Marriage is not a principle for him, but on the other hand his sentiment of equality will be gratified.
Yes, and after all what is the good of caste divisions au dix-neuvieme siecle?” “Ah, Pavel, Pavel! let me kiss you once more!
Don’t be afraid, I’ll be careful.”
The brothers embraced each other.
“What do you think, shouldn’t you tell her straight away what you intend to do?”
“Why should we hurry?” answered Nikolai Petrovich. “Did you have a conversation with her?”
“A conversation, between us?
Quelle idee!”
“Well, that’s all right.
First of all, you must get well; it won’t run away from us, and meanwhile we must think it over and consider . . .”
“But surely you have made up your mind?”
“Of course I have, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I will leave you now; you must rest; any excitement is bad for you . . . But we will talk it over another time.
Go to sleep, my dear, and God grant you good health!”
“Why does he thank me like that?” thought Pavel Petrovich, when he was left alone. “As if it did not depend on himself!
Then as soon as he marries I will go away somewhere, far from here, to Dresden or Florence, and I will live there till I expire.”
Pavel Petrovich moistened his forehead with eau de Cologne and closed his eyes.
Lit up by the brilliant daylight, his beautiful emaciated head lay on the white pillow like the head of a dead man . . . And indeed he was a dead man.
Chapter 25
At Nikolskoe Katya and Arkady were sitting in the garden on a turf seat in the shade of a tall ash tree; Fifi had placed herself on the ground near them, giving her long body that graceful curve which is known among sportsmen as the “hare’s bend.”
Both Arkady and Katya were silent; he held in his hands a half-open book, while she was picking out of a basket some remaining crumbs of white bread and throwing them to the small family of sparrows which with their peculiar cowardly impudence were chirping and hopping around right up to her feet.
A faint breeze, stirring the ash leaves, kept gently moving pale gold patches of sunlight up and down across the shady path and over Fifi’s back; an unbroken shadow fell on Arkady and Katya; only from time to time a bright streak gleamed in her hair.
Both were silent, but the way in which they were silent and sitting together indicated a certain confidential friendliness; each of them seemed not to be thinking of the other, while secretly rejoicing at each other’s presence.
Their faces, too, had changed since we saw them last; Arkady seemed more composed and Katya brighter and more self-confident.
“Don’t you think,” began Arkady, “that the ash has been very well named in Russian Yasen;not a single other tree is so light and translucently clear (yasno) against the sky.”
Katya raised her eyes upwards and murmured,
“Yes,” and Arkady thought,
“Well, she doesn’t reproach me for talking poetically.”
“I don’t care for Heine,” said Katya, glancing at the book which Arkady held in his hands, “either when he laughs or when he weeps. I like him when he is thoughtful and sad.”
“And I like him when he laughs,” remarked Arkady.
“Those are the relics of your old satirical tendency.” (“Relics,” thought Arkady. “If Bazarov could have heard that!”) “Wait a bit; we shall transform you.
“Who will transform me?
You?”
“Who?
My sister, Porfiry Platonovich, whom you’ve stopped quarreling with, my aunt, whom you escorted to church the day before yesterday.”
“Well, I couldn’t refuse.
But, as for Anna Sergeyevna, you remember she agreed with Evgeny in a great many things.”
“My sister was under his influence then, just as you were.”
“As I was!
Have you noticed that I’ve already shaken off his influence?”
Katya remained silent.
“I know,” continued Arkady, “you never liked him.”
“I’m unable to judge him.”
“Do you know, Katerina Sergeyevna, every time I hear that answer, I don’t believe it . . . there is no one beyond the capacity of judgment of any of us!
That is just a pretext for getting out of it.”
“Well, I’ll tell you then, he is . . . not because I don’t like him, but I feel he is quite alien to me, and I am alien to him . . . and you too are alien to him.”
“Why is that?”
“How can I tell you? He’s a wild beast, while we are both domestic animals.”
“And am I a domestic animal?”
Katya nodded her head.