Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated)

by Ivan Turgenev

  Vassily Ivanovitch gave him some water, and as he did so felt his forehead. It seemed on fire.

  ‘Governor,’ began Bazarov, in a slow, drowsy voice; ‘I’m in a bad way; I’ve got the infection, and in a few days you’ll have to bury me.’

  Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back, as though some one had aimed a blow at his legs.

  ‘Yevgeny!’ he faltered; ‘what do you mean!... God have mercy on you! You’ve caught cold!’

  ‘Hush!’ Bazarov interposed deliberately. ‘A doctor can’t be allowed to talk like that. There’s every symptom of infection; you know yourself.’

  ‘Where are the symptoms ... of infection Yevgeny?... Good Heavens!’

  ‘What’s this?’ said Bazarov, and, pulling up his shirtsleeve, he showed his father the ominous red patches coming out on his arm.

  Vassily Ivanovitch was shaking and chill with terror.

  ‘Supposing,’ he said at last, ‘even supposing ... if even there’s something like ... infection ...’

  ‘Pyæmia,’ put in his son.

  ‘Well, well ... something of the epidemic ...’

  ‘Pyæmia,’ Bazarov repeated sharply and distinctly; ‘have you forgotten your text - books?’

  ‘Well, well — as you like.... Anyway, we will cure you!’

  ‘Come, that’s humbug. But that’s not the point. I didn’t expect to die so soon; it’s a most unpleasant incident, to tell the truth. You and mother ought to make the most of your strong religious belief; now’s the time to put it to the test.’ He drank off a little water. ‘I want to ask you about one thing ... while my head is still under my control. To - morrow or next day my brain, you know, will send in its resignation. I’m not quite certain even now whether I’m expressing myself clearly. While I’ve been lying here, I’ve kept fancying red dogs were running round me, while you were making them point at me, as if I were a woodcock. Just as if I were drunk. Do you understand me all right?’

  ‘I assure you, Yevgeny, you are talking perfectly correctly.’

  ‘All the better. You told me you’d sent for the doctor. You did that to comfort yourself ... comfort me too; send a messenger ...’

  ‘To Arkady Nikolaitch?’ put in the old man.

  ‘Who’s Arkady Nikolaitch?’ said Bazarov, as though in doubt.... ‘Oh, yes! that chicken! No, let him alone; he’s turned jackdaw now. Don’t be surprised; that’s not delirium yet. You send a messenger to Madame Odintsov, Anna Sergyevna; she’s a lady with an estate.... Do you know?’ (Vassily Ivanovitch nodded.) ‘Yevgeny Bazarov, say, sends his greetings, and sends word he is dying. Will you do that?’

  ‘Yes, I will do it.... But is it a possible thing for you to die, Yevgeny?... Think only! Where would divine justice be after that?’

  ‘I know nothing about that; only you send the messenger.’

  ‘I’ll send this minute, and I’ll write a letter myself.’

  ‘No, why? Say I sent greetings; nothing more is necessary. And now I’ll go back to my dogs. Strange! I want to fix my thoughts on death, and nothing comes of it. I see a kind of blur ... and nothing more.’

  He turned painfully back to the wall again; while Vassily Ivanovitch went out of the study, and struggling as far as his wife’s bedroom, simply dropped down on to his knees before the holy pictures.

  ‘Pray, Arina, pray for us!’ he moaned; ‘our son is dying.’

  The doctor, the same district doctor who had had no caustic, arrived, and after looking at the patient, advised them to persevere with a cooling treatment, and at that point said a few words of the chance of recovery.

  ‘Have you ever chanced to see people in my state not set off for Elysium?’ asked Bazarov, and suddenly snatching the leg of a heavy table that stood near his sofa, he swung it round, and pushed it away. ‘There’s strength, there’s strength,’ he murmured; ‘everything’s here still, and I must die!... An old man at least has time to be weaned from life, but I ... Well, go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all! Who’s crying there?’ he added, after a short pause — ’Mother? Poor thing! Whom will she feed now with her exquisite beetroot - soup? You, Vassily Ivanovitch, whimpering too, I do believe! Why, if Christianity’s no help to you, be a philosopher, a Stoic, or what not! Why, didn’t you boast you were a philosopher?’

