A doctor who is without such an indispensable thing!”
“You should have seen his lancets,” remarked Bazarov, and went out.
Till late that evening and all the following day Vassily Ivanovich kept seizing on every possible pretext to go into his son’s room, and though, far from mentioning the cut, he even tried to talk about the most irrelevant subjects, he looked so persistently into his son’s face and watched him with so much anxiety that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to leave the house.
Vassily Ivanovich then promised not to bother him, and he did this the more readily since Arina Vlasyevna, from whom, of course, he had kept it all secret, was beginning to worry him about why he did not sleep and what trouble had come over him.
For two whole days he held firm, though he did not at all like the look of his son, whom he kept watching on the sly . . . but on the third day at dinner he could bear it no longer.
Bazarov was sitting with downcast eyes and had not touched a single dish.
“Why don’t you eat, Evgeny?” he inquired, putting on a perfectly carefree expression. “The food, I think, is very well prepared.”
“I don’t want anything, so I don’t eat.”
“You have no appetite?
And your head,” he added timidly, “does it ache?”
“Yes, of course it aches.”
Arina Vlasyevna sat bolt upright and became very alert.
“Please don’t be angry, Evgeny,” went on Vassily Ivanovich, “but won’t you let me feel your pulse?”
Bazarov got up.
“I can tell you without feeling my pulse, I’m feverish.”
“And have you been shivering?”
“Yes, I’ve been shivering.
I’ll go and lie down; and you can send me in some lime-flower tea.
I must have caught cold.”
“Of course, I heard you coughing last night,” murmured Arina Vlasyevna.
“I’ve caught cold,” repeated Bazarov, and left the room.
Arina Vlasyevna busied herself with the preparation of the lime-flower tea, while Vassily Ivanovich went into the next room and desperately clutched at his hair in silence.
Bazarov did not get up again that day and passed the whole night in heavy half-conscious slumber.
At one o’clock in the morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw by the light of a lamp his father’s pale face bending over him, and told him to go away; the old man obeyed, but immediately returned on tiptoe, and half-hidden behind the cupboard door he gazed persistently at his son.
Arina Vlasyevna did not go to bed either, and leaving the study door a little open, she kept coming up to it to listen “how Enyusha was breathing,” and to look at Vassily Ivanovich.
She could see only his motionless bent back, but even that have her some kind of consolation.
In the morning Bazarov tried to get up; he was seized with giddiness, and his nose began to bleed; he lay down again.
Vassily Ivanovich waited on him in silence; Arina Vlasyevna went up to him and asked him how he felt.
He answered,
“Better,” and turned his face to the wall.
Vassily Ivanovich made a gesture to his wife with both hands; she bit her lip to stop herself from crying and left the room.
The whole house seemed to have suddenly darkened; every person had a drawn face and a strange stillness reigned; the servants carried off from the courtyard into the village a loudly crowing cock, who for a long time was unable to grasp what they were doing with him.
Bazarov continued to lie with his face to the wall.
Vassily Ivanovich tried to ask him various questions, but they wearied Bazarov, and the old man sank back in his chair, only occasionally cracking the joints of his fingers.
He went into the garden for a few minutes, stood there like a stone idol, as though overwhelmed with unutterable amazement (a bewildered expression never left his face), then went back again to his son, trying to avoid his wife’s questions.
At last she caught him by the arm, and convulsively, almost threateningly, asked,
“What is wrong with him?”
Then he collected his thoughts and forced himself to smile at her in reply, but to his own horror, instead of smiling, he suddenly started to laugh.
He had sent for a doctor at daybreak.
He thought it necessary to warn his son about this, in case he might be angry.
Bazarov abruptly turned round on the sofa, looked fixedly with dim eyes at his father and asked for something to drink.
Vassily Ivanovich gave him some water and in so doing felt his forehead; it was burning.
“Listen, old man,” began Bazarov in a slow husky voice, “I’m in a bad way.
I’ve caught the infection and in a few days you’ll have to bury me.”
Vassily Ivanovich staggered as though someone had knocked his legs from under him.
“Evgeny,” he muttered, “what are you saying?
God have mercy on you!
You’ve caught cold . . .”
“Stop that,” interrupted Bazarov in the same slow, deliberate voice; “a doctor has no right to talk like that.
I’ve all the symptoms of infection, you can see for yourself.”