“That’s enough, Evgeny; we shall end by quarreling.”
“Ah, Arkady, do me a favor, let’s quarrel properly for once, to the bitter end, to the point of destruction.”
“But then perhaps we should end by . . .”
“By fighting?” broke in Bazarov. “Well?
Here in the hay, in such idyllic surroundings, far from the world and from human eyes, it wouldn’t matter.
But you’d be no match for me.
I’d have you by the throat at once . . .”
Barazov stretched out his long tough fingers. Arkady turned round and prepared, as if joking, to resist . . . But his friend’s face struck him as so sinister — he saw such a grim threat in the crooked smile which twisted his lips, in his glaring eyes, that he felt instinctively taken aback . . .
“So that is where you have got to,” said the voice of Vassily Ivanovich at this moment, and the old army doctor appeared before the young men dressed in a homemade linen jacket, with a straw hat, also homemade, on his head. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere . . . But you’ve picked out a splendid place and you’re perfectly employed.
Lying on the earth and gazing up to heaven — do you know there’s a special significance in that?”
“I gaze up to heaven only when I want to sneeze,” growled Bazarov, and turning to Arkady, he added in an undertone: “A pity he interrupted us.”
“Well, that’s enough,” whispered Arkady, and secretly squeezed his friend’s hand. But no friendship can withstand such shocks for long.
“I look at you, my youthful friends,” said Vassily Ivanovich meanwhile, shaking his head and leaning his folded arms on a skillfully bent stick which he himself had carved with a Turk’s figure for a knob. “I look, and I can’t refrain from admiration.
You have so much strength, such youthful bloom, abilities and talents!
Truly . . . A Castor and Pollux.”
“Get along with you — shooting off into mythology!” said Bazarov. “You can see he was a Latin scholar in his day.
Why, I seem to remember, you won the silver medal for Latin composition, didn’t you?”
“The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri!”; repeated Vassily Ivanovich.
“Come, stop that, father; don’t go sentimental.”
“Just once in an age, surely it’s permissible,” murmured the old man. “Anyhow, I have not been searching for you, gentlemen, in order to pay you compliments, but in order to tell you, in the first place, that we shall soon be dining; and secondly, I wanted to warn you, Evgeny . . . you are a sensible man, you know the world and you know what women are, and therefore you will excuse . . . your mother wanted a service held for you in thanksgiving, for your arrival.
Don’t imagine that I’m asking you to attend that service — it’s already over; but Father Alexei . . .”
“The parson?”
“Well, yes, the priest; he is — to dine with us . . . I did not expect this and was not even in favor of it — but somehow it turned out like that — he misunderstood me — and, well, Arina Vlasyevna — besides, he’s a worthy and reasonable man.”
“I suppose he won’t eat my share at dinner?” inquired Bazarov.
Vassily Ivanovich laughed.
“The things you say!”
“Well, I ask nothing more.
I’m ready to sit down at table with anyone.”
Vassily Ivanovich set his hat straight.
“I was sure in advance,” he said, “that you were above all such prejudices.
Here am I, an old man of sixty-two, and even I have none.” (Vassily Ivanovich dared not confess that he had himself wanted the thanksgiving service — he was no less devout than his wife.) “And Father Alexei very much wanted to make your acquaintance.
You will like him, you’ll see. He doesn’t mind playing cards even, and he sometimes — but this is between ourselves — goes so far as to smoke a pipe.”
“Fancy that.
We’ll have a round of whist after dinner and I’ll beat him.”
“Ha! ha! ha! we shall see; that’s an open question.”
“Well, won’t it remind you of old times?” said Bazarov with a peculiar emphasis.
Vassily Ivanovich’s bronzed cheeks blushed with confusion.
“For shame, Evgeny, . . . Let bygones be bygones.
Well, I’m ready to confess before this gentleman, I had that very passion in my youth — and how I paid for it too . . .!
But how hot it is.
May I sit down with you?
I hope I shan’t be in your way.”
“Not in the least,” answered Arkady.
Vassily Ivanovich lowered himself, sighing, into the hay.
“Your present quarters, my dear sirs,” he began, “remind me of my military bivouacking existence, the halts of the field hospital somewhere like this under a haystack — and even for that we thanked God.” He sighed. “What a lot I’ve experienced in my time.
For instance, if you allow me, I will tell you a curious episode about the plague in Bessarabia.”
“For which you won the Vladimir cross?” interposed Bazarov. “We know — we know . . . By the way, why aren’t you wearing it?”
“Why, I told you that I have no prejudices,” muttered Vassily Ivanovich (only the evening before he had had the red ribbon unpicked from his coat) and he started to tell his story about the plague. “Why, he has fallen asleep,” he whispered suddenly to Arkady, pointing to Evgeny, and winked good-naturedly. “Evgeny, get up!” he added loudly. “Let’s go in to dinner.”
Father Alexei, a handsome stout man with thick, carefully combed hair, with an embroidered belt round his mauve silk cassock, appeared to be a very skillful and adaptable person.
He made haste to be the first to offer his hand to Arkady and Bazarov, as though realizing in advance that they did not want his blessing, and in general he behaved without constraint.