Fathers and Sons

In the early days of June, the best season of the year, the weather became beautiful. True, from afar there came threatenings of cholera, but to the local inhabitants such visitations had become a commonplace. Each day Bazarov rose early to set forth upon a tramp of some two or three versts; nor were those tramps undertaken merely for the sake of the exercise (he could not abide aimless expeditions), but, rather, for the sake of collecting herbs and insects. Sometimes, too, he would succeed in inducing Arkady to accompany him; and whenever this was the case the pair would, on the way back, engage in some dispute which always left Arkady vanquished in spite of his superior profusion of argument.

One morning the pair lingered considerably by the way, and Nikolai Petrovitch set out across the garden to meet them. Just as he reached the arbour, he heard their voices and brisk footsteps approaching, though he himself was invisible to the returning friends.

"You do not understand my father," Arkady was saying.

Nikolai Petrovitch halted instead of revealing himself.

"Oh, he is a good fellow enough," replied Bazarov. "But also he is a man on the shelf, a man whose song has been sung."

Though Nikolai Petrovitch strained his ears, he failed to catch Arkady's reply. So the "man on the shelf" lingered for a minute or two – then walked slowly back to the house.

"For the past three days I have noted him reading Pushkin," continued Bazarov. "You ought to explain to him that no good can come of that, for he is no longer a boy, and ought to have shaken himself free of such fiddlesticks. Who would desire to be a Romanticist? Give him something practical."

"For instance?"

"Let me consider. For a start, give him Büchner's11 Stoff und Kraft."

"Good!" Arkady's tone was approving. "Stoff und Kraft is at least written in a popular style."

The same day Nikolai Petrovitch was sitting with his brother. At length he said:

"I find that you and I are men on the shelf, that our songs have been sung. Eh? And perhaps Bazarov is right. Yet I confess that one thing hurts me: and that is that, though I had hoped to draw nearer to Arkady, I am being left in the rear, and he is for ever marching ahead. No longer do he and I understand one another."

"And why is he for ever marching ahead?" asked Paul Petrovitch indignantly. "How comes he to stand at such a distance from us? The reason is simply the ideas which that precious 'Nihilist' is putting into his head. For myself, I detest the fellow, and think him a charlatan. Also, I am certain that, in spite of his frogs, he is making no real progress in physics."

"We ought not to say that, brother. For my own part, I look upon him as a man of culture and ability."

"If so, a detestably conceited one."

"Perhaps he is conceited," Nikolai Petrovitch allowed. "But then it would appear that nothing can be done without something of the kind. What I cannot make out is the following. As you know, I have done everything possible to keep up with the times – I have organised my peasantry, I have set up such a farm that throughout the province I am known as 'Fine Kirsanov,' persistently I read and educate myself, in general I try to march abreast of the needs of the day. Yet, though I do all this, I am now given to understand that my day is past and gone! And, brother, I do not say that I am not partially inclined to accept that view."

"For what reason?"

"For the following. To-day, as I was reading Pushkin (I think it was 'The Gipsies' that I had lighted upon), there suddenly entered the room Arkady. Silently, and with an air of kindly regret, and as gently as a child, he withdrew the book from my hand, and laid before me another book – a German production of some kind. That done, he gave me another smile, and departed with my volume of Pushkin under his arm."

"Good gracious! And what might be the book which he has given you?"

"This."

Nikolai Petrovitch extracted from the tail pocket of his frock-coat a copy (ninth edition) of Büchner's well-known work.

Paul Petrovitch turned it over in his hands.

"H'm!" he grunted. "Arkady does indeed seem solicitous for your education! Have you tried reading the book?"

"Yes."

"And how do you like it?"

"Well, either I am a fool or the thing is rubbish. Of the two views, the former seems to me the most probable."

"It is not because you have forgotten your German, I suppose?"

"Oh no. I understand the language perfectly."

Again Paul Petrovitch turned over the book, and again he glanced at his brother from under his brows. A moment's silence ensued.

"By the way," continued Nikolai Petrovitch with an evident desire to change the conversation, "I have received a letter from Koliazin."

"From Matvei Ilyitch?"

"From the same. It seems that he has just arrived at – , for the purpose of carrying out the Revision12 of the province, and he writes very civilly that, as our kinsman, he would be glad to see Arkady and you and myself."

"Do you intend to accept his invitation?" asked Paul Petrovitch.

"I do not. Do you?"

"No. We have no need to drag ourselves fifty versts to eat blanc-mange. The good Mathieu wants to show off a little – that is all. He can do without us. But what an honour to be a Privy Councillor! Had I continued in the Service, continued hauling at the old tow-rope, I myself might have been Adjutant-General! As it is, I, like yourself, am on the shelf."

"Yes, brother. Clearly it is time that we ordered our tombstones, and folded our hands upon our breasts."

A sigh concluded Nikolai Petrovitch's speech.

"But I do not intend to give in so soon," muttered his brother. "There is first going to be a skirmish between that chirurgeon of Arkady's and myself. That I can see beyond a doubt."

