Part 10

"What modesty! Nevertheless I wish to learn something of you, and of your family, and of the father for whose sake you are soon going to abandon me."

"Why the word 'abandon'?" reflected Bazarov. Then he added aloud: "Things of that kind interest no one--least of all you. I and my people are obscure folk."

"Whereas I, you imagine, am an aristocrat?"

Bazarov looked up.

"Yes," he replied with emphasis.

She smiled.

"Then I can see that your knowledge of me is small," she remarked. "But of course--you believe all human beings to be identical, and therefore not worth the trouble of studying. Some day I will tell you my history. But first tell me yours."

"You say that my knowledge of you is small?" queried Bazarov. "You may be right. Possibly _every_ human being is an enigma. Let us take an example of that. You have withdrawn from society, and find it irksome, and limit your visitors' list to a couple of students. Yet why, with your intellect and your beauty, do you live in the country?"

"Why?" came the sharp rejoinder. "But first be so good as to explain what you mean by my 'beauty.'"

Bazarov frowned.

"That lies beside the point," he muttered. "The point is that I cannot understand why you settle in a rural spot of this kind."

"You cannot understand it, you cannot explain it?"

"No. There is only one possible explanation: and that is that you remain here because you are a person of self-indulgence who love comfort and the amenities of life, and are indifferent to aught else."

Again Madame Odintsov smiled.

"Then you are still determined to believe that I am incapable of being moved?" she said.

Bazarov glanced at her from under his brows.

"By curiosity, yes," he said. "But by nothing else."

"Indeed? Then I cease to wonder that you and I do not get on together. You are exactly like myself."

"That you and I do not get on together?" echoed Bazarov vaguely.

"Yes. But I had forgotten--you must be longing to retire?"

Bazarov rose. The lamp was casting a dim light, while into the fragrant, darkened, isolated room there came wafted at intervals, under the swinging blind, the sensuous freshness of the night, and the sounds of its mysterious whisperings. Madame Odintsov did not stir. Over her was stealing the same strange agitation which had infected Bazarov. Suddenly he realised that he was alone with a young and beautiful woman.

"Need you go?" she asked slowly.

He made no reply--he merely resumed his seat.

"Then you think me a spoilt, pampered, indolent person?" she continued in the same slow tone as she fixed her eyes upon the window. "Yet this much I know about myself: that I am very unhappy."

"Unhappy? For what reason? Because you attach too much importance to petty slanders?"

She frowned. Somehow she felt vexed that he should have understood her thus.

"No; things of that kind do not disturb me," she said. "Never should I allow them to do so--I am too proud. The reason why I am unhappy is that I have no wish, no enthusiasm, to live. I daresay you will not believe me, and will think that a mere 'petty aristocrat,' a person who is lapped in lace and seated in an armchair, is saying all this (and I will not conceal from you that I love what you call 'the comforts of life'): yet all the while I feel as though I had no desire to continue my existence. Pray reconcile that contradiction if you can. But perhaps you consider what I say 'Romanticism'?"

Bazarov shook his head.

"You are yet young," he said. "Also, you are rich and independent. What more could you have? What more do you desire?"

"What more?" she re-echoed with a sigh. "I do not know. I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time. Yes, I am growing old," she continued as she drew the ends of her mantilla around her bare shoulders. In doing so, she glanced at Bazarov. Her eyes met his, and the faintest of blushes stole into her face. "Behind me lie many memories--memories of my life in St. Petersburg, of a period of wealth followed by poverty, of my father's death, of my marriage, of my travels abroad--yes, many such memories there are. Yet none of them are worth cherishing. And before me lies only a weary road with no goal to it, along which I have no desire to travel."

"You are disenchanted," said Bazarov.

"No," she replied with a shiver. "Rather, I am dissatisfied. Oh that I could form a strong attachment of some kind!"

"To fall in love _might_ save you," remarked Bazarov. "But you are incapable of that. That is where your misfortune lies."

Madame dropped her eyes upon the sleeve of her mantilla.

"I am incapable of falling in love?" she murmured.

