A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  There was the sound of hurrying footsteps, and Arkady came on to the terrace. ‘We have made friends, dad!’ he cried, with an expression of a kind of affectionate and good - natured triumph on his face. ‘Fedosya Nikolaevna is not quite well to - day really, and she will come a little later. But why didn’t you tell me I had a brother? I should have kissed him last night, as I have kissed him just now.’

  Nikolai Petrovitch tried to articulate something, tried to get up and open his arms. Arkady flung himself on his neck.

  ‘What’s this? embracing again?’ sounded the voice of Pavel Petrovitch behind them.

  Father and son were equally rejoiced at his appearance at that instant; there are positions, genuinely affecting, from which one longs to escape as soon as possible.

  ‘Why should you be surprised at that?’ said Nikolai Petrovitch gaily. ‘Think what ages I have been waiting for Arkasha. I’ve not had time to get a good look at him since yesterday.’

  ‘I’m not at all surprised,’ observed Pavel Petrovitch; ‘I feel not indisposed to be embracing him myself.’

  Arkady went up to his uncle, and again felt his cheeks caressed by his perfumed moustache. Pavel Petrovitch sat down to the table. He wore an elegant morning suit in the English style, and a gay little fez on his head. This fez and the carelessly tied little cravat carried a suggestion of the freedom of country life, but the stiff collars of his shirt — not white, it is true, but striped, as is correct in morning dress — stood up as inexorably as ever against his well - shaved chin.

  ‘Where’s your new friend?’ he asked Arkady.

  ‘He’s not in the house; he usually gets up early and goes off somewhere. The great thing is, we mustn’t pay any attention to him; he doesn’t like ceremony.’

  ‘Yes, that’s obvious.’ Pavel Petrovitch began deliberately spreading butter on his bread. ‘Is he going to stay long with us?’

  ‘Perhaps. He came here on the way to his father’s.’

  ‘And where does his father live?’

  ‘In our province, sixty - four miles from here. He has a small property there. He was formerly an army doctor.’

  ‘Tut, tut, tut! To be sure, I kept asking myself, “Where have I heard that name, Bazarov?” Nikolai, do you remember, in our father’s division there was a surgeon Bazarov?’

  ‘I believe there was.’

  ‘Yes, yes, to be sure. So that surgeon was his father. Hm!’ Pavel Petrovitch pulled his moustaches. ‘Well, and what is Mr. Bazarov himself?’ he asked, deliberately.

  ‘What is Bazarov?’ Arkady smiled. ‘Would you like me, uncle, to tell you what he really is?’

  ‘If you will be so good, nephew.’

  ‘He’s a nihilist.’

  ‘Eh?’ inquired Nikolai Petrovitch, while Pavel Petrovitch lilted a knife in the air with a small piece of butter on its tip, and remained motionless.

  ‘He’s a nihilist,’ repeated Arkady.

  ‘A nihilist,’ said Nikolai Petrovitch. ‘That’s from the Latin, nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; the word must mean a man who ... who accepts nothing?’

  ‘Say, “who respects nothing,”‘ put in Pavel Petrovitch, and he set to work on the butter again.

  ‘Who regards everything from the critical point of view,’ observed Arkady.

  ‘Isn’t that just the same thing?’ inquired Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘No, it’s not the same thing. A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.’

  ‘Well, and is that good?’ interrupted Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘That depends, uncle. Some people it will do good to, but some people will suffer for it.’

  ‘Indeed. Well, I see it’s not in our line. We are old - fashioned people; we imagine that without principles, taken as you say on faith, there’s no taking a step, no breathing. Vous avez changé tout cela. God give you good health and the rank of a general, while we will be content to look on and admire, worthy ... what was it?’

  ‘Nihilists,’ Arkady said, speaking very distinctly.

  ‘Yes. There used to be Hegelists, and now there are nihilists. We shall see how you will exist in void, in vacuum; and now ring, please, brother Nikolai Petrovitch; it’s time I had my cocoa.’

  Nikolai Petrovitch rang the bell and called, ‘Dunyasha!’ But instead of Dunyasha, Fenitchka herself came on to the terrace. She was a young woman about three - and - twenty, with a white soft skin, dark hair and eyes, red, childishly - pouting lips, and little delicate hands. She wore a neat print dress; a new blue kerchief lay lightly on her plump shoulders. She carried a large cup of cocoa, and setting it down before Pavel Petrovitch, she was overwhelmed with confusion: the hot blood rushed in a wave of crimson over the delicate skin of her pretty face. She dropped her eyes, and stood at the table, leaning a little on the very tips of her fingers. It seemed as though she were ashamed of having come in, and at the same time felt that she had a right to come.

