The World's Greatest Books - Volume 8 Part 35

_II--Bazaroff's Home-Coming_

From the scene of his discomfiture Bazaroff fled to his own house, taking Arkady with him. Va.s.sily Ivanovitch, his father, an old retired army doctor, who had not seen his son for three years, was standing on the steps of the little manor house as the coach in which they travelled rolled up. He was a tall, thinnish man, with, dishevelled hair and a thin hawk nose, dressed in an old military coat not b.u.t.toned up. He was smoking a long pipe and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes to keep the sun out of them. The horses stopped.

"Arrived at last," said Bazaroff's father, still going on smoking, though the pipe was fairly dancing up and down between his fingers.

"Enyusha, Enyusha," was heard a trembling woman's voice. The door was flung open and in the doorway was seen a plump, short little woman, in a white cap and a short, striped jacket. She moaned, staggered, and would certainly have fallen had not Bazaroff supported her. Her plump little hands were instantly twined round his neck. "For what ages, my dear one, my darling Enyusha!" she cried, her wrinkled face wet with tears. Old Bazaroff breathed hard and screwed his eyes up more than ever.

"There, that's enough, that's enough, Arina; give over--please give over."

His lips and eyebrows were twitching and his beard was quivering... but he was obviously trying to control himself and appear almost indifferent. But, like his wife, the old man was deeply moved at the coming of his son. Only with difficulty could he keep his eyes off him.

The whole little house was turned upside down to provide him proper entertainment. Arisha produced the most tempting dainties she could cook and old Bazaroff brought out a bottle of wine, told some of the best of his old stories, and, regardless of the snubs uttered occasionally by Bazaroff, seemed to be filled with an ecstatic joy as long as he could be near him. He took an early opportunity of questioning Arkady, and when he heard the words of praise that fell from the latter's lips and the expectation that was current at the University of the great future for his son, he could stand it no longer. He bent down to Arkady and kissed him on his shoulder.

"You have made me perfectly happy," he said, never ceasing to smile. "I ought to tell you, I... idolise my son; my old wife I won't speak of--we all know what mothers are!--but I dare not show my feelings before him, because he doesn't like it. He is averse to every kind of demonstration of feeling; many people even find fault with him for such firmness of character, and regard it as a proof of pride or lack of feeling, but men like him ought not to be judged by the common standard, ought they?"

One thing troubled old Bazaroff. How long was his son going to stay? He dared not ask him, but he centred his hopes on three weeks, at least.

Bazaroff, however, was restless and unsatisfied. He had not succeeded in effacing the memory of Madame Odintsov. On the third day he told Arkady that he could stand it no longer.

"I am bored; I want to work, but I can't work here. I will come to your place again; I have left all my apparatus there, too. In your house one can, at any rate, shut oneself up; while here my father repeats to me, 'My study is at your disposal--n.o.body shall interfere with you,' and all the time he himself is never a yard away. It's the same thing, too, with mother. I hear her sighing the other side of the wall, and if one goes in to her, one's nothing to say to her."

Va.s.sily Ivanovitch was dumbfounded when he broke the news to him.

"Very good..." he faltered, "very good.... I had thought you were to be with us... a little longer. Three days.... After three years, it's rather little; rather little, Yevgeny!"

"But I tell you I'm coming back directly. It's necessary for me to go."

"Necessary.... Very good. Arina and I, of course, did not antic.i.p.ate this. She has just begged some flowers from a neighbour; she meant to decorate the room for you. Liberty... is the great thing; that's my rule.... I don't want to hamper you... not..."

He suddenly ceased and rushed from the room. He had to tell his old wife; that was the trying task that lay before him. She was utterly crushed, and only a two-hour exhortation from her husband enabled her to control herself until her son's departure. When at last he was gone she broke down. Va.s.sily Ivanovitch bent his grey head against her grey head.

"There's no hope for it," she moaned. "Only I am left you, unchanged for ever, as you for me."

_III.--The Duel_

The two friends journeyed as far as X---- together. There Arkady left his companion in order to see Katya. Bazaroff, determined to cure himself of his pa.s.sion for Madame Odintsov, made the rest of the journey alone, and took up his quarters once more in the house of Nicolai Petrovitch.

