CHAPTER III
'So here you are, a graduate at last, and come home again,' saidNikolai Petrovitch, touching Arkady now on the shoulder, now on theknee. 'At last!'
'And how is uncle? quite well?' asked Arkady, who, in spite of thegenuine, almost childish delight filling his heart, wanted as soon aspossible to turn the conversation from the emotional into a commonplacechannel.
'Quite well. He was thinking of coming with me to meet you, but forsome reason or other he gave up the idea.'
'And how long have you been waiting for me?' inquired Arkady.
'Oh, about five hours.'
'Dear old dad!'
Arkady turned round quickly to his father, and gave him a sounding kisson the cheek. Nikolai Petrovitch gave vent to a low chuckle.
'I have got such a capital horse for you!' he began. 'You will see. Andyour room has been fresh papered.'
'And is there a room for Bazarov?'
'We will find one for him too.'
'Please, dad, make much of him. I can't tell you how I prize hisfriendship.'
'Have you made friends with him lately?'
'Yes, quite lately.'
'Ah, that's how it is I did not see him last winter. What does hestudy?'
'His chief subject is natural science. But he knows everything. Nextyear he wants to take his doctor's degree.'
'Ah! he's in the medical faculty,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch, and hewas silent for a little. 'Piotr,' he went on, stretching out his hand,'aren't those our peasants driving along?'
Piotr looked where his master was pointing. Some carts harnessed withunbridled horses were moving rapidly along a narrow by-road. In eachcart there were one or two peasants in sheepskin coats, unbuttoned.
'Yes, sir,' replied Piotr.
'Where are they going,--to the town?'
'To the town, I suppose. To the gin-shop,' he added contemptuously,turning slightly towards the coachman, as though he would appeal tohim. But the latter did not stir a muscle; he was a man of the oldstamp, and did not share the modern views of the younger generation.
'I have had a lot of bother with the peasants this year,' pursuedNikolai Petrovitch, turning to his son. 'They won't pay their rent.What is one to do?'
'But do you like your hired labourers?'
'Yes,' said Nikolai Petrovitch between his teeth. 'They're being setagainst me, that's the mischief; and they don't do their best. Theyspoil the tools. But they have tilled the land pretty fairly. Whenthings have settled down a bit, it will be all right. Do you take aninterest in farming now?'
'You've no shade; that's a pity,' remarked Arkady, without answeringthe last question.
'I have had a great awning put up on the north side over the balcony,'observed Nikolai Petrovitch; 'now we can have dinner even in the openair.'
'It'll be rather too like a summer villa.... Still, that's allnonsense. What air though here! How delicious it smells! Really I fancythere's nowhere such fragrance in the world as in the meadows here! Andthe sky too.'
Arkady suddenly stopped short, cast a stealthy look behind him, andsaid no more.
'Of course,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch, 'you were born here, and soeverything is bound to strike you in a special----'
'Come, dad, that makes no difference where a man is born.'
'Still----'
'No; it makes absolutely no difference.'
Nikolai Petrovitch gave a sidelong glance at his son, and the carriagewent on a half-a-mile further before the conversation was renewedbetween them.
'I don't recollect whether I wrote to you,' began Nikolai Petrovitch,'your old nurse, Yegorovna, is dead.'
'Really? Poor thing! Is Prokofitch still living?'
'Yes, and not a bit changed. As grumbling as ever. In fact, you won'tfind many changes at Maryino.'
'Have you still the same bailiff?'
'Well, to be sure there is a change there. I decided not to keep aboutme any freed serfs, who have been house servants, or, at least, not tointrust them with duties of any responsibility.' (Arkady glancedtowards Piotr.) '_Il est libre, en effet_,' observed Nikolai Petrovitchin an undertone; 'but, you see, he's only a valet. Now I have abailiff, a townsman; he seems a practical fellow. I pay him two hundredand fifty roubles a year. But,' added Nikolai Petrovitch, rubbing hisforehead and eyebrows with his hand, which was always an indicationwith him of inward embarrassment, 'I told you just now that you wouldnot find changes at Maryino.... That's not quite correct. I think it myduty to prepare you, though....'
He hesitated for an instant, and then went on in French.
'A severe moralist would regard my openness, as improper; but, in thefirst place, it can't be concealed, and secondly, you are aware I havealways had peculiar ideas as regards the relation of father and son.Though, of course, you would be right in blaming me. At my age.... Inshort ... that ... that girl, about whom you have probably heardalready ...'
'Fenitchka?' asked Arkady easily.
Nikolai Petrovitch blushed. 'Don't mention her name aloud, please....Well ... she is living with me now. I have installed her in the house... there were two little rooms there. But that can all be changed.'
'Goodness, daddy, what for?'
'Your friend is going to stay with us ... it would be awkward ...'
'Please don't be uneasy on Bazarov's account. He's above all that.'
'Well, but you too,' added Nikolai Petrovitch. 'The little lodge is sohorrid--that's the worst of it.'
