Fathers and Children Part 15

'You're a dangerous gentleman; you're such a critic. Good G.o.d! yes!

why, how absurd, I'm talking like some country lady. I really am a country lady, though. I manage my property myself; and only fancy, my bailiff Erofay's a wonderful type, quite like Cooper's Pathfinder; something in him so spontaneous! I've come to settle here finally; it's an intolerable town, isn't it? But what's one to do?'

'The town's like every town,' Bazarov remarked coolly.

'All its interests are so petty, that's what's so awful! I used to spend the winters in Moscow ... but now my lawful spouse, Monsieur Kukshin's residing there. And besides, Moscow nowadays ... there, I don't know--it's not the same as it was. I'm thinking of going abroad; last year I was on the point of setting off.'

'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 G.o.d, I'm independent; I've no children.... What was that I said: _thank G.o.d!_ 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 gla.s.s.

'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.'

'd.a.m.n 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 ...

'd.a.m.n 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.'

'd.a.m.n!'--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 gla.s.ses! _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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sing 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