“Well, here we are at home,” said Nikolai Petrovich, removing his cap and shaking back his hair. “Now the main thing is to have supper and then to rest.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a meal, certainly,” said Bazarov, stretching himself, and he sank on to a sofa.
“Yes, yes, let us have supper at once,” exclaimed Nikolai Petrovich, and for no apparent reason stamped his foot. “Ah, here comes Prokovich, just at the right moment.”
A man of sixty entered, white-haired, thin and swarthy, dressed in a brown coat with brass buttons and a pink neckerchief.
He grinned, went up to kiss Arkady’s hand, and after bowing to the guest, retreated to the door and put his hands behind his back.
“Here he is, Prokovich,” began Nikolai Petrovich; “at last he has come back to us . . . Well? How do you find him?”
“As well as could be,” said the old man, and grinned again. Then he quickly knitted his bushy eyebrows. “Do you want supper served?” he asked solemnly.
“Yes, yes, please.
But don’t you want to go to your room first, Evgeny Vassilich?”
“No, thanks. There’s no need.
Only tell them to carry my little trunk in there and this garment, too,” he added, taking off his loose overcoat.
“Certainly.
Prokovich, take the gentleman’s coat.” (Prokovich, with a puzzled look, picked up Bazarov’s “garment” with both hands, and holding it high above his head went out on tiptoe.) “And you, Arkady, are you going to your room for a moment?”
“Yes, I must wash,” answered Arkady, and was just moving towards the door when at that moment there entered the drawing room a man of medium height, dressed in a dark English suit, a fashionable low cravat and patent leather shoes, Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov.
He looked about forty-five; his closely cropped grey hair shone with a dark luster like unpolished silver; his ivory-colored face, without wrinkles, had exceptionally regular and clear features, as though carved by a sharp and delicate chisel, and showed traces of outstanding beauty; particularly fine were his shining, dark almond-shaped eyes.
The whole figure of Arkady’s uncle, graceful and aristocratic, had preserved the flexibility of youth and that air of striving upwards, away from the earth, which usually disappears when people are over thirty.
Pavel Petrovich drew from his trouser pocket his beautiful hand with its long pink nails, a hand which looked even more beautiful against the snowy white cuff buttoned with a single large opal, and stretched it out to his nephew.
After a preliminary European hand shake, he kissed him three times in the Russian style; in fact he touched his cheek three times with his perfumed mustache, and said,
“Welcome!”
Nikolai Petrovich introduced him to Bazarov; Pavel Petrovich responded with a slight inclination of his supple body and a slight smile, but he did not give him his hand and even put it back in his pocket.
“I began to think that you weren’t coming today,” he began in a pleasant voice, with an amiable swing and shrug of the shoulders; his smile showed his splendid white teeth. “Did anything go wrong on the road?”
“Nothing went wrong,” answered Arkady. “Only we dawdled a bit.
So now we’re as hungry as wolves.
Make Prokovich hurry up, Daddy; I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Wait, I’m coming with you,” exclaimed Bazarov, suddenly pulling himself off the sofa.
Both the young men went out.
“Who is he?” asked Pavel Petrovich.
“A friend of Arkasha’s; according to him a very clever young man.”
“Is he going to stay with us?”
“Yes.”
“That unkempt creature!”
“Well, yes.”
Pavel Petrovich drummed on the table with his finger tips.
“I fancy Arkady s’est degourdi,” he observed. “I’m glad he has come back.”
At supper there was little conversation.
Bazarov uttered hardly a word, but ate a lot.
Nikolai Petrovich told various anecdotes about what he called his farming career, talked about the forthcoming government measures, about committees, deputations, the need to introduce new machinery, etc.
Pavel Petrovich paced slowly up and down the dining room (he never ate supper), occasionally sipping from a glass of red wine and less often uttering some remark or rather exclamation, such as “Ah! aha! hm!”
Arkady spoke about the latest news from Petersburg, but he was conscious of being a bit awkward, with that awkwardness which usually overcomes a youth when he has just stopped being a child and has come back to a place where they are accustomed to regard and treat him as a child.
He made his sentences quite unnecessarily long, avoided the word “Daddy,” and even sometimes replaced it by the word “Father,” mumbled between his teeth; with exaggerated carelessness he poured into his glass far more wine than he really wanted and drank it all.
Prokovich did not take his eyes off him and kept on chewing his lips.
After supper they all separated at once.
“Your uncle’s a queer fellow,” Bazarov said to Arkady, as he sat in his dressing gown by the bed, smoking a short pipe. “All that smart dandyism in the country. Just think of it!
And his nails, his nails — they ought to be sent to an exhibition!”
“Why, of course you don’t know,” replied Arkady; “he was a great figure in his day.
I’ll tell you his story sometime.
He was extremely handsome, and used to turn all the women’s heads.”
“Oh, that’s it!
So he keeps it up for the sake of old times.
What a pity there’s no one for him to fascinate here!