You try not to forget what you have learned — and then one fine day it turns out to be all rubbish, and they tell you that experienced people have nothing to do with such nonsense, and that you, if you please, are an antiquated old simpleton.
What’s to be done?
Obviously young people are cleverer than we.”
Pavel Petrovich turned slowly on his heels and went out; Nikolai Petrovich followed him.
“Is he always like that?” Bazarov coolly asked Arkady directly the door had closed behind the two brothers.
“I must say, Evgeny, you were unnecessarily rude to him,” remarked Arkady. “You hurt his feelings.”
“Well, am I to humor them, these provincial aristocrats?
Why, it’s all personal vanity, smart habits, and foppery.
He should have continued his career in Petersburg if that’s his turn of mind . . . But enough of him!
I’ve found a rather rare specimen of water beetle, Dytiscus marginatus — do you know it?
I’ll show you.”
“I promised to tell you his story . . .” began Arkady.
“The story of the beetle?”
“Come, come, Evgeny — the story of my uncle.
You’ll see he’s not the kind of man you take him for.
He deserves pity rather than ridicule.”
“I don’t dispute, but why do you worry about him?”
“One should be just, Evgeny.”
“How does that follow?”
“No, listen . . .”
And Arkady told him his uncle’s story.
The reader will find it in the following chapter.
Chapter 7
Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov was educated first at home, like his younger brother, and afterwards in the Corps of Pages.
From childhood he was distinguished by his remarkable beauty; he was self-confident, rather ironical, and had a biting sense of humor; he could not fail to please people.
He began to be received everywhere directly he had obtained his commission as an officer.
He was pampered by society, and indulged in every kind of whim and folly, but that did not make him any less attractive.
Women went crazy about him, men called him a fop and secretly envied him.
He shared a flat with his brother, whom he loved sincerely although he was most unlike him.
Nikolai Petrovich was rather lame, had small, agreeable but somewhat melancholy features, little black eyes and soft thin hair; he enjoyed being lazy, but he also liked reading and was shy in society.
Pavel Petrovich did not spend a single evening at home, prided himself on his boldness and agility (he was just bringing gymnastics into fashion among the young men of his set), and had read in all five or six French books.
At twenty-eight he was already a captain; a brilliant career lay before him.
Suddenly all that was changed.
In those days there used to appear occasionally in Petersburg society a woman who has even now not been forgotten — Princess R.
She had a well-educated and respectable, but rather stupid husband, and no children.
She used suddenly to travel abroad and equally suddenly return to Russia, and in general she led an eccentric life.
She was reputed to be a frivolous coquette, abandoned herself keenly to every kind of pleasure, danced to exhaustion, laughed and joked with young men whom she used to receive before dinner in a dimly lit drawing room, but at night she wept and said prayers, finding no peace anywhere, and often paced her room till morning, wringing her hands in anguish, or sat, pale and cold, reading a psalter.
Day came and she turned again into a lady of fashion, she went about again, laughed, chatted and literally flung herself into any activity which could afford her the slightest distraction.
She had a wonderful figure; her hair, golden in color and heavy like gold, fell below her knees, yet no one would have called her a beauty; the only striking feature in her whole face was her eyes — and even her eyes were grey and not large — but their glance was swift and deeply penetrating, carefree to the point of audacity and thoughtful to the verge of melancholy — an enigmatic glance.
Something extraordinary shone in those eyes even when her tongue was chattering the emptiest gossip.
She dressed exquisitely.
Pavel Petrovich met her at a ball, danced a mazurka with her, in the course of which she did not utter a single sensible word, and fell passionately in love with her.
Accustomed to making conquests, he succeeded with her also, but his easy triumph did not damp his enthusiasm.
On the contrary, he found himself in a still closer and more tormenting bondage to this woman, in whom, even when she surrendered herself without reserve, there seemed always to remain something mysterious and unattainable, to which no one could penetrate.
What was hidden in that soul — God alone knows!
It seemed as if she were in the grip of some strange powers, unknown even to herself; they seemed to play with her at will and her limited mind was not strong enough to master their caprices.
Her whole behavior was a maze of inconsistencies; the only letters which could have aroused her husband’s just suspicions she wrote to a man who was almost a stranger to her, and her love had always an element of sadness; she no longer laughed and joked with the man whom she had chosen, but listened to him and looked at him in bewilderment.
Sometimes this bewilderment would change suddenly into a cold horror; her face would take on a wild, deathlike expression and she would lock herself up in her bedroom; her maid, putting her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs.
More than once, as he returned home after a tender meeting, Kirsanov felt within him that heart-rending, bitter gloom which follows the consciousness of total failure.
“What more do I want?” he asked himself, but his heart was heavy.