'Goodness, dad,' interposed Arkady, 'it's as if you were apologising; Iwonder you're not ashamed.'
'Of course, I ought to be ashamed,' answered Nikolai Petrovitch,flushing more and more.
'Nonsense, dad, nonsense; please don't!' Arkady smiled affectionately.'What a thing to apologise for!' he thought to himself, and his heartwas filled with a feeling of condescending tenderness for his kind,soft-hearted father, mixed with a sense of secret superiority. 'Please,stop,' he repeated once more, instinctively revelling in aconsciousness of his own advanced and emancipated condition.
Nikolai Petrovitch glanced at him from under the fingers of the handwith which he was still rubbing his forehead, and there was a pang inhis heart.... But at once he blamed himself for it.
'Here are our meadows at last,' he said after a long silence.
'And that in front is our forest, isn't it?' asked Arkady.
'Yes. Only I have sold the timber. This year they will cut it down.'
'Why did you sell it?'
'The money was needed; besides, that land is to go to the peasants.'
'Who don't pay you their rent?'
'That's their affair; besides, they will pay it some day.'
'I am sorry about the forest,' observed Arkady, and he began to lookabout him.
The country through which they were driving could not be calledpicturesque. Fields upon fields stretched all along to the veryhorizon, now sloping gently upwards, then dropping down again; in someplaces woods were to be seen, and winding ravines, planted with low,scanty bushes, recalling vividly the representation of them on theold-fashioned maps of the times of Catherine. They came upon littlestreams too with hollow banks; and tiny lakes with narrow dykes; andlittle villages, with low hovels under dark and often tumble-downroofs, and slanting barns with walls woven of brushwood and gapingdoorways beside neglected threshing-floors; and churches, somebrick-built, with stucco peeling off in patches, others wooden, withcrosses fallen askew, and overgrown grave-yards. Slowly Arkady's heartsunk. To complete the picture, the peasants they met were all intatters and on the sorriest little nags; the willows, with their trunksstripped of bark, and broken branches, stood like ragged beggars alongthe roadside; cows lean and shaggy and looking pinched up by hunger,were greedily tearing at the grass along the ditches. They looked asthough they had just been snatched out of the murderous clutches ofsome threatening monster; and the piteous state of the weak, starvedbeasts in the midst of the lovely spring day, called up, like a whitephantom, the endless, comfortless winter with i
ts storms, and frosts,and snows.... 'No,' thought Arkady, 'this is not a rich country; itdoes not impress one by plenty or industry; it can't, it can't go onlike this, reforms are absolutely necessary ... but how is one to carrythem out, how is one to begin?'
Such were Arkady's reflections; ... but even as he reflected, thespring regained its sway. All around was golden green, all--trees,bushes, grass--shone and stirred gently in wide waves under the softbreath of the warm wind; from all sides flooded the endless trillingmusic of the larks; the peewits were calling as they hovered over thelow-lying meadows, or noiselessly ran over the tussocks of grass; therooks strutted among the half-grown short spring-corn, standing outblack against its tender green; they disappeared in the alreadywhitening rye, only from time to time their heads peeped out amid itsgrey waves. Arkady gazed and gazed, and his reflections grew slowlyfainter and passed away.... He flung off his cloak and turned to hisfather, with a face so bright and boyish, that the latter gave himanother hug.
'We're not far off now,' remarked Nikolai Petrovitch; 'we have only toget up this hill, and the house will be in sight. We shall get ontogether splendidly, Arkasha; you shall help me in farming the estate,if only it isn't a bore to you. We must draw close to one another now,and learn to know each other thoroughly, mustn't we!'
'Of course,' said Arkady; 'but what an exquisite day it is to-day!'
'To welcome you, my dear boy. Yes, it's spring in its full loveliness.Though I agree with Pushkin--do you remember in Yevgeny Onyegin--
'To me how sad thy coming is, Spring, spring, sweet time of love! What ...'
'Arkady!' called Bazarov's voice from the coach, 'send me a match; I'venothing to light my pipe with.'
Nikolai Petrovitch stopped, while Arkady, who had begun listening tohim with some surprise, though with sympathy too, made haste to pull asilver matchbox out of his pocket, and sent it to Bazarov by Piotr.
'Will you have a cigar?' shouted Bazarov again.
'Thanks,' answered Arkady.
Piotr returned to the carriage, and handed him with the match-box athick black cigar, which Arkady began to smoke promptly, diffusingabout him such a strong and pungent odour of cheap tobacco, thatNikolai Petrovitch, who had never been a smoker from his youth up, wasforced to turn away his head, as imperceptibly as he could for fear ofwounding his son.
A quarter of an hour later, the two carriages drew up before the stepsof a new wooden house, painted grey, with a red iron roof. This wasMaryino, also known as New-Wick, or, as the peasants had nicknamed it,Poverty Farm.
Fathers and Children Page 10