"Not altogether. Moreover, I did wrong to call it a misfortune: for the person most to be pitied is the person who meets with that experience."

"What experience do you mean?"

"The experience of falling in love."

"How come you to know that?"

"By hearsay," he replied irritably, while to himself he added: "You are a mere coquette whom sheer idleness is leading to weary and madden me." And his heart swelled within him.

"On the other hand," he went on, "it may be that you are too exacting?"

As he spoke he bent forward and fell to playing with the tassels of his chair.

"Possibly I am," she agreed. "But, you see, I conceive that it ought to be everything or nothing. 'A life for a life.' 'Take my all, give your all, and put a truce to regrets and any thought of return.' That is the best rule."

"Indeed?" queried Bazarov. "Well, it is not a bad rule, and I am surprised that you should have failed to attain your desire."

"Self-surrender, you think, is an easy thing?"

"Not if one considers matters first, and appraises oneself, and sets upon oneself a definite value. It is only surrender _without_ consideration that is easy."

"But how could one not value oneself? If one had value, no one would desire one's surrender."

"That would not be your concern nor mine: some one else's business would it be to determine our respective values. The one thing that would immediately concern us would be to know _how_ to surrender."

Madame Odintsov sat up sharply.

"I still believe you to be speaking from experience," she said.

"No; words, idle words--words not meant to be taken personally."

"Then you yourself might be capable of surrendering?"

"I might. But in any case I should not care to boast."

Both remained silent for a moment. From the drawing-room came the notes of the piano.

"How late Katia is playing!" remarked Anna Sergievna.

Bazarov raised his head.

"Yes, it _is_ late," he said. "Time for you to go to rest."

"Wait a moment, however. Why should you hurry away? I have something more to say to you."

"What may it be?"

"Wait," she repeated. As she did so, her eyes gazed at him as though studying his personality. For a few moments he paced the room--then suddenly approached her, said "Good night," squeezed her hand until she could have shrieked with the pain, and departed.

Raising her fingers to her lips, she blew after him a kiss. Then, rising with an abrupt, convulsive movement, she ran towards the door as though to call him back. But at that moment her maid entered with a decanter on a silver tray, and Madame halted, bid the maid begone, reseated herself, and sank into a reverie. Her hair, like a winding black snake, had broken loose from its fastenings. Dimly illumined by the lamp, she sat motionless, save that at intervals she chafed her hands, for the night air was beginning to grow chilly.

Two hours later Bazarov re-entered his bedroom in a state of dishevelment and despondency, and with his boots soaked with dew. Arkady was seated, fully dressed, at the writing-table, with a book in his hands.

"So you are not in bed yet?" Bazarov remarked irritably.

Arkady's only reply was to ask the counter-question:

"You have been sitting with Anna Sergievna, have you not?"

"I have," replied Bazarov. "I was sitting there while you and Katia were playing the piano."

"Oh, _I_ was not playing," retorted Arkady. Then he stopped, for he felt the tears to be very near his eyes, and had no wish to let them fall in the presence of his satirical mentor.

XVIII

When Madame Odintsov entered the breakfast-room next morning, Bazarov had been sitting over his cup for a considerable time. He glanced sharply at her as she opened the door, and she turned in his direction as inevitably as though he had signed to her to do so. Somehow her face looked pale, and it was not long before she returned to her boudoir, whence she issued again only at luncheon time. Since dawn the weather had been too rainy to admit of outdoor expeditions, and therefore the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where Arkady began to read aloud the latest number of some journal, while the Princess manifested her usual surprise at his conduct (as though it had been conduct of an indecent nature!), and fixed upon him a gaze which, though one of lasting malignancy, proved also to be one of which he took not the slightest notice.

"Pray come to my boudoir, Evgenii Vasilitch," said Anna Sergievna. "I have something to ask you. I think that last night you mentioned some textbook or another?"

Rising, she moved towards the door, whilst the Princess stared around the room as much as to say: "Dear, dear! This does surprise me!" Then she brought her eyes back to Arkady, who, raising his voice, and bending towards Katia (by whose side he was sitting), continued his reading as before.