  Pavel Petrovitch knitted his brows severely, while Nikolai Petrovitch looked embarrassed.

  ‘Good morning, Fenitchka,’ he muttered through his teeth.

  ‘Good morning,’ she replied in a voice not loud but resonant, and with a sidelong glance at Arkady, who gave her a friendly smile, she went gently away. She walked with a slightly rolling gait, but even that suited her.

  For some minutes silence reigned on the terrace. Pavel Petrovitch sipped his cocoa; suddenly he raised his head. ‘Here is Sir Nihilist coming towards us,’ he said in an undertone.

  Bazarov was in fact approaching through the garden, stepping over the flower - beds. His linen coat and trousers were besmeared with mud; clinging marsh weed was twined round the crown of his old round hat; in his right hand he held a small bag; in the bag something alive was moving. He quickly drew near the terrace, and said with a nod, ‘Good morning, gentlemen; sorry I was late for tea; I’ll be back directly; I must just put these captives away.’

  ‘What have you there — leeches?’ asked Pavel Petrovitch.

  ‘No, frogs.’

  ‘Do you eat them — or keep them?’

  ‘For experiment,’ said Bazarov indifferently, and he went off into the house.

  ‘So he’s going to cut them up,’ observed Pavel Petrovitch. ‘He has no faith in principles, but he has faith in frogs.’

  Arkady looked compassionately at his uncle; Nikolai Petrovitch shrugged his shoulders stealthily. Pavel Petrovitch himself felt that his epigram was unsuccessful, and began to talk about husbandry and the new bailiff, who had come to him the evening before to complain that a labourer, Foma, ‘was deboshed,’ and quite unmanageable. ‘He’s such an Æsop,’ he said among other things; ‘in all places he has protested himself a worthless fellow; he’s not a man to keep his place; he’ll walk off in a huff like a fool.’

  CHAPTER VI

  Bazarov came back, sat down to the table, and began hastily drinking tea. The two brothers looked at him in silence, while Arkady stealthily watched first his father and then his uncle.

  ‘Did you walk far from here?’ Nikolai Petrovitch asked at last.

  ‘Where you’ve a little swamp near the aspen wood. I started some half - dozen snipe; you might slaughter them; Arkady.’

  ‘Aren’t you a sportsman then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is your special study physics?’ Pavel Petrovitch in his turn inquired.

  ‘Physics, yes; and natural science in general.’

  ‘They say the Teutons of late have had great success in that line.’

  ‘Yes; the Germans are our teachers in it,’ Bazarov answered carelessly.

  The word Teutons instead of Germans, Pavel Petrovitch had used with ironical intention; none noticed it however.

  ‘Have you such a high opinion of the Germans?’ said Pavel Petrovitch, with exaggerated courtesy. He was beginning to feel a secret irritation. His aristocratic nature was revolted by Bazarov’s absolute non
chalance. This surgeon’s son was not only not overawed, he even gave abrupt and indifferent answers, and in the tone of his voice there was something churlish, almost insolent.

  ‘The scientific men there are a clever lot.’

  ‘Ah, ah. To be sure, of Russian scientific men you have not such a flattering opinion, I dare say?’

  ‘That is very likely.’

  ‘That’s very praiseworthy self - abnegation,’ Pavel Petrovitch declared, drawing himself up, and throwing his head back. ‘But how is this? Arkady Nikolaitch was telling us just now that you accept no authorities? Don’t you believe in them?’

  ‘And how am I accepting them? And what am I to believe in? They tell me the truth, I agree, that’s all.’

  ‘And do all Germans tell the truth?’ said Pavel Petrovitch, and his face assumed an expression as unsympathetic, as remote, as if he had withdrawn to some cloudy height.

  ‘Not all,’ replied Bazarov, with a short yawn. He obviously did not care to continue the discussion.

  Pavel Petrovitch glanced at Arkady, as though he would say to him, ‘Your friend’s polite, I must say.’ ‘For my own part,’ he began again, not without some effort, ‘I am so unregenerate as not to like Germans. Russian Germans I am not speaking of now; we all know what sort of creatures they are. But even German Germans are not to my liking. In former days there were some here and there; they had — well, Schiller, to be sure, Goethe ... my brother — he takes a particularly favourable view of them.... But now they have all turned chemists and materialists ...’

