CHAPTER XIII
The small gentleman's house in the Moscow style, in which AvdotyaNikitishna, otherwise Evdoksya, Kukshin, lived, was in one of thestreets of X----, which had been lately burnt down; it is well knownthat our provincial towns are burnt down every five years. At the door,above a visiting card nailed on all askew, there was a bell-handle tobe seen, and in the hall the visitors were met by some one, not exactlya servant, nor exactly a companion, in a cap--unmistakable tokens ofthe progressive tendencies of the lady of the house. Sitnikov inquiredwhether Avdotya Nikitishna was at home.
'Is that you, _Victor_?' sounded a shrill voice from the adjoiningroom. 'Come in.'
The woman in the cap disappeared at once.
'I'm not alone,' observed Sitnikov, with a sharp look at Arkady andBazarov as he briskly pulled off his overcoat, beneath which appearedsomething of the nature of a coachman's velvet jacket.
'No matter,' answered the voice. '_Entrez_.'
The young men went in. The room into which they walked was more like aworking study than a drawing-room. Papers, letters, fat numbers ofRussian journals, for the most part uncut, lay at random on the dustytables; white cigarette ends lay scattered in every direction. On aleather-covered sofa, a lady, still young, was half reclining. Her fairhair was rather dishevelled; she wore a silk gown, not perfectly tidy,heavy bracelets on her short arms, and a lace handkerchief on her head.She got up from the sofa, and carelessly drawing a velvet cape trimmedwith yellowish ermine over her shoulders, she said languidly,'Good-morning, _Victor_,' and pressed Sitnikov's hand.
'Bazarov, Kirsanov,' he announced abruptly in imitation of Bazarov.
'Delighted,' answered Madame Kukshin, and fixing on Bazarov a pair ofround eyes, between which was a forlorn little turned-up red nose, 'Iknow you,' she added, and pressed his hand too.
Bazarov scowled. There was nothing repulsive in the little plain personof the emancipated woman; but the expression of her face produced adisagreeable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her,'What's the matter; are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? What are you in afidget about?' Both she and Sitnikov had always the same uneasy air.She was extremely unconstrained, and at the same time awkward; sheobviously regarded herself as a good-natured, simple creature, and allthe while, whatever she did, it always struck one that it was not justwhat she wanted to do; everything with her seemed, as children say,done on purpose, that's to say, not simply, not naturally.
'Yes, yes, I know you, Bazarov,' she repeated. (She had thehabit--peculiar to many provincial and Moscow ladies--of calling men bytheir surnames from the first day of acquaintance with them.) 'Will youhave a cigar?'
'A cigar's all very well,' put in Sitnikov, who by now was lolling inan armchair, his legs in the air; 'but give us some lunch. We'reawfully hungry; and tell them to bring us up a little bottle ofchampagne.'
'Sybarite,' commented Evdoksya, and she laughed. (When she laughed thegum showed above her upper teeth.) 'Isn't it true, Bazarov; he's aSybarite?'
'I like comfort in life,' Sitnikov brought out, with dignity. 'Thatdoes not prevent my being a Liberal.'
'No, it does; it does prevent it!' cried Evdoksya. She gave directions,however, to her maid, both as regards the lunch and the champagne.
'What do you think about it?' she added, turning to Bazarov. 'I'mpersuaded you share my opinion.'
'Well, no,' retorted Bazarov; 'a piece of meat's better than a piece ofbread even from the chemical point of view.'
'You are studying chemistry? That is my passion. I've even invented anew sort of composition myself.'
'A composition? You?'
'Yes. And do you know for what purpose? To make dolls' heads so thatthey shouldn't break. I'm practical, too, yon see. But everything's notquite ready yet. I've still to read Liebig. By the way, have you readKislyakov's article on Female Labour, in the _Moscow Gazette_? Read itplease. You're interested in the woman question, I suppose? And in theschools too? What does your friend do? What is his name?'
Madame Kukshin shed her questions one after another with affectednegligence, not waiting for an answer; spoilt children talk so to theirnurses.
'My name's Arkady Nikolaitch Kirsanov,' said Arkady, 'and I'm doingnothing.'
Evdoksya giggled. 'How charming! What, don't you smoke? Victor, do youknow, I'm very angry with you.'
'What for?'
'They tell me you've begun singing the praises of George Sand again. Aretrograde woman, and nothing else! How can people compare her withEmerson! She hasn't an idea on education, nor physiology, nor anything.She'd never, I'm persuaded, heard of embryology, and in thesedays--what can be done without that?' (Evdoksya even threw up herhands.) 'Ah, what a wonderful article Elisyevitch has written on thatsubject! He's a gentleman of genius.' (Evdoksya constantly made use ofthe word 'gentleman' instead of the word 'man.') 'Bazarov, sit by me onthe sofa. You don't know, perhaps, I'm awfully afraid of you.'
'Why so? Allow me to ask.'
'You're a dangerous gentleman; you're such a critic. Good God! yes!why, how absurd, I'm talking like some country lady. I really am acountry lady, though. I manage my property myself; and only fancy, mybailiff Erofay's a wonderful type, quite like Cooper's Pathfinder;something in him so spontaneous! I've come to settle here finally; it'san intolerable town, isn't it? But what's one to do?'
'The town's like every town,' Bazarov remarked coolly.
'All its interests are so petty, that's what's so awful! I used tospend the winters in Moscow ... but now my lawful spouse, MonsieurKukshin's residing there. And besides, Moscow nowadays ... there, Idon't know--it's not the same as it was. I'm thinking of going abroad;last year I was on the point of setting off.'
