On the same day Bazarov made acquaintance with Fenitchka. He was
walking with Arkady in the garden, and explaining to him why some of
the trees, especially the oaks, had not done well.
'You ought to have planted silver poplars here by preference, and
spruce firs, and perhaps limes, giving them some loam. The arbour there
has done well,' he added, 'because it's acacia and lilac; they're
accommodating good fellows, those trees, they don't want much care. But
there's some one in here.'
In the arbour was sitting Fenitchka, with Dunyasha and Mitya. Bazarov
stood still, while Arkady nodded to Fenitchka like an old friend.
'Who's that?' Bazarov asked him directly they had passed by. 'What a
pretty girl!'
'Whom are you speaking of?'
'You know; only one of them was pretty.'
Arkady, not without embarrassment, explained to him briefly who
Fenitchka was.
'Aha!' commented Bazarov; 'your father's got good taste, one can see. I
like him, your father, ay, ay! He's a jolly fellow. We must make
friends though,' he added, and turned back towards the arbour.
'Yevgeny!' Arkady cried after him in dismay; 'mind what you are about,
for mercy's sake.'
'Don't worry yourself,' said Bazarov; 'I know how to behave myself--I'm
not a booby.'
Going up to Fenitchka, he took off his cap.
'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began, with a polite bow. 'I'm a
harmless person, and a friend of Arkady Nikolaevitch's.'
Fenitchka got up from the garden seat and looked at him without
speaking.
'What a splendid baby!' continued Bazarov; 'don't be uneasy, my praises
have never brought ill-luck yet. Why is it his cheeks are so flushed?
Is he cutting his teeth?'
'Yes,' said Fenitchka; 'he has cut four teeth already, and now the gums
are swollen again.'
'Show me, and don't be afraid, I'm a doctor.'
Bazarov took the baby up in his arms, and to the great astonishment
both of Fenitchka and Dunyasha the child made no resistance, and was
not frightened.
'I see, I see.... It's nothing, everything's as it should be; he will
have a good set of teeth. If anything goes wrong, tell me. And are you
quite well yourself?'
'Quite, thank God.'
'Thank God, indeed--that's the great thing. And you?' he added, turning
to Dunyasha.
Dunyasha, a girl very prim in the master's house, and a romp outside
the gates, only giggled in answer.
'Well, that's all right. Here's your gallant fellow.'
Fenitchka received the baby in her arms.
'How good he was with you!' she commented in an undertone.
'Children are always good with me.' answered Bazarov; 'I have a way
with them.'
'Children know who loves them,' remarked Dunyasha.
'Yes, they certainly do,' Fenitchka said. 'Why, Mitya will not go to
some people for anything.'
'Will he come to me?' asked Arkady, who, after standing in the distance
for some time, had gone up to the arbour.
He tried to entice Mitya to come to him, but Mitya threw his head back
and screamed, to Fenitchka's great confusion.
'Another day, when he's had time to get used to me,' said Arkady
indulgently, and the two friends walked away.
'What's her name?' asked Bazarov.
'Fenitchka ... Fedosya,' answered Arkady.
'And her father's name? One must know that too.'
'Nikolaevna.'
'_Bene_. What I like in her is that she's not too embarrassed. Some
people, I suppose, would think ill of her for it. What nonsense! What
is there to embarrass her? She's a mother--she's all right.'
'She's all right,' observed Arkady,--'but my father.'
'And he's right too,' put in Bazarov.
'Well, no, I don't think so.'
'I suppose an extra heir's not to your liking?'
'I wonder you're not ashamed to attribute such ideas to me!' retorted
Arkady hotly; 'I don't consider my father wrong from that point of
view; I think he ought to marry her.'
'Hoity-toity!' responded Bazarov tranquilly. 'What magnanimous fellows
we are! You still attach significance to marriage; I did not expect
that of you.'
The friends walked a few paces in silence.
'I have looked at all your father's establishment,' Bazarov began
again. 'The cattle are inferior, the horses are broken down; the
buildings aren't up to much, and the workmen look confirmed loafers;
while the superintendent is either a fool, or a knave, I haven't quite
found out which yet.'
'You are rather hard on everything to-day, Yevgeny Vassilyevitch.'
'And the dear good peasants are taking your father in to a dead
certainty. You know the Russian proverb, "The Russian peasant will
cheat God Himself."'
'I begin to agree with my uncle,' remarked Arkady; 'you certainly have
a poor opinion of Russians.'
'As though that mattered! The only good point in a Russian is his
having the lowest possible opinion of himself. What does matter is that
two and two make four, and the rest is all foolery.'
'And is nature foolery?' said Arkady, looking pensively at the
bright-coloured fields in the distance, in the beautiful soft light of
the sun, which was not yet high up in the sky.
'Nature, too, is foolery in the sense you understand it. Nature's not a
temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.'
At that instant, the long drawn notes of a violoncello floated out to
them from the house. Some one was playing Schubert's _Expectation_ with
much feeling, though with an untrained hand, and the melody flowed with
honey sweetness through the air.
'What's that?' cried Bazarov in amazement.
'It's my father.'
'Your father plays the violoncello?'
'Yes.'
'And how old is your father?'
'Forty-four.'
Bazarov suddenly burst into a roar of laughter.
'What are you laughing at?'
'Upon my word, a man of forty-four, a _paterfamilias_ in this
out-of-the-way district, playing on the violoncello!'
Bazarov went on laughing; but much as he revered his master, this time
Arkady did not even smile.