“And you, Monsieur Bazarov?”
Bazarov only bowed — and Arkady had yet another surprise; he noticed that his friend was blushing.
“Well,” he said to him in the street, “do you still think she’s . . .”
“Who can tell!
Just see how frozen she is!” answered Bazarov; then after a short pause he added, “She’s a real Grand Duchess, a commanding sort of person; she only needs a train behind her, and a crown on her head.”
“Our Grand Duchesses can’t talk Russian like that,” observed Arkady.
“She has known ups and downs, my lad; she’s been hard up.”
“Anyhow, she’s delightful,” said Arkady.
“What a magnificent body,” went on Bazarov. “How I should like to see it on the dissecting table.”
“Stop, for heaven’s sake, Evgeny! You go too far!”
“Well, don’t get angry, you baby!
I meant it’s first-rate.
We must go to stay with her.”
“When?”
“Well, why not the day after tomorrow.
What is there to do here?
Drink champagne with Kukshina?
Listen to your cousin, the liberal statesman? . . .
Let’s be off the day after tomorrow.
By the way — my father’s little place is not far from there.
This Nikolskoe is on the X. road, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.
Why hesitate? Leave that to fools — and intellectuals.
I say — what a splendid body!”
Three days later the two friends were driving along the road to Nikolskoe.
The day was bright and not too hot, and the plump post horses trotted smartly along, flicking their tied and plaited tails.
Arkady looked at the road, and, without knowing why, he smiled.
“Congratulate me,” exclaimed Bazarov suddenly. “Today’s the 22nd of June, my saint’s day.
Let us see how he will watch over me.
They expect me home today,” he added, dropping his voice . . . “Well, they can wait — what does it matter!”
Chapter 16
The country house in which Anna Sergeyevna lived stood on the slope of a low hill not far from a yellow stone church with a green roof, white columns, and decorated with a fresco over the main entrance, representing The Resurrection of Christ in the Italian style.
Especially remarkable for its voluminous contours was the figure of a swarthy soldier in a helmet, sprawling in the foreground of the picture.
Behind the church stretched a long village street with chimneys peeping out here and there from thatched roofs.
The manor house was built in the same style as the church, the style now famous as that of Alexander I; the whole house was painted yellow, and it had a green roof, white columns and a pediment with a coat of arms carved on it.
The provincial architect had designed both buildings according to the instructions of the late Odintsov, who could not endure — as he expressed it — senseless and arbitrary innovations.
The house was flanked on both sides by the dark trees of an old garden; an avenue of clipped pines led up to the main entrance,
Our friends were met in the hall by two tall footmen in livery; one of them ran at once to fetch the butler.
The butler, a stout man in a black tail coat, promptly appeared and led the visitors up a staircase covered with rugs into a specially prepared room in which two beds had been arranged with every kind of toilet accessory.
It was evident that order reigned in the house; everything was clean, and there was everywhere a peculiar dignified fragrance such as one encounters in ministerial reception rooms.
“Anna Sergeyevna asks you to come to see her in half an hour,” the butler announced. “Have you any orders to give meanwhile?”
“No orders, my good sir,” answered Bazarov, “but perhaps you will kindly trouble yourself to bring a glass of vodka.”
“Certainly, sir,” said the butler, looking rather surprised, and went out, his boots creaking.
“What grand genre,” remarked Bazarov, “that’s what you call it in your set, I think.
A Grand Duchess complete.”
“A nice Grand Duchess,” answered Arkady, “to invite straight away such great aristocrats as you and me to stay with her.”
“Especially me, a future doctor and a doctor’s son, and grandson of a village priest . . . you know that, I suppose . . . a village priest’s grandson, like the statesman Speransky,” added Bazarov, after a brief silence, pursing his lips. “Anyhow, she gives herself the best of everything, this pampered lady!
Shan’t we soon find ourselves wearing tail coats?”
Arkady only shrugged his shoulders . . . but he, too, felt a certain embarrassment.