'To Paris, I suppose?' queried Bazarov.
'To Paris and to Heidelberg.'
'Why to Heidelberg?'
'How can you ask? Why, Bunsen's there!'
To this Bazarov could find no reply.
'_Pierre_ Sapozhnikov ... do you know him?'
'No, I don't.'
'Not know _Pierre_ Sapozhnikov ... he's always at Lidia Hestatov's.'
'I don't know her either.'
'Well, it was he undertook to escort me. Thank God, I'm independent;I've no children.... What was that I said: _thank God!_ It's no matterthough.'
Evdoksya rolled a cigarette up between her fingers, which were brownwith tobacco stains, put it to her tongue, licked it up, and begansmoking. The maid came in with a tray.
'Ah, here's lunch! Will you have an appetiser first? Victor, open thebottle; that's in your line.'
'Yes, it's in my line,' muttered Sitnikov, and again he gave vent tothe same convulsive laugh.
'Are there any pretty women here?' inquired Bazarov, as he drank off athird glass.
'Yes, there are,' answered Evdoksya; 'but they're all such empty-headedcreatures. _Mon amie_, Odintsova, for instance, is nice-looking. It's apity her reputation's rather doubtful.... That wouldn't matter, though,but she's no independence in her views, no width, nothing ... of allthat. The whole system of education wants changing. I've thought agreat deal about it, our women are very badly educated.'
'There's no doing anything with them,' put in Sitnikov; 'one ought todespise them, and I do despise them fully and completely!' (Thepossibility of feeling and expressing contempt was the most agreeablesensation to Sitnikov; he used to attack women in especial, neversuspecting that it was to be his fate a few months later to be cringingbefore his wife merely because she had been born a princessDurdoleosov.) 'Not a single one of them would be capable ofunderstanding our conversation; not a single one deserves to be spokenof by serious men like us!'
'But there's not the least need for them to understand ourconversation,' observed Bazarov.
'Whom do you mean?' put in Evdoksya.
'Pretty women.'
'What? Do you adopt Proudhon's ideas, then?'
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. 'I don't adopt any one's ideas; Ihave my own.'
'Damn all authorities!' shouted
Sitnikov, delighted to have a chance ofexpressing himself boldly before the man he slavishly admired.
'But even Macaulay,' Madame Kukshin was beginning ...
'Damn Macaulay,' thundered Sitnikov. 'Are you going to stand up for thesilly hussies?'
'For silly hussies, no, but for the rights of women, which I have swornto defend to the last drop of my blood.'
'Damn!'--but here Sitnikov stopped. 'But I don't deny them,' he said.
'No, I see you're a Slavophil.'
'No, I'm not a Slavophil, though, of course ...'
'No, no, no! You are a Slavophil. You're an advocate of patriarchaldespotism. You want to have the whip in your hand!'
'A whip's an excellent thing,' remarked Bazarov; 'but we've got to thelast drop.'
'Of what?' interrupted Evdoksya.
'Of champagne, most honoured Avdotya Nikitishna, of champagne--not ofyour blood.'
'I can never listen calmly when women are attacked,' pursued Evdoksya.'It's awful, awful. Instead of attacking them, you'd better readMichelet's book, _De l'amour_. That's exquisite! Gentlemen, let us talkof love,' added Evdoksya, letting her arm fall languidly on the rumpledsofa cushion.
A sudden silence followed. 'No, why should we talk of love,' saidBazarov; 'but you mentioned just now a Madame Odintsov ... That waswhat you called her, I think? Who is that lady?'
'She's charming, charming!' piped Sitnikov. 'I will introduce you.Clever, rich, a widow. It's a pity, she's not yet advanced enough; sheought to see more of our Evdoksya. I drink to your health, _Evdoxie!_Let us clink glasses! _Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin! Et toc, et toc,et tin-tin-tin!!!_'
'Victor, you're a wretch.'
The lunch dragged on a long while. The first bottle of champagne wasfollowed by another, a third, and even a fourth.... Evdoksya chatteredwithout pause; Sitnikov seconded her. They had much discussion upon thequestion whether marriage was a prejudice or a crime, and whether menwere born equal or not, and precisely what individuality consists in.Things came at last to Evdoksya, flushed from the wine she had drunk,tapping with her flat finger-tips on the keys of a discordant piano,and beginning to sing in a hoarse voice, first gipsy songs, and thenSeymour Schiff's song, 'Granada lies slumbering'; while Sitnikov tied ascarf round his head, and represented the dying lover at the words--
'And thy lips to mine In burning kiss entwine.'
Arkady could not stand it at last. 'Gentlemen, it's getting somethinglike Bedlam,' he remarked aloud. Bazarov, who had at rare intervals putin an ironical word in the conversation--he paid more attention to thechampagne--gave a loud yawn, got up, and, without taking leave of theirhostess, he walked off with Arkady. Sitnikov jumped up and followedthem.
'Well, what do you think of her?' he inquired, skipping obsequiouslyfrom right to left of them. 'I told you, you see, a remarkablepersonality! If we only had more women like that! She is, in her ownway, an expression of the highest morality.'
'And is that establishment of your governor's an expression of thehighest morality too?' observed Bazarov, pointing to a ginshop whichthey were passing at that instant.
Sitnikov again went off into a shrill laugh. He was greatly ashamed ofhis origin, and did not know whether to feel flattered or offended atBazarov's unexpected familiarity.
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