“What am I to play to you?”
“What you like,” answered Arkady indifferently.
“What sort of music do you prefer?” went on Katya, without changing her attitude.
“Classical,” answered Arkady in the same tone of voice.
“Do you like Mozart?”
“Yes, I like Mozart.”
Katya pulled out Mozart’s Sonata Fantasia in C minor.
She played very well, although a little too precisely and drily.
She sat upright and motionless without taking her eyes off the music, her lips tightly compressed, and only towards the end of the sonata her face started to glow, her hair loosened and a little lock fell over her dark brow.
Arkady was especially struck by the last part of the sonata, the part where the enchanting gaiety of the careless melody at its height is suddenly broken into by the pangs of such a sad and almost tragic suffering . . . but the ideas inspired in him by the sounds of Mozart were not related to Katya.
Looking at her, he merely thought,
“Well, that young lady doesn’t play too badly, and she’s not bad looking, either.”
When she had finished the sonata, Katya, without taking her hands from the keys, asked,
“Is that enough?”
Arkady said that he would not venture to trouble her further, and began talking to her about Mozart; he asked her whether she had chosen that sonata herself, or someone else had recommended it to her.
But Katya answered him in monosyllables and withdrew into herself.
When this happened, she did not come out again quickly; at such times her face took on an obstinate, almost stupid expression.
She was not exactly shy, but she was diffident and rather overawed by her sister, who had educated her, but who never even suspected that such a feeling existed in Katya.
Arkady was at length reduced to calling Fifi over to him and stroking her on the head with a benevolent smile in order to create the impression of being at his ease.
Katya went on arranging her flowers.
Meanwhile Bazarov was losing and losing.
Anna Sergeyevna played cards with masterly skill; Porfiri Platonich also knew how to hold his own.
Bazarov lost a sum, which though trifling in itself, was none too pleasant for him.
At supper Anna Sergeyevna again turned the conversation to botany.
“Let us go for a walk tomorrow morning,” she said to him; “I want you to teach me the Latin names of several wild plants and their species.”
“What’s the good of the Latin names to you?” asked Bazarov.
“Order is needed for everything,” she answered.
“What a wonderful woman Anna Sergeyevna is!” cried Arkady, when he was alone in their room with his friend.
“Yes,” answered Bazarov, “a female with brains; and she’s seen life too.”
“In what sense do you mean that, Evgeny Vassilich?”
“In a good sense, in a good sense, my worthy Arkady Nikolayevich!
I’m sure she also manages her estate very efficiently.
But what is wonderful is not her, but her sister.”
“What? That little dark creature?”
“Yes, the little dark creature — she’s fresh, untouched and shy and silent, anything you want . . . one could work on her and make something out of her — but the other — she’s an experienced hand.”
Arkady did not answer Bazarov, and each of them got into bed occupied with his own particular thoughts.
Anna Sergeyevna was also thinking about her guests that evening.
She liked Bazarov for his absence of flattery and for his definite downright views.
She found in him something new, which she had not met before, and she was curious.
Anna Sergeyevna was a rather strange person.
Having no prejudices at all, and no strong convictions either, she neither avoided things nor went out of her way to secure anything special.
She was clear-sighted and she had many interests, but nothing completely satisfied her; indeed, she hardly desired any complete satisfaction.
Her mind was at once inquiring and indifferent; though her doubts were never soothed by forgetfulness, they never grew powerful enough to agitate her disagreeably.
Had she not been rich and independent, she would probably have thrown herself into the struggle and experienced passion . . . But life ran easily for her, although she was sometimes bored, and she went on from day to day without hurrying and only rarely feeling disturbed.
Rainbow-colored visions sometimes glowed before her eyes, but she breathed more peacefully when they faded away, and she did not hanker after them.
Her imagination certainly overstepped the limits of conventional morality, but all the time her blood flowed as quietly as ever in her charmingly graceful, tranquil body.
Sometimes, emerging from her fragrant bath, warm and languid, she would start musing on the emptiness of life, its sorrow, labor and vindictiveness . . . her soul would be filled with sudden daring and burn with generous ardor; but then a draught would blow from a half-open window and Anna Sergeyevna would shrink back into herself with a plaintive, almost angry feeling, and there was only one thing she needed at that particular moment — to get away from that nasty draught.
Like all women who have not succeeded in loving, she wanted something without knowing what it was.
Actually she wanted nothing, though it seemed to her that she wanted everything.
She could hardly endure the late Odintsov (she married him for practical reasons though she might not have agreed to become his wife if she had not regarded him as a good-natured man), and she had conceived a hidden repugnance for all men, whom she could think of only as slovenly, clumsy, dull, feebly irritating creatures.