Nikolay Petrovich only gave a sigh. He didn’t suspect to whom these words referred.
Bazarov came to see Pavel Petrovich the following day about eight o’clock. He had already packed and released all his frogs, insects and birds.
‘Have you come to say goodbye to me?’ said Nikolay Petrovich, rising to greet him.
‘I have.’
‘I understand you and wholly approve. My poor brother of course is to blame. And he’s been punished for it. He told me himself that he put you into a situation where it was impossible for you to act otherwise. I don’t believe you could have avoided this duel which… which to some extent can be explained by the constant antagonism of your respective points of view.’ (Nikolay Petrovich was getting lost in his words.) ‘My brother is a man of the old school, fiery-tempered and set in his ways… Thank God, too, that it’s ended like this. I have taken all necessary measures against publicity…’
‘I’ll leave you my address in case you need it, should the story come out,’ Bazarov remarked coolly.
‘I hope no story comes out, Yevgeny Vasilyich… I’m very sorry that your stay in my house has had such a… such an end. I feel the worse that Arkady…’
‘I’ll surely be seeing him,’ Bazarov retorted: all kinds of ‘explanation’ and ‘clarification’ always provoked in him a feeling of impatience. ‘In case I don’t, please greet him for me and give him my regrets.’
‘And allow me…’ Nikolay Petrovich answered, with a bow.
But Bazarov didn’t wait for the end of his sentence and went out.
When he heard of Bazarov’s coming departure, Pavel Petrovich said that he wanted to see him and shook hands. But on this occasion too Bazarov appeared cold as ice. He realized that Pavel Petrovich wanted to appear a little magnanimous. He didn’t manage to say goodbye to Fenechka: he just caught her eye through a window. He thought her face looked sad. ‘That’ll surely pass!’ he said to himself. ‘She’ll somehow get over it!’ But Pyotr was so moved that he cried on his shoulder till Bazarov put him off with the chilly question ‘Do your eyes run?’ And Dunyasha was obliged to dash off to the wood in order to hide her emotion. The perpetrator of all this grief got into the carriage and lit up a cigar, and when after a couple of miles at a turn in the road the extended line of the Kirsanovs’ manor buildings with the new mansion appeared to him for the last time, he just spat and, muttering ‘Bloody gents!’, he wrapped himself deeper in his overcoat.
Pavel Petrovich soon felt better, but he had to stay in bed for about a week. He bore his ‘captivity’, as he called it, patiently, only he took a great deal of pains over his toilet and kept telling them to fumigate the room with eau de Cologne. Nikolay Petrovich read the newspapers to him, Fenechka waited on him as before, brought him broth, lemonade, soft-boiled eggs, tea. But she was overcome by secret terror every time she entered his room. Pavel Petrovich’s surprising action had scared everyone in the house and her most of all; only Prokofyich was unperturbed and explained that in his day gentlemen were always fighting, ‘only it was noble gentlemen fighting each other, but rubbish like that they’d have had flogged in the stables for impertinence’.
Fenechka had almost no reproaches of conscience but she was troubled at times by the thought of the real reason for the quarrel. And Pavel Petrovich looked at her so strangely… so that even when she had her back to him she felt his eyes on her. She had become thinner from the constant inner anxiety and, as usually happens, had become even prettier.
One day – it was in the morning – Pavel Petrovich felt better and moved from his bed to a sofa while Nikolay Petrovich, having inquired after his health, went off to the threshing barn. Fenechka brought a cup of tea, put it down on a table and was about to go. Pavel Petrovich detained her.
‘Why are you in such a hurry, Fedosya Nikolayevna?’ he began. ‘Have you things to do?’
‘No… yes… I have to pour out the tea in there.’
‘Dunyasha will do that without you. Sit a bit with the patient. Incidentally, I must talk to you.’
Fenechka sat down on the edge of a chair without speaking.
‘Listen,’ said Pavel Petrovich and tugged at his moustache. ‘I have long been meaning to ask you – you’re frightened of me, aren’t you?’
‘I, frightened of you?’
