Are we to agree with them?
Besides, if they are Russian, so am I.”
“No, you are not a Russian after what you have said.
I can’t admit you have any right to call yourself a Russian.”
“My grandfather ploughed the land,” answered Bazarov with haughty pride. “Ask any one of your peasants which of us — you or me — he would more readily acknowledge as a fellow countryman.
You don’t even know how to talk to them.”
“While you talk to them and despise them at the same time.”
“What of that, if they deserve contempt!
You find fault with my point of view, but what makes you think it came into being by chance, that it’s not a product of that very national spirit which you are championing?”
“What an idea!
How can we need nihilists?”
“Whether they are needed or not — is not for us to decide.
Why, even you imagine you’re not a useless person.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, no personalities, please!” cried Nikolai Petrovich, getting up.
Pavel Petrovich smiled, and laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder, made him sit down again.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, “I shan’t forget myself, thanks to that sense of dignity which is so cruelly ridiculed by our friend — our friend, the doctor.
Allow me to point out,” he resumed, turning again to Bazarov, “you probably think that your doctrine is a novelty?
That is an illusion of yours.
The materialism which you preach, was more than once in vogue before and has always proved inadequate . . . .”
“Yet another foreign word!” broke in Bazarov.
He was beginning to feel angry and his face looked peculiarly copper-colored and coarse. “In the first place, we preach nothing; that’s not in our line . . .”
“What do you do, then?”
“This is what we do.
Not long ago we used to say that our officials took bribes, that we had no roads, no commerce, no real justice . . . .”
“Oh, I see, you are reformers — that’s the right name, I think.
I, too, should agree with many of your reforms, but . . .”
“Then we suspected that talk and only talk about our social diseases was not worth while, that it led to nothing but hypocrisy and pedantry; we saw that our leading men, our so-called advanced people and reformers, are worthless; that we busy ourselves with rubbish, talk nonsense about art, about unconscious creation, parliamentarianism, trial by jury, and the devil knows what — when the real question is daily bread, when the grossest superstitions are stifling us, when all our business enterprises crash simply because there aren’t enough honest men to carry them on, while the very emancipation which our government is struggling to organize will hardly come to any good, because our peasant is happy to rob even himself so long as he can get drunk at the pub.”
“Yes,” broke in Pavel Petrovich, “indeed, you were convinced of all this and you therefore decided to undertake nothing serious yourselves.”
“We decided to undertake nothing,” repeated Bazarov grimly.
He suddenly felt annoyed with himself for having been so expansive in front of this gentleman.
“But to confine yourselves to abuse.”
“To confine ourselves to abuse.”
“And that is called nihilism?”
“And that is called nihilism,” Bazarov repeated again, this time in a particularly insolent tone.
Pavel Petrovich screwed up his eyes a little.
“So that’s it,” he murmured in a strangely composed voice. “Nihilism is to cure all our woes, and you — you are our saviors and heroes.
Very well — but why do you find fault with others, including the reformers?
Don’t you do as much talking as anyone else?”
“Whatever faults we may have, that is not one of them,” muttered Bazarov between his teeth.
“What then, do you act?
Are you preparing for action?”
Bazarov made no reply.
A tremor passed through Pavel Petrovich, but he at once regained control of himself.
“Hm! . . .
Action, destruction . . .” he went on. “But how can you destroy without even knowing why?”
“We shall destroy because we are a force,” remarked Arkady.
Pavel Petrovich looked at his nephew and laughed.
“Yes, a force can’t be called to account for itself,” said Arkady, drawing himself up.
“Unhappy boy,” groaned Pavel Petrovich, who could no longer maintain his show of firmness. “Can’t you realize the kind of thing you are encouraging in Russia with your shallow doctrine!
No, it’s enough to try the patience of an angel!