“What symptoms . . . of infection, Evgeny? . . . Good heavens!”
“Well, what’s this?” said Bazarov, and pulling up his shirt sleeve he showed his father the ominous red patches coming out on his arm.
Vassily Ivanovich trembled and turned cold from fear.
“Supposing,” he said at last, “supposing . . . even supposing . . . there is something like an infection . . .”
“Blood poisoning,” repeated Bazarov severely and distinctly; “have you forgotten your textbooks?”
“Well, yes, yes, as you like . . . all the same we shall cure you!”
“Oh, that’s rubbish.
And it’s not the point.
I never expected to die so soon; it’s a chance, a very unpleasant one, to tell the truth.
You and mother must now take advantage of your strong religious faith; here’s an opportunity of putting it to the test.” He drank a little more water. “But I want to ask you one thing — while my brain is still under control.
Tomorrow or,the day after, you know, my brain will cease to function.
I’m not quite certain even now, if I’m expressing myself clearly.
While I was lying here I kept on imagining that red dogs were running round me, and you made them point at me, as if I were a blackcock.
I thought I was drunk.
Do you understand me all right?”
“Of course, Evgeny, you talk perfectly clearly.”
“So much the better. You told me you’d sent for the doctor . . . you did that to console yourself . . . now console me too; send a messenger . . .”
“To Arkady Nikolaich?” interposed the old man.
“Who’s Arkady Nikolaich?” said Bazarov with some hesitation . . . “Oh, yes, that little fledgeling!
No, leave him alone, he’s turned into a jackdaw now.
Don’t look surprised, I’m not raving yet.
But you send a messenger to Madame Odintsov, Anna Sergeyevna, she’s a landowner near by — do you know?” (Vassily Ivanovich nodded his head.) “Say ‘Evgeny Bazarov sends his greetings, and sent to say he is dying.’
Will you do that?”
“I will . . . But is it a possible thing, that you should die, you, Evgeny . . . judge for yourself.
Where would divine justice be after that?”
“I don’t know; only you send the messenger.”
“I’ll send him this minute, and I’ll write a letter myself.”
“No, why? Say, I send my greetings, and nothing more is necessary.
And now I’ll go back to my dogs.
How strange! I want to fix my thoughts on death, and nothing comes of it.
I see a kind of patch . . . and nothing more.”
He turned over heavily towards the wall; and Vassily Ivanovich went out of the study and, struggling as far as his wife’s bedroom, collapsed on his knees in front of the sacred images.
“Pray, Arina, pray to God!” he groaned. “Our son is dying.”
The doctor, that same district doctor who had been without any caustic, arrived, and after examining the patient, advised them to persevere with a cooling treatment and threw in a few words about the possibility of recovery.
“Have you ever seen people in my state not setting off for the Elysian fields?” asked Bazarov, and suddenly snatching the leg of a heavy table standing near his sofa, he swung it round and pushed it away.
“There’s strength enough,” he murmured. “It’s all there still, and I must die . . .
An old man has time at least to outgrow the habit of living, but I . . . well, let me try to deny death.
It will deny me, and that’s the end of it!
Who’s crying there?” he added after a pause. “Mother?
Poor mother!
Whom will she feed now with her wonderful cabbage soup?
And I believe you’re whimpering too, Vassily Ivanovich!
Why, if Christianity doesn’t help you, be a philosopher, a Stoic, and that sort of thing!
Surely you prided yourself on being a philosopher?”
“What kind of philosopher am I!” sobbed Vassily Ivanovich, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.
Bazarov got worse with every hour; the disease progressed rapidly, as usually happens in cases of surgical poisoning.
He had not yet lost consciousness and understood what was said to him; he still struggled.
“I don’t want to start raving,” he muttered, clenching his fists; “what rubbish it all is!”
And then he said abruptly,
“Come, take ten from eight, what remains?” Vassily Ivanovich wandered about like one possessed, proposing first one remedy, then another, and ended by doing nothing except cover up his son’s feet.