‘Yes, you. You never look at me, as if you had something on your conscience.’
Fenechka went red but she did glance at Pavel Petrovich. He had a strange look, she felt, and her heart began to beat gently.
‘You don’t have anything on your conscience, do you?’
‘Why should I?’ she whispered.
‘There are plenty of reasons. But whom could you have wronged? Myself? Unlikely. Others here in the house? Also improbable. Then my brother? But you do love him, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘With all your heart and all your soul?’
‘I love Nikolay Petrovich with all my heart.’
‘Truthfully? Look at me, Fenechka.’ (He called her that for the first time…) ‘You know that lying is a grave sin.’
‘I am not lying, Pavel Petrovich. Stop loving Nikolay Petrovich – after that I might as well die!’
‘And you wouldn’t give him up for anyone else?’
‘For whom could I?’
‘It could be anyone! Say the gentleman who’s just left here.’
Fenechka got up.
‘My God, Pavel Petrovich, why are you tormenting me? What have I done to you? How can you say such a thing?…’
‘Fenechka,’ said Pavel Petrovich sadly, ‘but I saw…’
‘What did you see?’
‘I saw you there in the arbour.’
Fenechka blushed to her ears and the roots of her hair.
‘But did I do wrong there?’ she said with some difficulty.
Pavel Petrovich rose.
‘Did you really do nothing wrong? Nothing? Nothing at all?’
‘Nikolay Petrovich is the only one in the world that I love, and I will love him always!’ Fenechka pronounced with a sudden surge of strength while sobs were still choking her throat. ‘But as for what you saw, I’ll say at the Last Judgement that I bear no blame for that, and it would be better for me to die here and now if people had any suspicions about me there, that I could cause my benefactor, Nikolay Petrovich…’
But here her voice failed her and at the same time she felt that Pavel Petrovich had taken hold of her hand and squeezed it… She looked at him and froze. He had become even paler than before, his eyes shone, and, most surprising of all, a single tear rolled down his cheek.
‘Fenechka!’ he said in a kind of odd whisper. ‘You must love my brother, love him! He is such a kind, good man. Don’t betray him for anyone in the world, don’t listen to the fine words of others! Think, what can be more terrible than to love and not to be loved! Don’t abandon my poor Nikolay!’
So great was Fenechka’s astonishment that her eyes dried and her terror passed. But what did she feel when Pavel Petrovich, Pavel Petrovich himself, took her hand to his lips and pressed it there, without kissing it and only occasionally giving a convulsive sigh…
‘Lord above!’ she thought. ‘Is he having a fit?…’ But at that moment his whole ruined life was quivering within him. The stairs creaked, and there was the sound of hurried footsteps… He pushed her away from him, and his head fell back on the pillow. The door opened – and Nikolay Petrovich appeared, all cheerful, fresh and rosy. Mitya, in just a shirt, as fresh and rosy as his father, was jumping up and down on his chest, grabbing the big buttons of his country coat between his bare toes.
Fenechka rushed to Nikolay Petrovich and, putting her arms round father and son, laid her head on his shoulder. Nikolay Petrovich was astonished. Shy and modest Fenechka never showed him signs of affection in the presence of a third person.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said and with a look at his brother he handed Mitya to her. ‘Are you feeling worse?’ he
asked, going up to Pavel Petrovich.
He pressed his face into a batiste handkerchief.
‘No… it’s… nothing’s the matter… On the contrary I’m much better.’
‘You were too hasty in moving to the sofa. Where are you off to?’ Nikolay Petrovich added, turning to Fenechka, but she had already slammed the door behind her. ‘I was bringing in my big boy to show him to you – he was missing his uncle. Why did she take him away? But what’s the matter with you? Did something happen in here between you?’
‘Brother!’ Pavel Petrovich said solemnly.
Nikolay Petrovich shivered. He felt scared, he didn’t understand why.
‘Brother,’ Pavel Petrovich repeated, ‘give me your word you’ll meet one request of mine.’
‘What? Tell me.’