Meanwhile Madame Odintsov walked hurriedly to her boudoir, and Bazarov followed with his eyes fixed upon the floor, and his ears open to no sound but the faint rustling of a silk dress. Arrived at her destination, Madame seated herself in the chair which she had occupied overnight, and Bazarov also took a seat where he had sat on the occasion in question.

"What is the title of the book?" she asked after a brief pause.

"_Notions Générales_, by Pelouse and Frémy. I can also recommend Ganot's _Traité Élémentaire de Physique Expérimentale_, which is more detailed in its plates than the other work, and, in general, is----"

But Madame Odintsov held up her hand.

"Pardon me," she interrupted. "I have not brought you here to discuss textbooks. I have brought you here to renew our conversation of last night, at the point where you left the room so abruptly. I hope that I shall not weary you?"

"I am entirely at your service. What was it we were discussing?"

She glanced at him.

"Happiness, I think," she said. "In fact, I was speaking to you of myself. The reason why I mention happiness is the following. Why is it that when one is enjoying, say, a piece of music, or a beautiful summer evening, or a conversation with a sympathetic companion, the occasion seems rather a hint at an infinite felicity existent elsewhere than a real felicity actually being experienced? Perhaps, however, you have never encountered such a phenomenon?"

"'Where we are not, there do we wish to be,'--you know the proverb. Last night you said that you are dissatisfied. Such a thought never enters into my head."

"Is it that such thoughts seem to you ridiculous?"

"No--rather, that they never occur to me."

"Indeed? Well, to know what your thoughts _are_ is a thing which I greatly wish to attain."

"I do not understand you."

"Then listen. For a long time past I have been wishing to have this out with you. Do not tell me--you yourself know that it is useless to do so--that you are a man apart. As a matter of fact, you are a man still young, with all your life before you. I wish to know for what you are preparing, and what future awaits you, and what is the goal which you are seeking to reach, and whither you are travelling, and what you have in your mind--in short, who and what you are."

"I am surprised! Already you know that I dabble in natural science; while, as regards my future----"

"Yes? As regards your future?"

"I have told you that I purpose to become a district physician."

Anna Sergievna waved her hand impatiently.

"Why tell me that, when you yourself do not believe it? It is for Arkady to return me such answers, not you."

"And is Arkady in any way----?"

"Wait. Do you mean to tell me that such a modest rôle will really satisfy you, when you yourself have asserted that the science of medicine does not exist? No, no! You have given me that answer for the reason that you desire to keep me at arm's length, that you have no faith in me. Then let me tell you that I _am_ capable of understanding you, that I too have known poverty and ambition, that I too have had my experiences."

"I daresay: yet pardon me when I intimate that I am not accustomed to bare my soul. Moreover, there is fixed between you and me such a gulf that----"

"A gulf? Do you again say that I am an aristocrat? Come, come, Evgenii Vasilitch! Have I not already told you that I----?"

"Can it avail anything to discuss the future when, for the most part, our futures are wholly independent of ourselves? Should the occasion arise to be up and doing, well and good: but, should the occasion _not_ arise, at least let us leave ourselves room for thankfulness that we did not waste time in useless chatter."

"What? You call a friendly talk 'useless chatter'? Then do you deem me, as a woman, unworthy of your confidence, or do you despise all women?"

"You I do not despise: and that you know full well."

"I know nothing of the kind. Of course I can understand your reluctance to speak of your future career; but as to what is taking place within you at the present moment----"

"'Taking place within me at the present moment'?" Bazarov exclaimed. "One would think I was a state or a community! Nor is it a process which interests me; while, in addition, a man cannot always put into words 'what is taking place within him.'"

"I do not see it. Why should you hesitate to express what may be in your soul?"

"Could _you_ do as much?" asked Bazarov.

"I could," came the reply after a brief hesitation.

Bazarov bowed in an ironical manner.

"Then you have the advantage of me," he said.

Her glance quickened into a note of interrogation.