  ‘Me a philosopher!’ wailed Vassily Ivanovitch, while the tears fairly streamed down his cheeks.

  Bazarov got worse every hour; the progress of the disease was rapid, as is usually the way in cases of surgical poisoning. He still had not lost consciousness, and understood what was said to him; he was still struggling. ‘I don’t want to lose my wits,’ he muttered, clenching his fists; ‘what rot it all is!’ And at once he would say, ‘Come, take ten from eight, what remains?’ Vassily Ivanovitch wandered about like one possessed, proposed first one remedy, then another, and ended by doing nothing but cover up his son’s feet. ‘Try cold pack ... emetic ... mustard plasters on the stomach ... bleeding,’ he would murmur with an effort. The doctor, whom he had entreated to remain, agreed with him, ordered the patient lemonade to drink, and for himself asked for a pipe and something ‘warming and strengthening’ — that’s to say, brandy. Arina Vlasyevna sat on a low stool near the door, and only went out from time to time to pray. A few days before, a looking - glass had slipped out of her hands and been broken, and this she had always considered an omen of evil; even Anfisushka could say nothing to her. Timofeitch had gone off to Madame Odintsov’s.

  The night passed badly for Bazarov.... He was in the agonies of high fever. Towards morning he was a little easier. He asked for Arina Vlasyevna to comb his hair, kissed her hand, and swallowed two gulps of tea. Vassily Ivanovitch revived a little.

  ‘Thank God!’ he kept declaring; ‘the crisis is coming, the crisis is at hand!’

  ‘There, to think now!’ murmured Bazarov; ‘what a word can do! He’s found it; he’s said “crisis,” and is comforted. It’s an astounding thing how man believes in words. If he’s told he’s a fool, for instance, though he’s not thrashed, he’ll be wretched; call him a clever fellow, and he’ll be delighted if you go off without paying him.’

  This little speech of Bazarov’s, recalling his old retorts, moved Vassily Ivanovitch greatly.

  ‘Bravo! well said, very good!’ he cried, making as though he were clapping his hands.

  Bazarov smiled mournfully.

  ‘So what do you think,’ he said; ‘is the crisis over, or coming?’

  ‘You are better, that’s what I see, that’s what rejoices me,’ answered Vassily Ivanovitch.

  ‘Well, that’s good; rejoicings never come amiss. And to her, do you remember? did you send?’

  ‘To be sure I did.’

  The change for the better did not last long. The disease resumed its onslaughts. Vassily Ivanovitch was sitting by Bazarov. It seemed as though the old man were tormented by some special anguish. He was several times on the point of speaking — and could not.

  ‘Yevgeny!’ he brought out at last; ‘my son, my one, dear son!’

  This unfamiliar mode of address produced an effect on Bazarov. He turned his head a little, and, obviously trying to fight against the load of oblivion weighing upon him, he articulated: ‘What is it, father?’

  ‘Yevgeny,’ Vassily Ivanovitch went on, and he fell on his knees before Bazarov, though the latter had closed his eyes and could not see him. ‘Yevgeny, you are better now; please God, you will get well, but make use of this time, comfort your mother and me, perform the duty of a Christian! What it means for me to say this to you, it’s awful; but still more awful ... for ever and ever, Yevgeny ... think a little, what ...’

  The old man’s voice broke, and a strange look passed over his son’s face, though he still lay with closed eyes.

  ‘I won’t refuse, if that can be any comfort to you,’ he brought out at last; ‘but it seems to me there’s no need to be in a hurry. You say yourself I am better.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Yevgeny, better cer
tainly; but who knows, it is all in God’s hands, and in doing the duty ...’

  ‘No, I will wait a bit,’ broke in Bazarov. ‘I agree with you that the crisis has come. And if we’re mistaken, well! they give the sacrament to men who’re unconscious, you know.’

  ‘Yevgeny, I beg.’

  ‘I’ll wait a little. And now I want to go to sleep. Don’t disturb me.’ And he laid his head back on the pillow.

  The old man rose from his knees, sat down in the armchair, and, clutching his beard, began biting his own fingers ...

