Two peasants with their hats on stood near the first hut swearing at each other.
“You’re a great swine,” said one, “you’re worse than a little sucking pig.”
“And your wife’s a witch,” retorted the other.
“By their unconstrained behavior,” remarked Bazarov to Arkady, “and by the playfulness of their phraseology, you can guess that my father’s peasants are not overmuch oppressed.
But there he is himself coming out on the steps of the house.
He must have heard the bells; it’s him all right, I recognize his figure; ay! ay! only how grey he’s grown, poor old chap!”
Chapter 20
Bazarov leaned out of the tarantass, while Arkady stretched out his head from behind his companion’s back and saw standing on the steps of the little house a tall thinnish man with ruffled hair and a sharp aquiline nose, dressed in an old military coat, not buttoned up.
He stood with his legs wide apart, smoking a long pipe and screwing up his eyes to keep the sun out of them.
The horses stopped.
“Arrived at last!” exclaimed Bazarov’s father, still continuing to smoke, though the pipe was fairly jumping up and down between his fingers. “Come, get out, get out, let me hug you.”
He began embracing his son . . .
“Enyusha, Enyusha,” resounded a woman’s quavering voice.
The door flew open and on the threshold appeared a plump little old woman in a white cap and short colored jacket.
She cried, staggered, and would probably have fallen if Bazarov had not supported her.
Her plump little hands were instantly twined round his neck, her head was pressed to his breast, and there followed a complete hush, only interrupted by the sound of her broken sobs.
Old Bazarov breathed hard and screwed up his eyes more than before.
“There, that’s enough, enough, Arisha! leave off!” he said, exchanging a look with Arkady, who remained standing motionless by the tarantass, while even the peasant on the box turned his head away. “That’s quite unnecessary! Please leave off.”
“Ah, Vassily Ivanich,” faltered the old woman, “for what ages, my dear one, my darling, Enyushenka . . .,” and without unclasping her hands, she drew back her wrinkled face, wet with tears, and overwhelmed with tenderness, and looked at him with blissful and somehow comic eyes and then again fell on his neck.
“Well, yes of course, that’s all in the nature of things,” remarked Vassily Ivanich. “Only we had better come indoors.
Here’s a visitor arrived with Evgeny.
You must excuse this,” he added, turning to Arkady and slightly scraping the ground with his foot: “You understand, a woman’s weakness, and well, a mother’s heart.”
His own lips and eyebrows were quivering and his chin shook — but obviously he was trying to master his feelings and to appear almost indifferent.
Arkady bowed.
“Let’s go in, mother, really,” said Bazarov, and he led the enfeebled old woman into the house.
He put her in a comfortable armchair, once more hurriedly embraced his father, and introduced Arkady to him.
“Heartily glad to make your acquaintance,” said Vassily Ivanich, “but you mustn’t expect anything grand: we live very simply here, like military people.
Arina Vlasyevna, pray calm yourself; what faintheartedness!
Our guest will think ill of you.”
“My good sir,” said the old woman through her tears, “I haven’t the honor of knowing your name and your father’s.”
“Arkady Nikolayevich,” interposed Vassily Ivanich solemnly, in a low voice.
“Excuse a foolish old woman like me.” She blew her nose, and bending her head from left to right, she carefully wiped one eye after the other. “You must excuse me.
I really thought I should die, that I should not live to see again my darling — ”
“Well and here we have lived to see him again, madam,” put in Vassily Ivanovich. “Tanyushka,” he said, turning to a bare-legged little girl of thirteen in a bright red cotton dress, who was shyly peeping in at the door, “bring your mistress a glass of water — on a tray, do you hear? — and you, gentlemen,” he added with a kind of old-fashioned playfulness — “allow me to invite you into the study of a retired veteran.”
“Just once more let me embrace you, Enyushka,” groaned Arina Vlasyevna.
Bazarov bent down to her. “Gracious, how handsome you’ve grown!”
“Well, I don’t know about being handsome,” remarked Vassily Ivanovich. “But he’s a man, as the saying goes — ommfay.
And now I hope, Arina Vlasyevna, having satisfied your maternal heart, you will turn your thoughts to satisfying the appetites of our dear guests, because, as you know, even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.”
The old lady rose from her chair.
“This very minute, Vassily Ivanovich, the table shall be laid. I will myself run to the kitchen and order the samovar to be brought in; everything will be ready, everything.
Why, for three whole years I have not seen him, have not been able to give him food or drink — is that nothing?”
“Well, you see to things, little hostess, bustle about, don’t put us to shame; and you, gentlemen, I beg you to follow me.
Here is Timofeich come to pay his respects to you, Evgeny.
And the old dog, I dare say he too is delighted.
Ay, aren’t you delighted, old dog?
Be so good as to follow me.”
And Vassily Ivanovich went bustling ahead, shuffling and flapping with his down-at-heel slippers.
His whole house consisted of six tiny rooms.
One of these — the one into which he led our friends — was called the study.
A thick-legged table, littered with papers blackened by an ancient accumulation of dust as if they had been smoked, occupied the whole space between the two windows; on the walls hung Turkish firearms, whips, a saber, two maps, some anatomical diagrams, a portrait of Hufeland, a monogram woven out of hair in a blackened frame, and a diploma under glass; a leather sofa, torn and worn hollow in places, stood between two huge cupboards of Karelian birchwood; on the shelves, books, little boxes, stuffed birds, jars and phials were crowded together in confusion; in one corner lay a broken electric battery.