Surely you want to be a doctor.”
“Yes, but the one doesn’t prevent the other.”
Vassily Ivanovich poked his middle finger into his pipe, where a little smoldering ash was left.
“Well, perhaps, perhaps — I’m not going to dispute.
What am I?
A retired army doctor, valla too; and now farming has fallen to my lot.
I served in your grandfather’s brigade,” he addressed himself to Arkady again. “Yes, yes, I have seen many sights in my time.
And I mixed with every kind of society.
I myself, the man you see before you, have felt the pulse of Prince Wittgenstein and of Zhukovsky!
They were in the southern army, the fourteenth, you understand” (and here Vassily Ivanovich pursed his lips significantly). “I knew them all inside out.
Well, well, but my work was only on one side; stick to your lancet and be content!
Your grandfather was a very honorable man and a real soldier.”
“Confess, he was a regular blockhead,” remarked Bazarov lazily.
“Ah, Evgeny, how can you use such an expression? Do consider . . . of course General Kirsanov was not one of those . . .”
“Well, drop him,” interrupted Bazarov. “As I was driving along I was pleased to see your birch plantation; it has sprung up admirably.”
Vassily Ivanovich brightened.
“And you must see the little garden I’ve got now.
I planted every tree myself.
I have fruit, raspberries and all kinds of medicinal herbs.
However much you young gentlemen may know, old Paracelsus spoke the sacred truth; in herbis, verbis et lapidibus . . . I’ve retired from practice, as you know, but at least twice a week something happens to bring me back to my old work.
They come for advice — I can’t drive them away — and sometimes the poor people need help.
Indeed there are no doctors here at all.
One of the neighbors here, a retired major, just imagine it, he doctors the people too.
I ask the question: ‘Has he studied medicine?’
They answer: ‘No, he hasn’t studied, he does it more from philanthropy’ . . . ha! ha! from philanthropy! What do you think of that? Ha! ha!”
“Fedka! fill me a pipe!” said Bazarov sternly.
“And there’s another doctor here who had just visited a patient,” continued Vassily Ivanovich in a kind of desperation, “but the patient had already gone ad patres; the servant wouldn’t let the doctor in, and tells him: ‘You’re no longer needed.’
He never expected this, got confused and asked:
‘Well, did your master hiccup before he died?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he hiccup much?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, well, that’s all right,’ and off he went again.
Ha! ha! ha!”
The old man laughed alone. Arkady managed to show a smile on his face.
Bazarov merely stretched himself.
The conversation continued in this way for about an hour. Arkady found time to go to his room which turned out to be the anteroom to the bathroom, but it was very cosy and clean.
At last Tanyushka came in and announced that dinner was ready.
Vassily Ivanovich was the first to get up.
“Come, gentlemen, you must pardon me generously if I have bored you.
Maybe my good wife will give you better satisfaction.”
The dinner, though hastily prepared, was very good and even abundant; only the wine was not quite up to the mark; it was sherry, almost black, bought by Timofeich in the town from a well-known merchant, and it had a flavor of copper or resin; the flies also were a nuisance.
On ordinary days a serf boy used to keep driving them away with a big green branch, but on this occasion Vassily Ivanovich had sent him away for fear of adverse criticism from the younger generation.
Arina Vlasyevna had changed her dress, and was wearing a high cap with silk ribbons and a pale blue flowered shawl.
She started crying again as soon as she caught sight of her Enyusha, but her husband did not need to admonish her; she herself made haste to dry her tears in order not to spoil her shawl.
Only the young men ate; the host and hostess had both dined long ago.
Fedka waited at table, obviously encumbered by his unfamiliar boots; he was helped by a woman with a masculine cast of face and one eye, called Anfisushka; she fulfilled the duties of housekeeper, poultry woman and laundress.
Vassily Ivanovich walked up and down throughout the dinner, and with a perfectly contented and even blissful face talked about the grave anxieties he had felt about Napoleon’s policy and the complications of the Italian question.
Arina Vlasyevna took no notice of Arkady and did not press him to eat; leaning her round face on her little fist, her full cherry-colored lips and the little moles on her cheeks and over her eyebrows adding to her extremely kind, good-natured expression, she did not take her eyes off her son and constantly sighed; she was dying to know for how long he would stay, but she was afraid to ask him.
“What if he stays for two days?” she thought, and her heart sank.