  ‘A good chemist is twenty times as useful as any poet,’ broke in Bazarov.

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ commented Pavel Petrovitch, and, as though falling asleep, he faintly raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t acknowledge art then, I suppose?’

  ‘The art of making money or of advertising pills!’ cried Bazarov, with a contemptuous laugh.

  ‘Ah, ah. You are pleased to jest, I see. You reject all that, no doubt? Granted. Then you believe in science only?’

  ‘I have already explained to you that I don’t believe in anything; and what is science — science in the abstract? There are sciences, as there are trades and crafts; but abstract science doesn’t exist at all.’

  ‘Very good. Well, and in regard to the other traditions accepted in human conduct, do you maintain the same negative attitude?’

  ‘What’s this, an examination?’ asked Bazarov.

  Pavel Petrovitch turned slightly pale.... Nikolai Petrovitch thought it his duty to interpose in the conversation.

  ‘We will converse on this subject with you more in detail some day, dear Yevgeny Vassilyitch; we will hear your views, and express our own. For my part, I am heartily glad you are studying the natural sciences. I have heard that Liebig has made some wonderful discoveries in the amelioration of soils. You can be of assistance to me in my agricultural labours; you can give me some useful advice.’

  ‘I am at your service, Nikolai Petrovitch; but Liebig’s miles over our heads! One has first to learn the a b c, and then begin to read, and we haven’t set eyes on the alphabet yet.’

  ‘You are certainly a nihilist, I see that,’ thought Nikolai Petrovitch. ‘Still, you will allow me to apply to you on occasion,’ he added aloud. ‘And now I fancy, brother, it’s time for us to be going to have a talk with the bailiff.’

  Pavel Petrovitch got up from his seat.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, without looking at any one; ‘it’s a misfortune to live five years in the country like this, far from mighty intellects! You turn into a fool directly. You may try not to forget what you’ve been taught, but — in a snap! — they’ll prove all that’s rubbish, and tell you that sensible men have nothing more to do with such foolishness, and that you, if you please, are an antiquated old fogey. What’s to be done? Young people, of course, are cleverer than we are!’

  Pavel Petrovitch turned slowly on his heels, and slowly walked away; Nikolai Petrovitch went after him.

  ‘Is he always like that?’ Bazarov coolly inquired of Arkady directly the door had closed behind the two brothers.

  ‘I must say, Yevgeny, you weren’t nice to him,’ remarked Arkady. ‘You have hurt his feelings.’

  ‘Well, am I going to consider them, these provincial aristocrats! Why, it’s all vanity, dandy habits, fatuity. He should have continued his career in Petersburg, if that’s his bent. But there, enough of him! I’ve found a rather rare species of a water - beetle, Dytiscus marginatus; do you know it? I will show you.’

  ‘I promised to tell you his story,’ began Arkady.

  ‘The story of the beetle?’

  ‘Come, don’t, Yevgeny. The story of my uncle. You will see he’s not the sort of man you fancy. He deserves pity rather than ridicule.’

  ‘I don’t dispute it; but why are you worrying over him?’

  ‘One ought to be just, Yevgeny.’

  ‘How does that follow?’

  ‘No; listen ...’

  And Arkady told him his uncle’s story. The reader will find it in the following chapter.

  CHAPTER VII

  Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov was educated first at home, like his younger brother, and afterwards in the Corps of Pages. From childhood he was distinguished by remarkable beauty; moreover he was self - confident, somewhat ironical, and had a rather biting humour; he could not fail to please. He began to be seen everywhere, directly he had received his commission as an officer. He was much admired in society, and he indulged every whim, even every caprice and every folly, and gave himself airs, but that too was attractive in him. Women went out of their senses over him; men called him a coxcomb, and were secretly jealous of him. He lived, as has been related already, in the same apartments as his brother, whom he loved sincerely, though he was not at all like him. Nikolai Petrovitch was a little lame, he had small, pleasing features of a rather melancholy cast, small, black eyes, and thin, soft hair; he liked being lazy, but he also liked reading, and was timid in society.

  Pavel Petrovitch did not spend a single evening at home, prided himself on his ease and audacity (he was just bringing gymnastics into fashion among young men in society), and had read in all some five or six French books. At twenty - eight he was already a captain; a brilliant career awaited him. Suddenly everything was changed.