‘It’s very important. In my view the whole happiness of your life depends on it. All this time I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I now want to say to you… Brother, do your duty, your duty as an honest and noble man, put an end to the seducer’s role, to the poor example you set, you who are the best of men!’
‘Paul, what do you mean?’
‘Marry Fenechka… She loves you, she’s the mother of your son.’
Nikolay Petrovich stepped back a pace and raised his hands.
‘Are you saying this, Pavel? You whom I always thought the most inflexible opponent of marriages like that? You are saying this! But don’t you know that it is solely out of respect for you that I haven’t done what you have justly called my duty!’
‘In this case your respect for me was pointless,’ Pavel Petrovich retorted with a melancholy smile. ‘I am beginning to think that Bazarov was right when he accused me of aristocratism. No, dear Brother, that’s enough of putting on airs and thinking about the wider world: we are now old and meek. It’s time for us to put all vanity aside. Precisely as you say, we’ll start doing our duty. And, mark you, we’ll get happiness into the bargain.’
Nikolay Petrovich rushed to embrace his brother.
‘You have finally opened my eyes!’ he exclaimed. ‘I always maintained you were the kindest and cleverest man in the world, and I was right. And now I see that you are as wise as you are big-hearted.’
‘Shush, shush.’ Pavel Petrovich interrupted him. ‘Don’t hurt the leg of your wise brother, who at the age of nearly fifty has gone and fought a duel, like a subaltern. And so, that’s decided. Fenechka will be my… belle-sœur.’10
‘My dear Pavel! But what will Arkady say?’
‘Arkady? He’ll be in ecstasy, I should think! Marriage is not one of his principles, but his sense of equality will be flattered. And indeed how can class matter au dix-neuvième siècle?’11
‘Oh Pavel, Pavel! Let me kiss you again. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.’
The brothers embraced.
‘What do you think, why not declare your intentions to her here and now?’ asked Pavel Petrovich.
‘Why such a hurry?’ Nikolay Petrovich answered. ‘Did you have words?’
‘Words? Quelle idée!’12
‘Very well, then. First recover your health; this matter isn’t going to run away from us, we must think it through, and consider…’
‘But you’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?’
‘Of course I have and I thank you from my heart. Now I’ll leave you, you must rest. Upsets are bad for you… But we’ll talk more. Go to sleep, my dear, and get well, with God’s help!’
‘Why is he thanking me?’ thought Pavel Petrovich when he was alone. ‘As if it didn’t depend on him! And as soon as he marries I’ll go off somewhere far away, Dresden or Florence, and live there till I drop dead.’
Pavel Petrovich moistened his forehead with eau de Cologne and closed his eyes. Lit by the bright light of day, his handsome, wasted head lay on the white pillow like the head of a dead man… And he was indeed a dead man.
XXV
At Nikolskoye Katya and Arkady were sitting on a turf seat in the garden, in the shade of a tall ash. On the ground by them lay Fifi, her long body forming the elegant curve sportsmen call a ‘hare’s lie’. Neither of them spoke. He held in his hands a half-open book while she took from a basket the remaining crumbs of white bread and threw them to a small family of sparrows which with their usual mixture of timorousness and cheek hopped and chirruped right by their feet. A slight breeze stirring in the leaves of the ash gently shifted pale golden patches of light back and forth over the dark path and Fifi’s yellow back. Arkady and Katya were in full shade; only occasionally a bright streak of light played in her hair. Both were silent, but their very silence and the way they sat next to one another spoke of their trust and intimacy. Neither appeared to be thinking of their neighbour, but each was secretly glad of the closeness. And their expressions had changed since we saw them last: Arkady seemed calmer, Katya livelier and bolder.
‘Don’t you find,’ Arkady began, ‘that the ash tree – yasen’ – is very well named in Russian: there is no tree with its light, clear – yasny – transparency in the air?’
Katya raised her eyes and said ‘yes’ – and Arkady thought, ‘Well, she doesn’t criticize me for fine phrases.’