  The sound of a light carriage on springs, that sound which is peculiarly impressive in the wilds of the country, suddenly struck upon his hearing. Nearer and nearer rolled the light wheels; now even the neighing of the horses could be heard.... Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up and ran to the little window. There drove into the courtyard of his little house a carriage with seats for two, with four horses harnessed abreast. Without stopping to consider what it could mean, with a rush of a sort of senseless joy, he ran out on to the steps.... A groom in livery was opening the carriage doors; a lady in a black veil and a black mantle was getting out of it ...

  ‘I am Madame Odintsov,’ she said. ‘Yevgeny Vassilvitch is still living? You are his father? I have a doctor with me.’

  ‘Benefactress!’ cried Vassily Ivanovitch, and snatching her hand, he pressed it convulsively to his lips, while the doctor brought by Anna Sergyevna, a little man in spectacles, of German physiognomy, stepped very deliberately out of the carriage. ‘Still living, my Yevgeny is living, and now he will be saved! Wife! wife!... An angel from heaven has come to us....’

  ‘What does it mean, good Lord!’ faltered the old woman, running out of the drawing - room; and, comprehending nothing, she fell on the spot in the passage at Anna Sergyevna’s feet, and began kissing her garments like a mad woman.

  ‘What are you doing!’ protested Anna Sergyevna; but Arina Vlasyevna did not heed her, while Vassily Ivanovitch could only repeat, ‘An angel! an angel!’

  ‘Wo ist der Kranke? and where is the patient?’ said the doctor at last, with some impatience.

  Vassily Ivanovitch recovered himself. ‘Here, here, follow me, würdigster Herr Collega,’ he added through old associations.

  ‘Ah!’ articulated the German, grinning sourly.

  Vassily Ivanovitch led him into the study. ‘The doctor from Anna Sergyevna Odintsov,’ he said, bending down quite to his son’s ear, ‘and she herself is here.’

  Bazarov suddenly opened his eyes. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I say that Anna Sergyevna is here, and has brought this gentleman, a doctor, to you.’

  Bazarov moved his eyes about him. ‘She is here.... I want to see her.’

  ‘You shall see her, Yevgeny; but first we must have a little talk with the doctor. I will tell him the whole history of your illness since Sidor Sidoritch’ (this was the name of the district doctor) ‘has gone, and we will have a little consultation.’

  Bazarov glanced at the German. ‘Well, talk away quickly, only not in Latin; you see, I know the meaning of jam moritur.’

  ‘Der Herr scheint des Deutschen mächtig zu sein,’ began the new follower of Æsculapius, turning to Vassily Ivanovitch.

  ‘Ich ... gabe ... We had better speak Russian,’ said the old man.

  ‘Ah, ah! so that’s how it is.... To be sure ...’ And the consultation began.

  Half - an - hour later Anna Sergyevna, conducted by Vassily Ivanovitch, came into the study. The doctor had had time to whisper to her that it was hopeless even to think of the patient’s recovery.

  She looked at Bazarov ... and stood still in the doorway, so greatly was she impressed by the inflamed, and at the same time deathly face, with its dim eyes fastened upon her. She felt simply dismayed, with a sort of cold and suffocating dismay; the thought that she would not have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed instantaneously through her brain.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said painfully, ‘I did not expect this. It’s a deed of mercy. So we have seen each other again, as you promised.’

  ‘Anna Sergyevna has been so kind,’ began Vassily Ivanovitch ...

  ‘Father, leave us alone. Anna Sergyevna, you will allow it, I fancy, now?’

  With a motion of his head, he indicated his prostrate helpless frame.

  Vassily Ivanovitch went out.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ repeated Bazarov. ‘This is royally done. Monarchs, they say, visit the dying too.’

  ‘Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I hope — — ’

  ‘Ah, Anna Sergyevna, let us speak the truth. It’s all over with me. I’m under the wheel. So it turns out that it was useless to think of the future. Death’s an old joke, but it comes fresh to every one. So far I’m not afraid ... but there, senselessness is coming, and then it’s all up! — — ’ he waved his hand feebly. ‘Well, what had I to say to you ... I loved you! there was no sense in that even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking up. Better say how lovely you are! And now here you stand, so beautiful ...’