  At that time, there was sometimes seen in Petersburg society a woman who has even yet not been forgotten. Princess R — — . She had a well - educated, well - bred, but rather stupid husband, and no children. She used suddenly to go abroad, and suddenly return to Russia, and led an eccentric life in general. She had the reputation of being a frivolous coquette, abandoned herself eagerly to every sort of pleasure, danced to exhaustion, laughed and jested with young men, whom she received in the dim light of her drawing - room before dinner; while at night she wept and prayed, found no peace in anything, and often paced her room till morning, wringing her hands in anguish, or sat, pale and chill, over a psalter. Day came, and she was transformed again into a grand lady; again she went out, laughed, chattered, and simply flung herself headlong into anything which could afford her the slightest distraction. She was marvellously well - proportioned, her hair coloured like gold and heavy as gold hung below her knees, but no one would have called her a beauty; in her whole face the only good point was her eyes, and even her eyes were not good — they were grey, and not large — but their glance was swift and deep, unconcerned to the point of audacity, and thoughtful to the point of melancholy — an enigmatic glance. There was a light of something extraordinary in them, even while her tongue was lisping the emptiest of inanities. She dressed with elaborate care. Pavel Petrovitch met her at a ball, danced a mazurka with her, in the course of which she did not utter a single rational word, and fell passionately in love with her. Being accustomed to make conquests, in this instance, too, he soon attained his object, but his easy success did not damp his ardour. On the contrary, he was in still more torturing, still closer bondage to this woman, in whom, even at the very moment when s
he surrendered herself utterly, there seemed always something still mysterious and unattainable, to which none could penetrate. What was hidden in that soul — God knows! It seemed as though she were in the power of mysterious forces, incomprehensible even to herself; they seemed to play on her at will; her intellect was not powerful enough to master their caprices. Her whole behaviour presented a series of inconsistencies; the only letters which could have awakened her husband’s just suspicions, she wrote to a man who was almost a stranger to her, whilst her love had always an element of melancholy; with a man she had chosen as a lover, she ceased to laugh and to jest, she listened to him, and gazed at him with a look of bewilderment. Sometimes, for the most part suddenly, this bewilderment passed into chill horror; her face took a wild, death - like expression; she locked herself up in her bedroom, and her maid, putting her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs. More than once, as he went home after a tender interview, Kirsanov felt within him that heartrending, bitter vexation which follows on a total failure.

  ‘What more do I want?’ he asked himself, while his heart was heavy. He once gave her a ring with a sphinx engraved on the stone.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked; ‘a sphinx?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘and that sphinx is you.’

  ‘I?’ she queried, and slowly raising her enigmatical glance upon him. ‘Do you know that’s awfully flattering?’ she added with a meaningless smile, while her eyes still kept the same strange look.

  Pavel Petrovitch suffered even while Princess R — — loved him; but when she grew cold to him, and that happened rather quickly, he almost went out of his mind. He was on the rack, and he was jealous; he gave her no peace, followed her about everywhere; she grew sick of his pursuit of her, and she went abroad. He resigned his commission in spite of the entreaties of his friends and the exhortations of his superiors, and followed the princess; four years he spent in foreign countries, at one time pursuing her, at another time intentionally losing sight of her. He was ashamed of himself, he was disgusted with his own lack of spirit ... but nothing availed. Her image, that incomprehensible, almost meaningless, but bewitching image, was deeply rooted in his heart. At Baden he once more regained his old footing with her; it seemed as though she had never loved him so passionately ... but in a month it was all at an end: the flame flickered up for the last time and went out for ever. Foreseeing inevitable separation, he wanted at least to remain her friend, as though friendship with such a woman was possible.... She secretly left Baden, and from that time steadily avoided Kirsanov. He returned to Russia, and tried to live his former life again; but he could not get back into the old groove. He wandered from place to place like a man possessed; he still went into society; he still retained the habits of a man of the world; he could boast of two or three fresh conquests; but he no longer expected anything much of himself or of others, and he undertook nothing. He grew old and grey; spending all his evenings at the club, jaundiced and bored, and arguing in bachelor society became a necessity for him — a bad sign, as we all know. Marriage, of course, he did not even think of. Ten years passed in this way; they passed by colourless and fruitless — and quickly, fearfully quickly. Nowhere does time fly past as in Russia; in prison they say it flies even faster. One day at dinner at the club, Pavel Petrovitch heard of the death of the Princess R — — . She had died at Paris in a state bordering on insanity.