Bazarov maintained a grim and obstinate silence.
Madame Odintsov glanced at him twice, not furtively, but straight in his face, which looked stern and choleric, with downcast eyes and a contemptuous determination stamped on every feature, and she thought:
“No . . . no . . . no.” After dinner, she went with the whole company into the garden, and seeing that Bazarov wanted to speak to her, she walked a few steps to one side and stopped.
He approached her, but even then he did not raise his eyes and said in a husky voice:
“I have to apologize to you, Anna Sergeyevna.
You must be furious with me.”
“No, I’m not angry with you, Evgeny Vassilich, but I’m upset.”
“So much the worse.
In any case I’ve been punished enough.
I find myself, I’m sure you will agree, in a very stupid position.
You wrote to me, ‘Why go away?’
But I can’t stay and I don’t want to.
Tomorrow I shall no longer be here.”
“Evgeny Vassilich, why are you . . .”
“Why am I going away?”
“No, I didn’t mean that.”
“The past won’t return, Anna Sergeyevna, but sooner or later this was bound to happen. Therefore I must go.
I can imagine only one condition which would have enabled me to stay: but that condition will never be. For surely — excuse my impudence — you don’t love me and never will love me?”
Bazarov’s eyes glittered for a moment from under his dark brows.
Anna Sergeyevna did not answer him.
“I’m afraid of this man,” was the thought that flashed through her mind.
“Farewell then,” muttered Bazarov, as if he guessed her thought, and he turned back to the house.
Anna Sergeyevna followed him slowly, and calling Katya to her, she took her arm.
She kept Katya by her side till the evening.
She did not play cards and kept on laughing, which was not at all in keeping with her pale and worried face.
Arkady was perplexed, and looked at her, as young people do, constantly wondering: “What can it mean?”
Bazarov shut himself up in his room and only reappeared at teatime.
Anna Sergeyevna wanted to say a kind word to him, but she could not bring herself to address him . . .
An unexpected incident rescued her from her embarrassment: the butler announced the arrival of Sitnikov.
Words can hardly describe the strange figure cut by the young champion of progress as he fluttered into the room.
He had decided with his characteristic impudence to go to the country to visit a woman whom he hardly knew, who had never invited him, but with whom, as he had ascertained, such talented people and intimate friends of his were staying; nevertheless, he was trembling to the marrow of his bones with fright, and instead of bringing out the excuses and compliments which he had learned by heart beforehand, he muttered something idiotic about Evdoksya Kukshina having sent him to inquire after Anna Sergeyevna’s health and that Arkady Nikolayevich had always spoken to him in terms of the highest praise . . . At this point he faltered and lost his presence of mind so completely that he sat down on his hat.
However, since no one turned him out, and Anna Sergeyevna even introduced him to her aunt and sister, he soon recovered himself and began to chatter to his heart’s content.
The introduction of something commonplace is often useful in life; it relieves an overstrained tension, and sobers down self-confident or self-sacrificing feelings by recalling how closely it is related to them.
With Sitnikov’s appearance everything became somehow duller, more trivial — and easier: they all even ate supper with a better appetite, and went to bed half an hour earlier than usual.
“I can now repeat to you,” said Arkady, as he lay down in bed, to Bazarov, who was also undressing, “what you once said to me:
‘Why are you so melancholy?
It looks as though you were fulfilling some sacred duty.’”
For some time past a tone of artificially free-and-easy banter had sprung up between the two young men, always a sure sign of secret dissatisfaction or of unexpressed suspicion.
“I’m going to my father’s place tomorrow,” said Bazarov.
Arkady raised himself and leaned on his elbow.
He felt both surprised and somehow pleased.
“Ah,” he remarked, “and is that why you are sad?”
Bazarov yawned.
“If you know too much, you grow old.”
“And what about Anna Sergeyevna?”
“What about her?”
“I mean, will she let you go?”
“I’m not in her employment.”
Arkady became thoughtful while Bazarov lay down and turned his face to the wall.
Some minutes passed in silence.