In silence, only rarely exchanging a few insignificant words, our
friends travelled as far as Fedot's. Bazarov was not altogether pleased
with himself. Arkady was displeased with him. He was feeling, too, that
causeless melancholy which is only known to very young people. The
coachman changed the horses, and getting up on to the box, inquired,
'To the right or to the left?'
Arkady started. The road to the right led to the town, and from there
home; the road to the left led to Madame Odintsov's.
He looked at Bazarov.
'Yevgeny,' he queried; 'to the left?'
Bazarov turned away. 'What folly is this?' he muttered.
'I know it's folly,' answered Arkady.... 'But what does that matter?
It's not the first time.'
Bazarov pulled his cap down over his brows. 'As you choose,' he said at
last. 'Turn to the left,' shouted Arkady.
The coach rolled away in the direction of Nikolskoe. But having
resolved on the folly, the friends were even more obstinately silent
than before, and seemed positively ill-humoured.
Directly the steward met them on the steps of Madame Odintsov's house,
the friends could perceive that they had acted injudiciously in giving
way so suddenly to a passing impulse. They were obviously not expected.
They sat rather a long while, looking rather foolish, in the
drawing-room. Madame Odintsov came in to them at last. She greeted them
with her customary politeness, but was surprised at their hasty return;
and, so far as could be judged from the deliberation of her gestures
and words, she was not over pleased at it. They made haste to announce
that they had only called on their road, and must go on farther, to the
town, within four hours. She confined herself to a light exclamation,
begged Arkady to remember her to his father, and sent for her aunt. The
princess appeared very sleepy, which gave her wrinkled old face an even
more ill-natured expression. Katya was not well; she did not leave her
room. Arkady suddenly realised that he was at least as anxious to see
Katya as Anna Sergyevna herself. The four hours were spent in
insignificant discussion of one thing and another; Anna Sergyevna both
listened and spoke without a smile. It was only quite at parting that
her former friendliness seemed, as it were, to revive.
'I have an attack of spleen just now,' she said; 'but you must not pay
attention to that, and come again--I say this to both of you--before
long.'
Both Bazarov and Arkady responded with a silent bow, took their seats
in the coach, and without stopping again anywhere, went straight home
to Maryino, where they arrived safely on the evening of the following
day. During the whole course of the journey neither one nor the other
even mentioned the name of Madame Odintsov; Bazarov, in particular,
scarcely opened his mouth, and kept staring in a side direction away
from the road, with a kind of exasperated intensity.
At Maryino every one was exceedingly delighted to see them. The
prolonged absence of his son had begun to make Nikolai Petrovitch
uneasy; he uttered a cry of joy, and bounced about on the sofa,
dangling his legs, when Fenitchka ran to him with sparkling eyes, and
informed him of the arrival of the 'young gentlemen'; even Pavel
Petrovitch was conscious of some degree of agreeable excitement, and
smiled condescendingly as he shook hands with the returned wanderers.
Talk, questions followed; Arkady talked most, especially at supper,
which was prolonged long after midnight. Nikolai Petrovitch ordered up
some bottles of porter which had only just been sent from Moscow, and
partook of the festive beverage till his cheeks were crimson, and he
kept laughing in a half-childish, half-nervous little chuckle. Even the
servants were infected by the general gaiety. Dunyasha ran up and down
like one possessed, and was continually slamming doors; while Piotr
was, at three o'clock in the morning, still attempting to strum a
Cossack waltz on the guitar. The strings gave forth a sweet and
plaintive sound in the still air; but with the exception of a small
preliminary flourish, nothing came of the cultured valet's efforts;
nature had given him no more musical talent than all the rest of the
world.
But meanwhile things were not going over harmoniously at Maryino, and
poor Nikolai Petrovitch was having a bad time of it. Difficulties on
the farm sprang up every day--senseless, distressing difficulties. The
troubles with the hired labourers had become insupportable. Some asked
for their wages to be settled, or for an increase of wages, while
others made off with the wages they had received in advance; the horses
fell sick; the harness fell to pieces as though it were burnt; the work
was carelessly done; a threshing machine that had been ordered from
Moscow turned out to be useless from its great weight, another was
ruined the first time it was used; half the cattle sheds were burnt
down through an old blind woman on the farm going in windy weather with
a burning brand to fumigate her cow ... the old woman, it is true,
maintained that the whole mischief could be traced to the master's plan
of introducing newfangled cheeses and milk-products. The overseer
suddenly turned lazy, and began to grow fat, as every Russian grows fat
when he gets a snug berth. When he caught sight of Nikolai Petrovitch
in the distance, he would fling a stick at a passing pig, or threaten a
half-naked urchin, to show his zeal, but the rest of the time he was
generally asleep. The peasants who had been put on the rent system did
not bring their money at the time due, and stole the forest-timber;
almost every night the keepers caught peasants' horses in the meadows
of the 'farm,' and sometimes forcibly bore them off. Nikolai Petrovitch
would fix a money fine for damages, but the matter usually ended after
the horses had been kept a day or two on the master's forage by their
returning to their owners. To crown all, the peasants began quarrelling
among themselves; brothers asked for a division of property, their
wives could not get on together in one house; all of a sudden the
squabble, as though at a given signal, came to a head, and at once the
whole village came running to the counting-house steps, crawling to the
master often drunken and with battered face, demanding justice and
judgment; then arose an uproar and clamour, the shrill wailing of the
women mixed with the curses of the men. Then one had to examine the
contending parties, and shout oneself hoarse, knowing all the while
that one could never anyway arrive at a just decision.... There were
not hands enough for the harvest; a neighbouring small owner, with the
most benevolent countenance, contracted to supply him with reapers for
a commission of two roubles an acre, and cheated him in the most
shameless fashion; his peasant women demanded unheard-of sums, and the
corn meanwhile went to waste; and here they were not getting on with
the mowing, and there the Council of Guardians threatened and demanded
prompt payment, in full, of interest due....