"Very well," she said. "Yet I will venture to say that you and I have not met in vain, and that we shall always remain good friends. Moreover, I feel certain that in time your secretiveness and reserve will disappear."

"Then have you noticed in me much such 'secretiveness and reserve'?"

"I have."

Bazarov rose, and moved towards the window.

"Do you really want to know the cause of that 'secretiveness, and reserve'?" he asked. "Do you really want to know 'what is taking place within' me?"

"I do," she replied. Yet even as she spoke she felt run through her a tinge of apprehension for which she could not account.

"And you will not be angry with me if I tell you?"

"No."

"No?"

He approached her and halted behind her.

"Learn, then," he said, "that I love you with a blind, insensate passion. You have forced it from me at last!"

She stretched out her arms before her, while Bazarov, turning, pressed his forehead against the window-pane. His breath caught in his throat, and his whole body was quivering. Yet this was not the agitation born of the diffidence of youth, nor was it the awe inspired by a first confession of love. Rather, it was the beating of a strong and terrible emotion which resembled madness and was, perhaps, akin to it. As for Madame Odintsov, a great horror had come over her--also a great feeling of compassion for him.

"Evgenii Vasilitch!" she cried. In the words there rang an involuntary note of tenderness.

Wheeling about, he devoured her with his glance. Then he seized her hands in his, and pressed her to his bosom.

She did not free herself at once. Only after a moment did she withdraw to a corner, and stand looking at him. He rushed towards her again, but she whispered in hurried alarm:

"You have mistaken me!"

Had he taken another step, she would have screamed.

Biting his lips, he left the room.

Half an hour later her maid brought her a note. It consisted of a single line only, and said: "Must I depart to-day, or may I remain until to-morrow?"

To it Anna Sergievna replied: "Why depart? I have failed to understand you, and you have failed to understand me--that is all."

But mentally she added: "Rather, I have failed to understand myself."

Until dinner time she remained secluded, and spent the hours in pacing her room with her hands clasped behind her. Occasionally she would halt before the window-panes or a mirror, to draw a handkerchief across a spot on her neck which seemed to be burning like fire. And every time that she did so she asked herself what had led her to force Bazarov's confidence; also, whether or not she had had any suspicion that such a thing might result.

"Yes, I _am_ to blame," she finally decided. "Yet I could not have foreseen the whole _dénouement_."

Then she recalled Bazarov's almost animal face as he rushed to seize her in his arms. And at the thought she blushed.

"Or is it that----?" Here she stopped, and shook back her curls. The reason was that she had seen herself in a mirror, and, as in a flash, had learnt from that image of a head thrown back, with a mysterious smile lurking between a pair of half-parted lips and in a pair of half-closed eyes, something which confounded her.

"No, no! Again no!" she cried. "Only God knows what might come of it. Such things are not to be played with. Freedom from worry is the chief thing in the world."

Nor had her _sangfroid_ really been shattered. Rather, she was a little agitated--so little that, when, for some unknown reason, she shed a tear or two, those tears owed their origin not to any deep emotion, to the fact that she was wounded, but to a sense of having involuntarily been at fault in permitting certain vague yearnings--a certain consciousness of the transience of life, a certain desire for novelty--to urge her towards the boundary line. And over that boundary line she had peeped. And in front of her she had beheld, not an abyss, but a waste, a sheer ugliness.

XIX

In spite of her self-command, in spite of her superiority to convention, Madame Odintsov could not but feel a little uncomfortable when she entered the dining-room for the evening meal. Nevertheless the meal passed off without incident, and after it Porphyri Platonitch came in, and related various anecdotes on the strength of a recent visit to the neighbouring town--among other things, a story to the effect that Governor "Bardeloue" had commanded his whole staff of officials to wear spurs, in order that, if need be, he could dispatch them on their errands on horseback! Meanwhile, Arkady talked in an undertone to Katia, and also paid diplomatic attention to the Princess; while Bazarov maintained such an obstinate, gloomy silence that Madame, glancing at him (as she did twice, and openly, not covertly), thought to herself, as she scanned his stern, forbidding face, downcast eyes, and all-pervading expression of rigid contempt: "No, no! Again, no!"

