After thoroughly examining her red and swollen eye, he made up a poultice at once, and tearing his handkerchief in strips showed her how it should be applied.
Fenichka listened to all he said and turned to go out.
“Kiss the master’s hand, you silly girl,” said Arina.
Nikolai Petrovich did not hold out his hand and in confusion himself kissed her bent head on the parting of the hair.
Fenichka’s eye soon healed, but the impression she had made on Nikolai Petrovich did not pass away so quickly.
He had constant visions of that pure, gentle, timidly raised face; he felt that soft hair under the palms of his hands, and saw those innocent, slightly parted lips, through which pearly teeth gleamed with moist brilliance in the sunshine.
He began to watch her very attentively in church and tried to get into conversation with her.
At first she was extremely shy with him, and one day, meeting him towards evening on a narrow footpath crossing a rye field, she ran into the tall, thick rye, overgrown with cornflowers and wormwood, to avoid meeting him face to face.
He caught sight of her small head through the golden network of ears of rye, from which she was peering out like a wild animal, and called out to her affectionately,
“Good evening, Fenichka.
I won’t bite.”
“Good evening,” murmured Fenichka, without emerging from her hiding place.
By degrees she began to feel more at ease with him, but she was still a shy girl when suddenly her mother, Arina, died of cholera.
What was to become of Fenichka?
She had inherited from her mother a love of order, tidiness and regularity, but she was so young, so alone in the world; Nikolai Petrovich was so genuinely kind and considerate . . . There is no need to describe what followed . . .
“So my brother came to see you?” Nikolai Petrovich asked her. “He just knocked and came in?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s good.
Let me give Mitya a swing.”
And Nikolai Petrovich began to toss him almost up to the ceiling, to the vast delight of the baby, and to the considerable anxiety of his mother, who each time he flew upwards stretched out her arms towards his little bare legs.
Meanwhile Pavel Petrovich had gone back to his elegant study, which was decorated with handsome blue wallpaper, and with weapons hanging from a multicolored Persian carpet fixed to the wall; it had walnut furniture, upholstered in dark green velvet, a Renaissance bookcase of ancient black oak, bronze statuettes on the magnificent writing desk, an open hearth . . . He threw himself on the sofa, clasped his hands behind his head and remained motionless, looking at the ceiling with an expression verging on despair.
Perhaps because he wanted to hide even from the walls whatever was reflected in his face, or for some other reason, he rose, drew the heavy window curtains and again threw himself on the sofa.
Chapter 9
On that same day Bazarov met Fenichka.
He was walking with Arkady in the garden and explaining to him why some of the trees, particularly the oaks, were growing badly.
“You would do better to plant silver poplars here, or firs and perhaps limes, with some extra black earth.
The arbor there has grown up well,” he added, “because it’s acacia and lilac; they’re good shrubs, they don’t need looking after.
Ah! there’s someone inside.”
In the arbor Fenichka was sitting with Dunyasha and Mitya.
Bazarov stopped and Arkady nodded to Fenichka like an old friend.
“Who’s that?” Bazarov asked him directly they had passed by. “What a pretty girl!”
“Whom do you mean?”
“You must know; only one of them is pretty.”
Arkady, not without embarrassment, explained to him briefly who Fenichka was.
“Aha!” remarked Bazarov. “That shows your father’s got good taste.
I like your father; ay, ay!
He’s a good fellow.
But we must make friends,” he added, and turned back towards the arbor.
“Evgeny,” cried Arkady after him in bewilderment, “be careful what you do, for goodness’ sake.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bazarov. “I’m an experienced man, not a country bumpkin.”
Going up to Fenichka, he took off his cap.
“May I introduce myself?” he began, making a polite bow. “I’m a friend of Arkady Nikolayevich and a harmless person.”
Fenichka got up from the garden seat and looked at him without speaking.
“What a wonderful baby,” continued Bazarov. “Don’t be uneasy, my praises have never brought the evil eye.
Why are his cheeks so flushed?
Is he cutting his teeth?”
“Yes,” murmured Fenichka, “he has cut four teeth already and now the gums are swollen again.”
“Show me . . . don’t be afraid, I’m a doctor.”
Bazarov took the baby in his arms, and to the great astonishment of both Fenichka and Dunyasha the child made no resistance and was not even frightened.
“I see, I see . . . It’s nothing, he’ll have a good set of teeth.