Half an hour later Nikolai Petrovitch went into the garden to his
favourite arbour. He was overtaken by melancholy thoughts. For the
first time he realised clearly the distance between him and his son; he
foresaw that every day it would grow wider and wider. In vain, then,
had he spent whole days sometimes in the winter at Petersburg over the
newest books; in vain had he listened to the talk of the young men; in
vain had he rejoiced when he succeeded in putting in his word too in
their heated discussions. 'My brother says we are right,' he thought,
'and apart from all vanity, I do think myself that they are further
from the truth than we are, though at the same time I feel there is
something behind them we have not got, some superiority over us.... Is
it youth? No; not only youth. Doesn't their superiority consist in
there being fewer traces of the slaveowner in them than in us?'
Nikolai Petrovitch's head sank despondently, and he passed his hand
over his face.
'But to renounce poetry?' he thought again; 'to have no feeling for
art, for nature ...'
And he looked round, as though trying to understand how it was possible
to have no feeling for nature. It was already evening; the sun was
hidden behind a small copse of aspens which lay a quarter of a mile
from the garden; its shadow stretched indefinitely across the still
fields. A peasant on a white nag went at a trot along the dark, narrow
path close beside the copse; his whole figure was clearly visible even
to the patch on his shoulder, in spite of his being in the shade; the
horse's hoofs flew along bravely. The sun's rays from the farther side
fell full on the copse, and piercing through its thickets, threw such a
warm light on the aspen trunks that they looked like pines, and their
leaves were almost a dark blue, while above them rose a pale blue sky,
faintly tinged by the glow of sunset. The swallows flew high; the wind
had quite died away, belated bees hummed slowly and drowsily among the
lilac blossom; a swarm of midges hung like a cloud over a solitary
branch which stood out against the sky. 'How beautiful, my God!'
thought Nikolai Petrovitch, and his favourite verses were almost on his
lips; he remembered Arkady's _Stoff und Kraft_--and was silent, but
still he sat there, still he gave himself up to the sorrowful
consolation of solitary thought. He was fond of dreaming; his country
life had developed the tendency in him. How short a time ago, he had
been dreaming like this, waiting for his son at the posting station,
and what a change already since that day; their relations that were
then undefined, were defined now--and how defined! Again his dead wife
came back to his imagination, but not as he had known her for many
years, not as the good domestic housewife, but as a young girl with a
slim figure, innocently inquiring eyes, and a tight twist of hair on
her childish neck. He remembered how he had seen her for the first
time. He was still a student then. He had met her on the staircase of
his lodgings, and, jostling by accident against her, he tried to
apologise, and could only mutter, '_Pardon, monsieur_,' while she
bowed, smiled, and suddenly seemed frightened, and ran away, though at
the bend of the staircase she had glanced rapidly at him, assumed a
serious air, and blushed. Afterwards, the first timid visits, the
half-words, the half-smiles, and embarrassment; and melancholy, and
yearnings, and at last that breathing rapture.... Where had it all
vanished? She had been his wife, he had been happy as few on earth are
happy.... 'But,' he mused, 'these sweet first moments, why could one
not live an eternal, undying life in them?'
He did not try to make his thought clear to himself; but he felt that
he longed to keep that blissful time by something stronger than memory;
he longed to feel his Marya near him again to have the sense of her
warmth and breathing, and already he could fancy that over him....
'Nikolai Petrovitch,' came the sound of Fenitchka's voice close by him;
'where are you?'
He started. He felt no pang, no shame. He never even admitted the
possibility of comparison between his wife and Fenitchka, but he was
sorry she had thought of coming to look for him. Her voice had brought
back to him at once his grey hairs, his age, his reality....
The enchanted world into which he was just stepping, which was just
rising out of the dim mists of the past, was shaken--and vanished.
'I'm here,' he answered; 'I'm coming, run along.' 'There it is, the
traces of the slave owner,' flashed through his mind. Fenitchka peeped
into the arbour at him without speaking, and disappeared; while he
noticed with astonishment that the night had come on while he had been
dreaming. Everything around was dark and hushed. Fenitchka's face had
glimmered so pale and slight before him. He got up, and was about to go
home; but the emotion stirred in his heart could not be soothed at
once, and he began slowly walking about the garden, sometimes looking
at the ground at his feet, and then raising his eyes towards the sky
where swarms of stars were twinkling. He walked a great deal, till he
was almost tired out, while the restlessness within him, a kind of
yearning, vague, melancholy restlessness, still was not appeased. Oh,
how Bazarov would have laughed at him, if he had known what was passing
within him then! Arkady himself would have condemned him. He, a man
forty-four years old, an agriculturist and a farmer, was shedding
tears, causeless tears; this was a hundred times worse than the
violoncello.
Nikolai Petrovitch continued walking, and could not make up his mind to
go into the house, into the snug peaceful nest, which looked out at him
so hospitably from all its lighted windows; he had not the force to
tear himself away from the darkness, the garden, the sense of the fresh
air in his face, from that melancholy, that restless craving.
At a turn in the path, he was met by Pavel Petrovitch. 'What's the
matter with you?' he asked Nikolai Petrovitch; 'you are as white as a
ghost; you are not well; why don't you go to bed?'
Nikolai Petrovitch explained to him briefly his state of feeling and
moved away. Pavel Petrovitch went to the end of the garden, and he too
grew thoughtful, and he too raised his eyes toward the heavens. But in
his beautiful dark eyes, nothing was reflected but the light of the
stars. He was not born an idealist, and his fastidiously dry and
sensuous soul, with its French tinge of cynicism was not capable of
dreaming....
'Do you know what?' Bazarov was saying to Arkady the same night. 'I've
got a splendid idea. Your father was saying to-day that he'd had an
invitation from your illustrious relative. Your father's not going; let
us be off to X----; you know the worthy man invites you too. You see
what fine weather it is; we'll stroll about and look at the town. We'll
have five or six days' outing, and enjoy ourselves.'
'And you'll come back here again?'
'No; I must go to my father's. You know, he lives about twenty-five
miles from X----. I've not seen him for a long while, and my mother
too; I must cheer the old people up. They've been good to me,
especially my father; he's awfully funny. I'm their only one too.'
'And will you be long with them?'
'I don't suppose so. It will be dull, of course.'
'And you'll come to us on your way back?'
'I don't know ... I'll see. Well, what do you say? Shall we go?'
'If you like,' observed Arkady languidly.
In his heart he was highly delighted with his friend's suggestion, but
he thought it a duty to conceal his feeling. He was not a nihilist for
nothing!
The next day he set off with Bazarov to X----. The younger part of the
household at Maryino were sorry at their going; Dunyasha even cried ...
but the old folks breathed more easily.