Fathers and Children

'To Paris, I suppose?' queried Bazarov.

'To Paris and to Heidelberg.'

'Why to Heidelberg?'

'How can you ask? Why, Bunsen's there!'

To this Bazarov could find no reply.

'Pierre Sapozhnikov ... do you know him?'

'No, I don't.'

'Not know Pierre Sapozhnikov ... he's always at Lidia Hestatov's.'

'I don't know her either.'

'Well, it was he undertook to escort me. Thank God, I'm independent; I've no children.... What was that I said: thank God! It's no matter though.'

Evdoksya rolled a cigarette up between her fingers, which were brown with tobacco stains, put it to her tongue, licked it up, and began smoking. The maid came in with a tray.

'Ah, here's lunch! Will you have an appetiser first? Victor, open the bottle; that's in your line.'

'Yes, it's in my line,' muttered Sitnikov, and again he gave vent to the same convulsive laugh.

'Are there any pretty women here?' inquired Bazarov, as he drank off a third glass.

'Yes, there are,' answered Evdoksya; 'but they're all such empty-headed creatures. Mon amie, Odintsova, for instance, is nice-looking. It's a pity her reputation's rather doubtful.... That wouldn't matter, though, but she's no independence in her views, no width, nothing ... of all that. The whole system of education wants changing. I've thought a great deal about it, our women are very badly educated.'

'There's no doing anything with them,' put in Sitnikov; 'one ought to despise them, and I do despise them fully and completely!' (The possibility of feeling and expressing contempt was the most agreeable sensation to Sitnikov; he used to attack women in especial, never suspecting that it was to be his fate a few months later to be cringing before his wife merely because she had been born a princess Durdoleosov.) 'Not a single one of them would be capable of understanding our conversation; not a single one deserves to be spoken of by serious men like us!'

'But there's not the least need for them to understand our conversation,' observed Bazarov.

'Whom do you mean?' put in Evdoksya.

'Pretty women.'

'What? Do you adopt Proudhon's ideas, then?'

Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. 'I don't adopt any one's ideas; I have my own.'

'Damn all authorities!' shouted Sitnikov, delighted to have a chance of expressing himself boldly before the man he slavishly admired.

'But even Macaulay,' Madame Kukshin was beginning ...

'Damn Macaulay,' thundered Sitnikov. 'Are you going to stand up for the silly hussies?'

'For silly hussies, no, but for the rights of women, which I have sworn to defend to the last drop of my blood.'

'Damn!'—but here Sitnikov stopped. 'But I don't deny them,' he said.

'No, I see you're a Slavophil.'

'No, I'm not a Slavophil, though, of course ...'

'No, no, no! You are a Slavophil. You're an advocate of patriarchal despotism. You want to have the whip in your hand!'

'A whip's an excellent thing,' remarked Bazarov; 'but we've got to the last drop.'

'Of what?' interrupted Evdoksya.

'Of champagne, most honoured Avdotya Nikitishna, of champagne—not of your blood.'

'I can never listen calmly when women are attacked,' pursued Evdoksya. 'It's awful, awful. Instead of attacking them, you'd better read Michelet's book, De l'amour. That's exquisite! Gentlemen, let us talk of love,' added Evdoksya, letting her arm fall languidly on the rumpled sofa cushion.

A sudden silence followed. 'No, why should we talk of love,' said Bazarov; 'but you mentioned just now a Madame Odintsov ... That was what you called her, I think? Who is that lady?'

'She's charming, charming!' piped Sitnikov. 'I will introduce you. Clever, rich, a widow. It's a pity, she's not yet advanced enough; she ought to see more of our Evdoksya. I drink to your health, Evdoxie! Let us clink glasses! Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin! Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin!!!'

'Victor, you're a wretch.'

The lunch dragged on a long while. The first bottle of champagne was followed by another, a third, and even a fourth.... Evdoksya chattered without pause; Sitnikov seconded her. They had much discussion upon the question whether marriage was a prejudice or a crime, and whether men were born equal or not, and precisely what individuality consists in. Things came at last to Evdoksya, flushed from the wine she had drunk, tapping with her flat finger-tips on the keys of a discordant piano, and beginning to sing in a hoarse voice, first gipsy songs, and then Seymour Schiff's song, 'Granada lies slumbering'; while Sitnikov tied a scarf round his head, and represented the dying lover at the words—

'And thy lips to mine

 In burning kiss entwine.'

Arkady could not stand it at last. 'Gentlemen, it's getting something like Bedlam,' he remarked aloud. Bazarov, who had at rare intervals put in an ironical word in the conversation—he paid more attention to the champagne—gave a loud yawn, got up, and, without taking leave of their hostess, he walked off with Arkady. Sitnikov jumped up and followed them.

'Well, what do you think of her?' he inquired, skipping obsequiously from right to left of them. 'I told you, you see, a remarkable personality! If we only had more women like that! She is, in her own way, an expression of the highest morality.'

'And is that establishment of your governor's an expression of the highest morality too?' observed Bazarov, pointing to a ginshop which they were passing at that instant.

Sitnikov again went off into a shrill laugh. He was greatly ashamed of his origin, and did not know whether to feel flattered or offended at Bazarov's unexpected familiarity.

CHAPTER XIV

A few days later the ball at the Governor's took place. Matvy Ilyitch was the real 'hero of the occasion.' The marshal of nobility declared to all and each that he had come simply out of respect for him; while the Governor, even at the ball, even while he remained perfectly motionless, was still 'making arrangements.' The affability of Matvy Ilyitch's demeanour could only be equalled by its dignity. He was gracious to all, to some with a shade of disgust, to others with a shade of respect; he was all bows and smiles 'en vrai chevalier français' before the ladies, and was continually giving vent to a hearty, sonorous, unshared laugh, such as befits a high official. He slapped Arkady on the back, and called him loudly 'nephew'; vouchsafed Bazarov—who was attired in a rather old evening coat—a sidelong glance in passing—absent but condescending—and an indistinct but affable grunt, in which nothing could be distinguished but 'I ...' and 'very much'; gave Sitnikov a finger and a smile, though with his head already averted; even to Madame Kukshin, who made her appearance at the ball with dirty gloves, no crinoline, and a bird of Paradise in her hair, he said 'enchanté.'. There were crowds of people, and no lack of dancing men; the civilians were for the most part standing close along the walls, but the officers danced assiduously, especially one of them who had spent six weeks in Paris, where he had mastered various daring interjections of the kind of—'zut,' 'Ah, fichtr-re,' 'pst, pst, mon bibi,' and such. He pronounced them to perfection with genuine Parisian chic, and at the same time he said 'si j'aurais' for 'si j'avais,' 'absolument' in the sense of 'absolutely,' expressed himself, in fact, in that Great Russo-French jargon which the French ridicule so when they have no reason for assuring us that we speak French like angels, 'comme des anges.'