“Excuse me, Daddy, if my question seems to you indiscreet,” he began; “but you yourself by your frank talk yesterday encouraged me to be frank . . . you won’t be angry?”
“Go on.”
“You make me bold enough to ask you, isn’t the reason why Fen . . . isn’t it only because I’m here that she won’t come to pour out tea?”
Nikolai Petrovich turned slightly aside.
“Perhaps,” he at length answered, “she supposes . . . she feels ashamed.”
Arkady glanced quickly at his father.
“She has no reason to feel ashamed.
In the first place, you know my point of view,” (Arkady much enjoyed pronouncing these words) “and secondly, how could I want to interfere in the smallest way with your life and habits?
Besides, I’m sure you couldn’t make a bad choice; if you allow her to live under the same roof with you, she must be worthy of it; in any case, it’s not for a son to judge his father — particularly for me, and with such a father, who has always let me do everything I wanted.”
Arkady’s voice trembled to start with; he felt he was being magnanimous and realized at the same time that he was delivering something like a lecture to his father; but the sound of his own voice has a powerful effect on any man, and Arkady pronounced the last words firmly and even emphatically.
“Thank you, Arkasha,” said Nikolai Petrovich thickly, and his fingers again passed over his eyebrows. “What you suppose is in fact quite true.
Of course if this girl hadn’t deserved . . . it’s not just a frivolous fancy.
It’s awkward for me to talk to you about this, but you understand that it’s difficult for her to come here in your presence, especially on the first day of your arrival.”
“In that case I’ll go to her myself!” exclaimed Arkady, with a fresh onrush of generous excitement, and he jumped up from his seat. “I will explain to her that she has no need to feel ashamed in front of me.”
Nikolai Petrovich got up also.
“Arkady,” he began, “please . . . how is it possible . . . there . . . I haven’t told you yet . . .”
But Arkady was no longer listening to him; he had run off the terrace.
Nikolai Petrovich gazed after him and sank into a chair overwhelmed with confusion.
His heart began to throb . . . Did he realize at that moment the inevitable strangeness of his future relations with his son? Was he aware that Arkady might have shown him more respect if he had never mentioned that subject at all? Did he reproach himself for weakness? It is hard to say. All these feelings moved within him. though in the state of vague sensations only, but the flush remained on his face, and his heart beat rapidly.
Then came the sound of hurrying footsteps and Arkady appeared on the terrace.
“We have introduced ourselves, Daddy!” he cried with an expression of affectionate and good-natured triumph on his face. “Fedosya Nikolayevna is really not very well today, and she will come out a little later.
But why didn’t you tell me I have a brother?
I should have kissed him last night as I kissed him just now!”
Nikolai Petrovich tried to say something, tried to rise and open wide his arms. Arkady flung himself on his neck.
“What’s this? Embracing again!” sounded the voice of Pavel Petrovich behind them.
Father and son were both equally glad to see him at that moment; there are situations, however touching, from which one nevertheless wants to escape as quickly as possible.
“Why are you surprised at that?” said Nikolai Petrovich gaily. “What ages I’ve been waiting for Arkasha. I haven’t had time to look at him properly since yesterday.”
Arkady went up to his uncle and again felt on his cheeks the touch of that perfumed mustache.
Pavel Petrovich sat down at the table.
He was wearing another elegant English suit with a bright little fez on his head.
That fez and the carelessly tied little cravat suggested the freedom of country life, but the stiff collar of his shirt — not white, it is true, but striped, as is correct with morning dress — stood up as inexorably as ever against his well-shaved chin.
“Where is your new friend?” he asked Arkady.
“He’s not in the house; he usually gets up early and goes off somewhere.
The main thing is not to pay any attention to him; he dislikes ceremony.”
“Yes, that’s obvious,” Pavel Petrovich began, slowly spreading butter on his bread. “Is he going to stay long with us?”
“Possibly.
He came here on his way to his father’s.”
“And where does his father live?”
“In our province, about sixty-five miles from here.
He has a small property there.
He used to be an army doctor.”
“Tut, tut, tut! Of course. I kept on asking myself, ‘Where have I heard that name before, Bazarov?’
Nikolai, don’t you remember, there was a surgeon called Bazarov in our father’s division.”
“I believe there was.”
“Exactly.
So that surgeon is his father.
Hm!” Pavel Petrovich pulled his mustache. “Well, and Monsieur Bazarov, what is he?” he asked in a leisurely tone.
“What is Bazarov?” Arkady smiled. “Would you like me to tell you, uncle, what he really is?”
“Please do, nephew.”
“He is a nihilist!” “What?” asked Nikolai Petrovich, while Pavel Petrovich lifted his knife in the air with a small piece of butter on the tip and remained motionless.