‘I don’t like Heine,’1 said Katya looking at the book in Arkady’s hands, ‘when he’s laughing or when he’s weeping. I do like him when he is pensive or melancholy.’
‘But I like him when he’s laughing,’ said Arkady.
‘Those are still the old traces of your satirical way of thinking…’ (‘Old traces!’ thought Arkady. ‘If Bazarov heard that.’) ‘Wait a little and we’ll change you.’
‘Who will change me? You?’
‘Who will? My sister, and Porfyry Platonych, with whom you no longer quarrel, and my aunt, whom you took to church the day before yesterday.’
‘I could hardly refuse! As for Anna Sergeyevna you’ll remember that she herself agreed with Yevgeny about many things.’
‘My sister was then under his influence, like you.’
‘Like me! Have you noticed that I’m already liberated from his influence?’
Katya said nothing.
Arkady went on. ‘I know you never liked him.’
‘I can’t judge him.’
‘You know, Katerina Sergeyevna, every time I hear that reply, I don’t believe it… There is nobody whom none of us can judge! It’s just an excuse.’
‘Well, then I’ll tell you that he… it’s not that I don’t like him, but I feel he’s alien to me, and I to him… and you’re alien to him.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘How can I say it… he’s a predator and you and I are domestic animals.’
‘I’m one too?’
Katya nodded.
Arkady scratched behind his ear.
‘Listen, Katerina Sergeyevna, that’s really offensive.’
‘Would you like to be a predator?’
‘Not a predator, but strong, energetic.’
‘That can’t be had by wishing… Your friend doesn’t wish that, but he is that.’
‘Hm! So you think he had a big influence on Anna Sergeyevna?’
‘Yes. But no one can have the upper hand over her for long,’ Katya added in a low voice.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘She’s very proud… I didn’t mean that… she very much values her independence.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ Arkady asked, while the thought ‘Why does she?’ went through his mind. The same thought went through Katya’s. Young people who meet often and become intimate constantly have the very same thoughts.
Arkady smiled and, moving a little closer to Katya, whispered:
‘Admit you’re a bit scared of her.’
‘Scared of whom?’
‘Of her,’ Arkady repeated, with emphasis.
‘And what about you?’ Katya asked in her turn.
‘I am too. Note that I said I am too.’
Katya wagged her finger at him.
‘I am surprised about that,’ she
began, ‘my sister has never been so fond of you as right now, much more than when you came here first.’
‘Oh really!’
‘Didn’t you notice that? Aren’t you pleased?’
Arkady thought a moment.
‘How could I have earned Anna Sergeyevna’s goodwill? Maybe because I brought her your mother’s letters?’
‘Yes, that, and there are other reasons, which I won’t say.’
‘Why?’
‘I won’t say.’
‘Oh, I do know – you’re very stubborn.’
‘I am.’
‘And observant.’
Katya looked sideways at Arkady.
‘Does that perhaps annoy you? What are you thinking about?’
‘I’m wondering where you got these powers of observation, which you really do have. You’re so apprehensive and mistrustful, you keep at a distance from everyone…’
‘I’ve lived a lot by myself: willy-nilly one starts to reflect on things. But do I really keep at a distance from everyone?’
Arkady gave Katya a grateful look.
‘That’s all very well,’ he went on, ‘but people in your position, I mean to say with your fortune, seldom have that gift: it’s as hard for the truth to get through to them as to the Tsar.’
‘But I’m not rich.’
Arkady was taken aback and didn’t immediately understand Katya. ‘So in fact the estate is all her sister’s!’ was the thought that then came into his head: he didn’t find it unpleasant.
‘How well you said that!’ he pronounced.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said that so well – simply, without being ashamed and without dramatizing. By the way, I imagine that the feelings of someone who knows and says that they are poor do have something special, a particular kind of vanity.’
‘I never experienced anything of that kind, thanks to my sister. I mentioned my lack of fortune simply because the subject came up.’
‘Very well. But do admit you have a bit of that vanity I was just talking about.’
‘Give me an example.’
‘For example – you must excuse my question – you wouldn’t marry a rich man, would you?’