  Anna Sergyevna gave an involuntary shudder.

  ‘Never mind, don’t be uneasy.... Sit down there.... Don’t come close to me; you know, my illness is catching.’

  Anna Sergyevna swiftly crossed the room, and sat down in the armchair near the sofa on which Bazarov was lying.

  ‘Noble - hearted!’ he whispered. ‘Oh, how near, and how young, and fresh, and pure ... in this loathsome room!... Well, good - bye! live long, that’s the best of all, and make the most of it while there is time. You see what a hideous spectacle; the worm half - crushed, but writhing still. And, you see, I thought too: I’d break down so many things, I wouldn’t die, why should I! there were problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently, though that makes no difference to any one either.... Never mind; I’m not going to turn tail.’

  Bazarov was silent, and began feeling with his hand for the glass. Anna Sergyevna gave him some drink, not taking off her glove, and drawing her breath timorously.

  ‘You will forget me,’ he began again; ‘the dead’s no companion for the living. My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing.... That’s nonsense, but don’t contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort the child ... you know. And be kind to mother. People like them aren’t to be found in your great world if you look by daylight with a candle.... I was needed by Russia.... No, it’s clear, I wasn’t needed. And who is needed? The shoemaker’s needed, the tailor’s needed, the butcher ... gives us meat ... the butcher ... wait a little, I’m getting mixed.... There’s a forest here ...’

  Bazarov put his hand to his brow.

  Anna Sergyevna bent down to him. ‘Yevgeny Vassilyitch, I am here ...’

  He at once took his hand away, and raised himself.

  ‘Good - bye,’ he said with sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with their last light. ‘Good - bye.... Listen ... you know I didn’t kiss you then.... Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out ...’

  Anna Sergyevna put her lips to his forehead.

  ‘Enough!’ he murmured, and dropped back on to the pillow. ‘Now ... darkness ...’

  Anna Sergyevna went softly out. ‘Well?’ Vassily Ivanovitch asked her in a whisper.

  ‘He has fallen asleep,’ she answered, hardly audibly. Bazarov was not fated to awaken. Towards evening he sank into complete unconsciousness, and the following day he died. Father Alexey performed the last rites of religion over him. When they anointed him with the last unction, when the holy oil touched his breast, one eye opened, and it seemed as though at the sight of the priest in his vestments, the smoking censers, the light before the image, something like a shudder of horror passed over the death - stricken face. When at last he had breathed his last, and there arose a universal lamentation in the house, Vassily Ivanovitch was seized by a sudden frenzy. ‘I said I should rebel,’ he shrieked hoarsely, with his face inflamed and distorted, shaking his fist in the air,
as though threatening some one; ‘and I rebel, I rebel!’ But Arina Vlasyevna, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both fell on their faces together. ‘Side by side,’ Anfisushka related afterwards in the servants’ room, ‘they dropped their poor heads like lambs at noonday ...’

  But the heat of noonday passes, and evening comes and night, and then, too, the return to the kindly refuge, where sleep is sweet for the weary and heavy laden....

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Six months had passed by. White winter had come with the cruel stillness of unclouded frosts, the thick - lying, crunching snow, the rosy rime on the trees, the pale emerald sky, the wreaths of smoke above the chimneys, the clouds of steam rushing out of the doors when they are opened for an instant, with the fresh faces, that look stung by the cold, and the hurrying trot of the chilled horses. A January day was drawing to its close; the cold evening was more keen than ever in the motionless air, and a lurid sunset was rapidly dying away. There were lights burning in the windows of the house at Maryino; Prokofitch in a black frockcoat and white gloves, with a special solemnity, laid the table for seven. A week before in the small parish church two weddings had taken place quietly, and almost without witnesses — Arkady and Katya’s, and Nikolai Petrovitch and Fenitchka’s; and on this day Nikolai Petrovitch was giving a farewell dinner to his brother, who was going away to Moscow on business. Anna Sergyevna had gone there also directly after the ceremony was over, after making very handsome presents to the young people.