“Today’s Friday, your Excellency.”
“Eh?
What?
What’s that?
What do you say?” the great man repeats with strained attention.
“Today’s Friday, your Excellency.”
“Eh?
What?
What’s Friday? What Friday?”
“Friday, your Excellency, the day of the week.”
“What, are you presuming to teach me something?”
Matvei Ilyich remained a higher official, though he considered himself a liberal.
“I advise you, my dear boy, to go and call on the governor,” he said to Arkady. “You understand I don’t advise you to do so on account of any old-fashioned ideas about the necessity of paying respect to the authorities, but simply because the governor is a decent fellow; besides, you probably want to get to know the society here . . . You’re not a bear, I hope?
And he’s giving a large ball the day after tomorrow.”
“Will you be at the ball?” inquired Arkady.
“He gives it in my honor,” answered Matvei Ilyich, almost pityingly. “Do you dance?”
“Yes, I dance, but not well.”
“That’s a pity!
There are pretty women here, and it’s a shame for a young man not to dance.
Of course I don’t say that because of any old conventions; I would never suggest that a man’s wit lies in his feet, but Byronism has become ridiculous — il a fait son temps.”
“But, uncle, it’s not because of Byronism that I don’t . . .”
“I’ll introduce you to some of the local ladies and take you under my wing,” interrupted Matvei Ilyich, and he laughed a self-satisfied laugh. “You’ll find it warm, eh?”
A servant entered and announced the arrival of the superintendent of government institutions, an old man with tender eyes and deep lines round his mouth, who was extremely fond of nature, especially on summer days, when, to use his words, every little busy bee takes a little bribe from every little flower.”
Arkady withdrew.
He found Bazarov at the inn where they were staying, and took a long time to persuade him to accompany him to the governor’s.
“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Bazarov at last. “It’s no good doing things by halves.
We came to look at the landowners, so let us look at them!”
The governor received the young men affably, but he did not ask them to sit down, nor did he sit down himself.
He was perpetually fussing and hurrying; every morning he put on a tight uniform and an extremely stiff cravat; he never ate or drank enough; he could never stop making arrangements.
He invited Kirsanov and Bazarov to his ball, and within a few minutes he invited them a second time, taking them for brothers and calling them Kisarov.
They were on their way back from the governor’s, when suddenly a short man in Slav national dress jumped out of a passing carriage and crying
“Evgeny Vassilich,” rushed up to Bazarov.
“Ah, it’s you, Herr Sitnikov,” remarked Bazarov, still walking along the pavement. “What chance brought you here?”
“Just fancy, quite by accident,” the man replied, and returning to the carriage, he waved his arms several times and shouted, “Follow, follow us!
My father had business here,” he went on, jumping across the gutter, “and so he asked me to come . . . I heard today you had arrived and have already been to visit you.” (In fact on returning home the friends did find there a card with the corners turned down, bearing the name Sitnikov, in French on one side, and in Slavonic characters on the other.)
“I hope you are not coming from the governor’s.”
“It’s no use hoping. We’ve come straight from him.”
“Ah, in that case I will call on him, too . . . Evgeny Vassilich, introduce me to your . . . to the . . . .”
“Sitnikov, Kirsanov,” mumbled Bazarov, without stopping.
“I am much honored,” began Sitnikov, stepping sideways, smirking and pulling off his overelegant gloves. “I have heard so much . . . I am an old acquaintance of Evgeny Vassilich and I may say — his disciple.
I owe to him my regeneration . . . ”
Arkady looked at Bazarov’s disciple.
There was an expression of excited stupidity in the small but agreeable features of his well-groomed face; his little eyes, which looked permanently surprised, had a staring uneasy look, his laugh, too, was uneasy — an abrupt wooden laugh.
“Would you believe it,” he continued, “when Evgeny Vassilich for the first time said before me that we should acknowledge no authorities, I felt such enthusiasm . . . my eyes were opened!
By the way, Evgeny Vassilich, you simply must get to know a lady here who is really capable of understanding you and for whom your visit would be a real treat; you may have heard of her?”
“Who is it?” grunted Bazarov unwillingly.
“Kukshina, Eudoxie, Evdoksya Kukshina.
She’s a remarkable nature,emancipee in the true sense of the word, an advanced woman.
Do you know what?
Let us all go and visit her now.