "One would think that she and I had made one another's acquaintance only to-day!"

[1] Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899), chemist and physicist; inventor of Bunsen's burner and magnesium light; and originator (with Kirchhov) of spectrum analysis.

XVII

As we know, time either flies like a bird or crawls like a snail. Thus a man is in best case when he fails to notice either the rapidity or the slowness of its flight. Similarly did Bazarov and Arkady spend their fortnight at Madame Odintsov's. Of this another contributory cause was the fact that alike in her household and in her daily life she maintained a _régime_ to which she herself strictly adhered, and to which she constrained others to adhere; so that the daily domestic round accomplished itself according to a fixed programme. At eight o'clock the company would assemble for breakfast; whereafter, until luncheon time, individuals could do whatsoever they chose (the hostess herself devoting her attention to her steward--she administered her estate on the _obrok_ or tithes system--her household servants, and her head housekeeper). Next, before dinner, the company would reassemble for conversation or for reading aloud; and the rest of the evening would be devoted to a walk, to cards, or to music. Lastly, at half-past ten Anna Sergievna would withdraw to her room, issue her orders for the following day, and retire to bed.

But to Bazarov this measured, slightly formal regularity was not wholly agreeable. "Somehow it reminds one of running on a pair of rails," he used to declare; while so much did the sight of liveried lacqueys and graded serfs offend his democratic instincts that once he averred that one might as well dine in the English fashion outright, and wear white ties and black tail-coats. These views he expressed to Anna Sergievna (something in her always led men to lay bare their opinions in her presence); and, after she had heard him out, she said: "From your point of view, the matter is as you say, and perhaps I play the fine lady too much; but in the country one cannot live anyhow; such a course always leads one to grow slovenly."

So she continued her _régime_ as before. Yet, though Bazarov grumbled, he and Arkady found that to that very formality they owed the fact that everything in the establishment "ran as on rails." In passing it may be mentioned that between the two young men there had taken place a change which dated from the day of their arrival at Nikolsköe, and manifested itself, as regards Bazarov (for whom Anna Sergievna evidently entertained a liking, though seldom did she agree with his _dicta_), in the form of an unwonted captiousness which led him easily to lose his temper, to speak always with reluctance, to glare about him, and to be as unable to sit still as though mines had been exploding beneath his seat. As for Arkady (now come finally to the conclusion that he was in love with Madame Odintsov), the change manifested itself, rather, in his falling a prey to a melancholy which in no way prevented him from making friends with Katia, and even helped him to maintain with her kindly and cordial relations.

"Whereas Madame cares nothing for me," he would reflect, "_this_ good-hearted creature does not give me the cold shoulder."

And these reflections would cause his heart to taste once more the sensuous joy of "magnanimity." Dimly Katia herself divined that her society afforded him a sort of comfort; wherefore she saw no reason to deny either him or herself the pleasure of this innocent, half-diffident, half-trustful _camaraderie_. True, in the presence, and under the keen eye, of the elder sister (who always caused Katia to retire precipitately into her shell) the pair never exchanged a single word (indeed, as a man in love, Arkady could not well have paid attention to any one but the object of his adoration while in the latter's vicinity); but as soon as he found himself alone with Katia he began, to a certain degree, really to enjoy himself. That is to say, whereas he knew himself to be incompetent to interest Madame (seeing that whenever he found himself alone with her he blushed and lost his head, while she, on her side, did not know what to say to him, so jejune was his mind as compared with her own), in Katia's presence he felt perfectly at home, and could treat her with condescension, and let her expound to him the impressions which she derived from music and the reading of tales, poems, and other "trifles." Nor did he notice, nor would he have consented to recognise had he noticed, the fact that those same "trifles" interested him as much as they did Katia. At the same time, the latter in no way acted as a clog upon his melancholy; wherefore, just as Madame was at her ease with Bazarov, so the young man was at his with Katia, and, after a short period of joint converse, the two couples would usually diverge. This happened especially during walks, and the more readily in that, whereas Katia adored nature, and Arkady too loved it (though he would never have admitted the fact), to Madame and Bazarov the charms of the natural world represented more or less a matter of indifference. Hardly need I add that from this constant separation between Arkady and Bazarov there flowed inevitable results which brought about in the relations of the pair a gradual change. That is to say, Bazarov ceased to discourse on Madame Odintsov--he ceased even to censure her for her "aristocratic manners"; and while, with regard to Katia, he sang her praises as usual (at the same time advising the placing of a check upon her sentimental tendencies), he took to uttering these encomiums only in a half-hearted and a perfunctory way, and, in general, to lecturing his pupil less than he had formerly done. Rather, he seemed to avoid him, to feel in some way uncomfortable in his presence.

These things Arkady duly noted, but kept his observations to himself.

The real cause of the innovation was the feeling which Madame Odintsov inspired in Bazarov's breast, and which he found to be a torture and a madness to him. Yet, had any one hinted to him, ever so distantly, that what was taking place in his soul could ever have been possible, he would have denied it with a contemptuous laugh and a cynical imprecation, seeing that, though a great devotee of feminine society and feminine beauty, he looked upon love in the ideal, the "romantic" (to use his own term) aspect as unpardonable folly, and upon the sentiment of chivalry as a sort of aberration or malady which moved him frequently to express his astonishment that Toggenburg and his Minnesingers and troubadours never ended by being clapped in a madhouse.

"Should a woman please you," he would say, "strive to attain your goal; but if you cannot attain that goal, waste no further trouble--just turn away. For the world does not rest upon a single keystone."