Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883). Fathers and Children.
The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction. 1917.
Chapter IV
N
‘Here we are at home,’ said Nikolai Petrovitch, taking off his cap, and shaking back his hair. ‘That’s the great thing; now we must have supper and rest.’
‘A meal would not come amiss, certainly,’ observed Bazarov, stretching, and he dropped on to a sofa.
‘Yes, yes, let us have supper, supper directly.’ Nikolai Petrovitch with no apparent reason stamped his foot. ‘And here just at the right moment comes Prokofitch.’
A man about sixty entered, white-haired, thin, and swarthy, in a cinnamon-coloured dress-coat with brass buttons, and a pink neckerchief. He smirked, went up to kiss Arkady’s hand, and bowing to the guest retreated to the door, and put his hands behind him.
‘Here he is, Prokofitch,’ began Nikolai Petrovitch; ‘he’s come back to us at last.… Well, how do you think him looking?’
‘As well as could be,’ said the old man, and was grinning again, but he quickly knitted his bushy brows. ‘You wish supper to be served?’ he said impressively.
‘Yes, yes, please. But won’t you like to go to your room first, Yevgeny Vassilyitch?’
‘No, thanks; I don’t care about it. Only give orders for my little box to be taken there, and this garment, too,’ he added, taking off his frieze overcoat.
‘Certainly. Prokofitch, take the gentleman’s coat.’ (Prokofitch, with an air of perplexity, picked up Bazarov’s ‘garment’ in both hands, and holding it high above his head, retreated on tiptoe.) ‘And you, Arkady, are you going to your room for a minute?’
‘Yes, I must wash,’ answered Arkady, and was just moving towards the door, but at that instant there came into the drawing-room a man of medium height, dressed in a dark English suit, a fashionable low cravat, and kid shoes, Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov. He looked about forty-five: his close-cropped, grey hair shone with a dark lustre, like new silver; his face, yellow but free from wrinkles, was exceptionally regular and pure in line, as though carved by a light and delicate chisel, and showed traces of remarkable beauty; specially fine were his clear, black, almond-shaped eyes. The whole person of Arkady’s uncle, with its aristocratic elegance, had preserved the gracefulness of youth and that air of striving upwards, away from earth, which for the most part is lost after the twenties are past.
Pavel Petrovitch took out of his trouser pocket his exquisite hand with its long tapering pink nails, a hand which seemed still more exquisite from the snowy whiteness of the cuff, buttoned with a single, big opal, and gave it to his nephew. After a preliminary handshake in the European style, he kissed him thrice after the Russian fashion, that is to say, he touched his cheek three times with his perfumed moustaches, and said, ‘Welcome.’
Nikolai Petrovitch presented him to Bazarov; Pavel Petrovitch greeted him with a slight inclination of his supple figure, and a slight smile, but he did not give him his hand, and even put it back into his pocket.
‘I had begun to think you were not coming today,’ he began in a musical voice, with a genial swing and shrug of the shoulders, as he showed his splendid white teeth. ‘Did anything happen on the road,’
‘Nothing happened?’ answered Arkady; ‘we were rather slow. But we’re as hungry as wolves now. Hurry up Prokofitch, dad; and I’ll be back directly.’
‘Stay, I’m coming with you,’ cried Bazarov, pulling himself up suddenly from the sofa. Both the young men went out.
‘Who is he?’ asked Pavel Petrovitch.
‘A friend of Arkasha’s; according to him, a very clever fellow.’
‘Is he going to stay with us?’
‘Yes.’
‘That unkempt creature?’
‘Why, yes.’
Pavel Petrovitch drummed with his finger tips on the table. ‘I fancy Arkady s’est dégourdi,’ he remarked. ‘I’m glad he has come back.’
At supper there was little conversation. Bazarov especially said nothing, but he ate a great deal. Nikolai Petrovitch related various incidents in what he called his career as a farmer, talked about the impending government measures, about committees, deputations, the necessity of introducing machinery, etc. Pavel Petrovitch paced slowly up and down the dining-room (he never ate supper), sometimes sipping at a wineglass of red wine, and less often uttering some remark or rather exclamation, of the nature of ‘Ah! aha! hm!’ Arkady told some news from Petersburg, but he was conscious of a little awkwardness, that awkwardness, which usually overtakes a youth when he has just ceased to be a child, and has come back to a place where they are accustomed to regard him and treat him as a child. He made his sentences quite unnecessarily long, avoided the word ‘daddy,’ and even sometimes replaced it by the word ‘father,’ mumbled, it is true, between his teeth; with an exaggerated carelessness he poured into his glass far more wine than he really wanted, and drank it all off. Prokofitch did not take his eyes off him, and kept chewing his lips. After supper they all separated at once.
‘Your uncle’s a queer fish,’ Bazarov said to Arkady, as he sat in his dressing-gown by his bedside, smoking a short pipe. ‘Only fancy such style in the country! His nails, his nails—you ought to send them to an exhibition!’
‘Why of course, you don’t know,’ replied Arkady. ‘He was a great swell in his own day, you know. I will tell you his story one day. He was very handsome, you know, used to turn all the women’s heads.’
‘Oh, that’s it, is it? So he keeps it up in memory of the past. It’s a pity there’s no one for him to fascinate here though. I kept staring at his exquisite collars. They’re like marble, and his chin’s shaved simply to perfection. Come, Arkady Nikolaitch, isn’t that ridiculous?’
‘Perhaps it is; but he’s a splendid man, really.’
‘An antique survival! But your father’s a capital fellow. He wastes his time reading poetry, and doesn’t know much about farming, but he’s a good-hearted fellow.’
‘My father’s a man in a thousand.’
‘Did you notice how shy and nervous he is?’
Arkady shook his head as though he himself were not shy and nervous.
‘It’s something astonishing,’ pursued Bazarov, ‘these old idealists, they develop their nervous systems till they break down … so balance is lost. But good-night. In my room there’s an English washstand, but the door won’t fasten. Anyway that ought to be encouraged—an English washstand stands for progress!’
Bazarov went away, and a sense of great happiness came over Arkady. Sweet it is to fall asleep in one’s own home, in the familiar bed, under the quilt worked by loving hands, perhaps a dear nurse’s hands, those kind, tender, untiring hands. Arkady remembered Yegorovna, and sighed and wished her peace in heaven.… For himself he made no prayer.
Both he and Bazarov were soon asleep, but others in the house were awake long after. His son’s return had agitated Nikolai Petrovitch. He lay down in bed, but did not put out the candles, and his head propped on his hand, he fell into long reveries. His brother was sitting long after midnight in his study, in a wide armchair before the fireplace, on which there smouldered some faintly glowing embers. Pavel Petrovitch was not undressed, only some red Chinese slippers had replaced the kid shoes on his feet. He held in his hand the last number of Galignani, but he was not reading; he gazed fixedly into the grate, where a bluish flame flickered, dying down, then flaring up again.… God knows where his thoughts were rambling, but they were not rambling in the past only; the expression of his face was concentrated and surly, which is not the way when a man is absorbed solely in recollections. In a small back room there sat, on a large chest, a young woman in a blue dressing jacket with a white kerchief thrown over her dark hair, Fenitchka. She was half listening, half dozing, and often looked across towards the open door through which a child’s cradle was visible, and the regular breathing of a sleeping baby could be heard.