The fact of Arkady's absence did not tend to improve matters between Pavel Petrovitch and Bazaroff. After a week the aristocrat's antipathy pa.s.sed all bounds. That night he knocked at Bazaroff's door, and, gaining admittance, begged in his most delicate manner for five minutes'

conversation.

"I want to hear your views on the subject of duelling," he said.

Bazaroff, for once, was taken by surprise.

"My view is," he said at last, "that I should not, in practice, allow myself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction."

"Your words save me from rather a deplorable necessity. I have made up my mind to fight you."

Bazaroff opened his eyes wide. "Me?"

"Undoubtedly."

"What for, pray?"

"I cannot endure you; to my idea your presence here is superfluous, I despise you; and if that is not enough for you..."

Pavel Petrovitch's eyes glittered.... Bazaroff's, too, were flas.h.i.+ng.

"Very good," he a.s.sented; "no need of further explanations. You've a whim to try your chivalrous spirit upon me. I might refuse you this pleasure, but--so be it!"

The details of the duel were arranged there and then, eight paces and two shots each. The following morning they met at the place agreed upon, and, having marked off the ground, they took up their stations. Bazaroff watched Pavel Petrovitch take careful aim.... "He's aiming straight at my nerves," he thought; "and doesn't he blink down it carefully, the ruffian! Not an agreeable sensation, though! I'm going to look at his watch-chain."

Something whizzed sharply by his ear, and at the same instant there was the sound of a shot. Bazaroff, without taking aim, pressed the spring.

Pavel Petrovitch gave a slight start, and clutched at his thigh. A stream of blood began to trickle down his white trousers. Bazaroff became the doctor at once, and, flinging aside his pistol, fell on his knees beside his late antagonist, and began with professional skill to attend to his wound. At that moment Nicolai Petrovitch drove up.

"What does this mean?" he asked, rus.h.i.+ng to the side of his brother.

"It is nothing," answered Pavel Petrovitch, faintly. "I had a little dispute with Mr. Bazaroff, and I have had to pay for it a little. I am the only person to blame in all this.... Mr. Bazaroff has behaved most honourably."

After that incident Bazaroff's stay in the house any longer was an impossibility. He left the same day, calling at Madame Odintsov's house on his way home to see Arkady. He found his friend engaged to Katya and in the seventh heaven of delight. Madame Odintsov would have had him stay.

"Why should you not stay now?" she said. "Stay... it's exciting talking to you... one seems walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gains courage as one goes on. Do stay."

"Thanks for the suggestion," he retorted, "and for your flattering opinion of my conversational talent. But I think I have already been moving too long in a sphere which is not my own. Flying fishes can hold out for a time in the air, but soon they must splash back into the water; allow me, too, to paddle in my own element."

Madame Odintsov looked at Bazaroff. His pale face was twitching with a bitter smile. "This man did love me!" she thought, and she felt pity for him, and held out her hand to him with sympathy.

He, too, understood her. "No!" he said, stepping back a pace. "I am a poor man, but I have never taken charity so far. Good-bye and good luck to you."

"I am certain we are not seeing each other for the last time," she declared, with an unconscious gesture.

"Anything may happen!" answered Bazaroff, and he bowed and went away.

_IV.--The Pa.s.sing of Bazaroff_

Bazaroff's old parents were all the more overjoyed at their son's arrival, as it was quite unexpected. His mother was greatly excited and his father, touching his neck with his fingers, turned his head round as though he were trying whether it were properly screwed on, and then, all at once, he opened his wide mouth and went off into a perfectly noiseless chuckle.

"I've come to you for six whole weeks, governor," Bazaroff said to him.

"I want to work, so please don't hinder me now."

But though his father and mother almost effaced themselves, scarcely daring to ask him a question, even to discover what he would like for dinner, the fever of work fell away. It was replaced by dreary boredom or vague restlessness. He began to seek the society of his father and to smoke with him in silence. Now and again he even a.s.sisted at some of the medical operations which his father conducted as a charity. Once he pulled a tooth out from a pedlar's head, and Va.s.sily Ivanovitch never ceased boasting about the extraordinary feat.

One day in a neighbouring village, the news was brought them that a peasant had died of typhus. Three days later Bazaroff came into his father's room and asked him if he had any caustic to burn a cut in his finger.

"What sort of a cut? where is it?"