'I can do nothing!' Nikolai Petrovitch cried more than once in despair.
'I can't flog them myself; and as for calling in the police captain, my
principles don't allow of it, while you can do nothing with them
without the fear of punishment!'
'_Du calme_, _du calme_,' Pavel Petrovitch would remark upon this, but
even he hummed to himself, knitted his brows, and tugged at his
moustache.
Bazarov held aloof from these matters, and indeed as a guest it was not
for him to meddle in other people's business. The day after his arrival
at Maryino, he set to work on his frogs, his infusoria, and his
chemical experiments, and was for ever busy with them. Arkady, on the
contrary, thought it his duty, if not to help his father, at least to
make a show of being ready to help him. He gave him a patient hearing,
and once offered him some advice, not with any idea of its being acted
upon, but to show his interest. Farming details did not arouse any
aversion in him; he used even to dream with pleasure of work on the
land, but at this time his brain was swarming with other ideas. Arkady,
to his own astonishment, thought incessantly of Nikolskoe; in former
days he would simply have shrugged his shoulders if any one had told
him that he could ever feel dull under the same roof as Bazarov--and
that roof his father's! but he actually was dull and longed to get
away. He tried going long walks till he was tired, but that was no use.
In conversation with his father one day, he found out that Nikolai
Petrovitch had in his possession rather interesting letters, written by
Madame Odintsov's mother to his wife, and he gave him no rest till he
got hold of the letters, for which Nikolai Petrovitch had to rummage in
twenty drawers and boxes. Having gained possession of these
half-crumbling papers, Arkady felt, as it were, soothed, just as though
he had caught a glimpse of the goal towards which he ought now to go.
'I mean that for both of you,' he was constantly whispering--she had
added that herself! 'I'll go, I'll go, hang it all!' But he recalled
the last visit, the cold reception, and his former embarrassment, and
timidity got the better of him. The 'go-ahead' feeling of youth, the
secret desire to try his luck, to prove his powers in solitude, without
the protection of any one whatever, gained the day at last. Before ten
days had passed after his return to Maryino, on the pretext of studying
the working of the Sunday schools, he galloped off to the town again,
and from there to Nikolskoe. Urging the driver on without intermission,
he flew along, like a young officer riding to battle; and he felt both
frightened and light-hearted, and was breathless with impatience. 'The
great thing is--one mustn't think,' he kept repeating to himself. His
driver happened to be a lad of spirit; he halted before every public
house, saying, 'A drink or not a drink?' but, to make up for it, when
he had drunk he did not spare his horses. At last the lofty roof of the
familiar house came in sight.... 'What am I to do?' flashed through
Arkady's head. 'Well, there's no turning back now!' The three horses
galloped in unison; the driver whooped and whistled at them. And now
the bridge was groaning under the hoofs and wheels, and now the avenue
of lopped pines seemed running to meet them.... There was a glimpse of
a woman's pink dress against the dark green, a young face from under
the light fringe of a parasol.... He recognised Katya, and she
recognised him. Arkady told the driver to stop the galloping horses,
leaped out of the carriage, and went up to her. 'It's you!' she cried,
gradually flushing all over; 'let us go to my sister, she's here in the
garden; she will be pleased to see you.'
Katya led Arkady into the garden. His meeting with her struck him as a
particularly happy omen; he was delighted to see her, as though she
were of his own kindred. Everything had happened so splendidly; no
steward, no formal announcement. At a turn in the path he caught sight
of Anna Sergyevna. She was standing with her back to him. Hearing
footsteps, she turned slowly round.
Arkady felt confused again, but the first words she uttered soothed him
at once. 'Welcome back, runaway!' she said in her even, caressing
voice, and came to meet him, smiling and frowning to keep the sun and
wind out of her eyes. 'Where did you pick him up, Katya?'
'I have brought you something, Anna Sergyevna,' he began, 'which you
certainly don't expect.'
'You have brought yourself; that's better than anything.'