And, sure enough, the "skirmish" occurred the same evening. Ready for battle as soon he repaired to the drawing-room for tea, Paul Petrovitch entered angrily, but firmly, and sat waiting for an excuse to advance upon the foe. Yet for a while that excuse hung fire, since Bazarov never said much in the presence of "the old Kirsanovs," and to-night was feeling out of spirits, and drank his tea in absolute silence. However, Paul Petrovitch was so charged with impatience that his wish was bound to attain fulfilment.

It happened that the conversation became turned upon a neighbouring landowner.

"He is just a petty aristocrat," Bazarov drily remarked (it seemed that he and the landowner had met in St. Petersburg).

"Allow me," put in Paul Petrovitch, his lips quivering. "In your view, do the terms 'good-for-nothing' and 'aristocrat' connote the same thing?"

"I said 'petty aristocrat,'" replied Bazarov as he lazily sipped his tea.

"Quite so. Then I take it that you hold the same opinion of aristocrats as of 'petty aristocrats'? Well, I may remark that your opinion is not mine. And to that I would add that, while I myself possess a reputation for Liberal and progressive views, I possess that reputation for the very reason that I can respect real aristocrats. For instance, my dear sir" (the latter term was so heatedly uttered that Bazarov raised his eyebrows), "for instance, my dear sir, take the aristocracy of England. While yielding upon their rights not an iota, they yet know how to respect the rights of others. While demanding fulfilment of obligations due to themselves, they yet fulfil their own obligations. And for those reasons it is to her aristocratic caste that England stands indebted for her freedom. It is because the English aristocratic caste itself supports that freedom."

"A tale which we have heard many times before!" commented Bazarov. "But what are you seeking to prove?"

"I am seeking to prove this," replied Paul Petrovitch. "That without a certain sense of personal dignity, without a sense of self-respect (both of which senses are inborn in the true aristocrat), the social edifice, the bien public, cannot rest upon a durable basis. It is personality that matters, my dear sir: and the human personality requires to be as firm as a rock, in that there rests upon it the entire structure of society. For example, I know that you ridicule my customs, my dress, my fastidious tastes. Yet do those very things proceed from that sense of duty – yes, of duty, I repeat – to which I have just alluded. In other words, I may live in the depths of the country, yet I do not let myself go. For I respect in myself the man."

"Allow me, Paul Petrovitch," said Bazarov. "You say that you respect yourself. Very good. Yet you can sit there with your hands folded! How will that benefit the bien public, seeing that inaction would scarcely seem to argue self-respect?"

Paul Petrovitch blanched a little.

"That is another question altogether," he said. "However, I do not feel called upon to explain the reason why I sit with my hands folded (according to your own estimable term). It will suffice merely to remark that in the aristocratic idea there is contained a principle, and that nowadays men who live without principles are as destitute of morality as they are of moral substance. The same thing did I say to Arkady on the day after his arrival, and I say it now to you. You agree with me, Nikolai, do you not?"

Nikolai Petrovitch nodded assent, while Bazarov exclaimed:

"The aristocratic idea, forsooth! Liberalism, progress, principles! Why, have you ever considered the vanity of those terms? The Russian of to-day does not need them."

"Then what, in your opinion, does he need? To listen to you, one would suppose that we stood wholly divorced from humanity and humanity's laws; whereas, pardon me, the logic of history demands – "

"What has that logic to do with us? We can get on quite well without it."

"How can we do so?"

"Even as I have said. When you want to put a piece of bread into your mouth do you need logic for the purpose? What have these abstractions to do with ourselves?"

Paul Petrovitch waved his hand in disgust.

"I cannot understand you," he said. "You seem to me to be insulting the Russian people. How you or any one else can decline to recognise principles and precepts is a thing which passes my comprehension. For what other basis for action in life have we got?"

Arkady put in a word.

"Both I and Bazarov have told you," he said, "that we recognise no authority of any sort."

"Rather, that we recognise no basis for action save the useful," corrected Bazarov. "At present the course most useful is denial. Therefore we deny."

"Deny everything?"

"Deny everything."

"What? Both poetry and art and – I find it hard to express it? – "

"I repeat, everything," said Bazarov with an ineffable expression of insouciance.

Paul Petrovitch stared. He had not quite expected this. For his part, Arkady reddened with pleasure.

"Allow me," interposed Nikolai Petrovitch. "You say that you deny everything – rather, that you would consign everything to destruction. But also you ought to construct."

"That is not our business," said Bazarov. "First must the site be cleared."

"Yes; for the present condition of the people demands it," affirmed Arkady. "And that demand we are bound to fulfil, seeing that no one has the right merely to devote himself to the satisfaction of his own personal egotism."

With this last Bazarov did not seem altogether pleased, since the phrase smacked too much of philosophy – rather, of "Romanticism," as Bazarov termed that science; but he did not trouble to confute his pupil.

"No, no!" Paul Petrovitch exclaimed with sudden heat. "I cannot believe that gentlemen of your type possess sufficient knowledge of the people to be rightful representatives of its demands and aspirations. For the Russian people is not what you think it to be. It holds traditions sacred, and is patriarchal, and cannot live without faith."

"I will not dispute that," observed Bazarov. "Nay, I will even agree that you are right."