Why, here am I, now I’m young, I can do everything — come and go and carry, and I don’t need to ask anyone for anything . . . What can be better?”
“But it’s all the same to me, whether I’m young or old.”
“How do you mean — all the same? It’s impossible what you say.”
“Well, judge for yourself, Fedosya Nikolayevna, what good is my youth to me?
I live alone, a solitary man . . .”
“That always depends on you.”
“It doesn’t all depend on me!
At least someone ought to take pity on me.”
Fenichka looked sideways at Bazarov, but said nothing.
“What’s that book you have?” she said, after a short pause.
“That?
It’s a scientific book, a difficult one.”
“Are you still studying?
Don’t you find it dull?
I should think you must know everything already.”
“Evidently not everything.
You try to read a little of it.”
“But I don’t understand a word of it.
Is it Russian?” asked Fenichka, taking the heavily bound book in both hands. “How thick it is!”
“Yes, it’s Russian.”
“All the same I shan’t understand anything.”
“Well and I don’t want you to understand it.
I want to look at you while you are reading.
When you read the tip of your nose moves so nicely.”
Fenichka, who had started to spell out in a low voice an article “On Creosote” she had chanced upon, laughed and threw down the book . . . it slipped from the bench to the ground.
“I like it too when you laugh,” remarked Bazarov.
“Oh, stop!”
“I like it when you talk.
It’s like a little brook babbling.”
Fenichka turned her head away.
“What a one you are!” she murmured, as she went on sorting out the flowers. “And how can you like listening to me?
You have talked with such clever ladies.”
“Ah, Fedosya Nikolayevna! Believe me, all the clever ladies in the world aren’t worth your little elbow.”
“There now, what will you invent next!” whispered Fenichka, clasping her hands together.
Bazarov picked up the book from the ground.
“That’s a medical book. Why do you throw it away?”
“Medical?” repeated Fenichka, and turned round to him. “Do you know, ever since you gave me those drops — do you remember? — Mitya has slept so well.
I really don’t know how to thank you; you are so good, really.”
“But actually you have to pay doctors,” said Bazarov with a smile. “Doctors, you know yourself, are grasping people.”
Fenichka raised her eyes which seemed still darker from the whitish reflection cast on the upper part of her face, and looked at Bazarov.
She did not know whether he was joking or not.
“If you want, we shall be very glad . . . I shall have to ask Nikolai Petrovich . . .”
“You think I want money?” interrupted Bazarov. “No, I don’t want money from you.”
“What then?” asked Fenichka.
“What?” repeated Bazarov. “Guess.”
“As if I’m likely to guess.”
“Well, I will tell you; I want — one of those roses.”
Fenichka laughed again and even threw up her hands — so amused she was by Bazarov’s request.
She laughed and at the same time she felt flattered.
Bazarov was watching her intently.