Before you stands a simple mortal, who came to his senses long ago, and hopes that other people too have forgotten his follies.
I am going away for a long time, and though I’m by no means a soft creature, I should be sorry to carry away with me the thought that you remember me with abhorrence.”
Anna Sergeyevna gave a deep sigh like one who has just climbed to the top of a high mountain, and her face lit up with a smile.
She held out her hand to Bazarov a second time and responded to his pressure.
“Let bygones be bygones,” she said, “all the more so, since, to say what is on my conscience, I was also to blame then, either for flirting or for something else.
In a word, let us be friends as we were before.
The other was a dream, wasn’t it?
And who remembers dreams?”
“Who remembers them?
And besides, love . . . surely it’s an imaginary feeling.”
“Indeed?
I am very pleased to hear that.”
Anna Sergeyevna expressed herself thus and so did Bazarov; they both thought they were speaking the truth.
Was the truth, the whole truth, to be found in their words?
They themselves did not know, much less could the author.
But a conversation ensued between them, just as if they believed one another completely.
Anna Sergeyevna asked Bazarov, among other things, what he had been doing at the Kirsanovs’.
He was on the point of telling her about his duel with Pavel Petrovich, but he checked himself with the thought that she might suppose he was trying to make himself interesting, and answered that he had been working the whole time.
“And I,” observed Anna Sergeyevna, “had a fit of depression to start with, goodness knows why; I even planned to go abroad, just fancy!
But that passed off; your friend Arkady Nikolaich arrived, and I settled down to my routine again, to my proper function.”
“And what is that function, may I ask?”
“To be an aunt, guardian, mother — call it what you like.
Incidentally, do you know I used not to understand before your close friendship with Arkady Nikolaich; I found him rather insignificant.
But now I have got to know him better, and I recognize his intelligence . . . but he is young, so young, it’s a great thing . . . not like you and me, Evgeny Vassilich.”
“Is he still shy in your presence?” asked Bazarov.
“But was he . . .” began Anna Sergeyevna, and after a short pause she went on. “He has grown more trustful now; he talks to me; formerly he used to avoid me; though, as a matter of fact, I didn’t seek his society either.
He is more Katya’s friend.”
Bazarov felt vexed.
“A woman can’t help being a hypocrite,” he thought.
“You say he used to avoid you,” he said aloud with a cold smile; “but probably it’s no secret to you that he was in love with you?”
“What? He too?” ejaculated Anna Sergeyevna.
“He too,” repeated Bazarov, with a submissive bow. “Can it be that you didn’t know it and that I’ve told you something new?”
Anna Sergeyevna lowered her eyes.
“You are mistaken, Evgeny Vassilich.”
“I don’t think so.
But perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it.”
“And don’t you try to fool me any more,” he added to himself.
“Why not mention it?
But I imagine that here as well you attach too much importance to a transitory impression.
I begin to suspect that you are inclined to exaggerate.”
“We had better not talk about that, Anna Sergeyevna.”
“And why?” she replied, but herself diverted the conversation into another channel.
She still felt ill at ease with Bazarov, though she had both told and assured herself that everything was forgotten.
While exchanging the simplest remarks with him, even when she joked with him, she was conscious of an embarrassed fear.
Thus do people on a steamer at sea talk and laugh carelessly, for all the world as if they were on dry land; but the moment there is some hitch, if the smallest sign appears of something unusual, there emerges at once on every face an expression of peculiar alarm, revealing the constant awareness of constant danger.
Anna Sergeyevna’s conversation with Bazarov did not last long.
She began to he absorbed in her own thoughts, to answer absentmindedly and ended by suggesting that they should go into the hall, where they found the princess and Katya.
“But where is Arkady Nikolaich?” asked the hostess, and on hearing that he had not been seen for more than an hour, she sent someone to look for him.
He was not found at once; he had hidden himself away in the wildest part of the garden, and with his chin propped on his folded hands, he was sitting wrapped in thought.
His thoughts were deep and serious, but not mournful.