Dinner over, she conducted her guests into the garden, and, perceiving that Bazarov desired a word with her, walked aside a little, halted, and waited for him. Approaching with his eyes on the ground, he said in a dull way:

"I must beg your pardon, Anna Sergievna. Surely you must be feeling extremely angry with me?"

"No, not angry so much as grieved," she replied.

"So much the worse! But I have received sufficient punishment, have I not? My position now (I am sure that you will agree with me) is a very awkward one. True, you wrote in your message: 'Why need you depart?' but I cannot and will not remain. By to-morrow, therefore, I shall have departed."

"But why need you, need you----?"

"Why need I depart?"

"No, I was going to have said something quite different."

"We cannot recover the past," he continued, "and it was only a question of time before this should happen. I know only of one condition under which I could remain. And that condition is never likely to arise. For (pardon my presumption) I suppose you neither love me now nor could ever do so?"

With the words there came a flash from under his dark brows.

She did not reply. Through her brain there flitted only the one thought: "I am afraid of this man!"

"Farewell," he continued, as though he had divined that thought. Then he moved away towards the house.

Entering the house a little later, Anna Sergievna called to Katia, and took the girl by the arm: nor throughout the rest of the evening did she once part from her. Also, instead of joining in a game of cards, she sat uttering laugh after laugh of a nature which ill consorted with her blanched and careworn face. Gazing at her perplexedly, as a young man will do, Arkady kept asking himself the question: "What can this mean?" As for Bazarov, he locked himself in his room, and only appeared to join the rest at tea. When he did so, Anna Sergievna yearned to say something kind to him, but could think of no words for the purpose. To her dilemma, however, an unexpected incident put an end. This was the entry of the butler to announce Sitnikov!

To describe the craven fashion in which the young Progressive entered the room would be impossible. Although, with characteristic importunity, he had decided to repair to the residence of a lady with whom he was barely acquainted, and who had not accorded him an invitation (his pretext for such presumption being that, according to information received, she happened to be entertaining guests who were both intellectual and "very intimate" with himself), he had since felt his courage ebb to the marrow of his bones, and now, instead of proffering all the excuses and compliments which he had prepared in advance, blurted out some ridiculous story to the effect that Evdoksia Kukshin had sent him to inquire after the health of Anna Sergievna, and that Arkady Nikolaievitch had always spoken of him in terms of the highest respect. But at this point he began to stammer, and so lost his head as to sit down upon his own hat! No one bade him depart, however, and Anna Sergievna even went so far as to present him to her aunt and sister. Accordingly it was not long before he recovered his equanimity, and shone forth with his accustomed brilliancy. Often the appearance of the paltry represents a convenient phenomenon in life, since it relaxes over-taut strings, and sobers natures prone to conceit and self-assurance by reminding them of their kinship with the newcomer. Thus Sitnikov's arrival caused everything to become duller and a trifle more futile, but also rendered things simpler, and enabled the company to partake of supper with a better appetite, and to part for the night half an hour earlier than usual.

"Let me recall to you some words of your own," said Arkady when he had got into bed, and Bazarov was still undressing. "I refer to the words: 'Why are you down-hearted? Have you just fulfilled a sacred duty?'"

Between the two there had become established those half-quizzical relations which are always a sign of tacit distrust and a smouldering grudge.

"To-morrow I intend to set out for my father's place," remarked Bazarov, in disregard of what Arkady had said.

The latter raised himself on his elbow. Though surprised, he also, for some reason, felt glad.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Then _that_ is why you are down-hearted?"

Bazarov yawned.

"When you are come to be a little older," he replied, "you will know more."

"And what of Anna Sergievna?" continued Arkady.

"Well? What of her?"

"Is it likely that she will let you go?"

"I am not her hireling."

Arkady relapsed into thought, and Bazarov sought his bed, and turned his face to the wall.

For a few moments silence reigned.

"Evgenii," said Arkady suddenly.

"Yes?"

"I too intend to leave to-morrow."

Bazarov made no reply.