Fathers and Sons (10 page)

‘Really! What book did he give you?’

‘This one.’

And Nikolay Petrovich took out of the back pocket of his coat the ninth edition of Büchner’s famous pamphlet.

Pavel Petrovich turned over some pages.

‘Hm!’ he grunted. ‘Arkady Nikolayevich is bothering about your education. So have you tried to read it?’

‘I have.’

‘And…?’

‘Either I’m stupid or it’s all nonsense. It must be I’m stupid.’

‘But you haven’t forgotten your German?’ Pavel Petrovich asked.

‘I understand German.’

Pavel Petrovich again turned over some pages and looked at his brother with a frown. Neither of them said anything.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Nikolay Petrovich began again, clearly wanting to change the subject of conversation. ‘I had a letter from
Kolyazin.’

‘Matvey Ilyich?’

‘Yes. He’s come to *** to do an inspection of the province.
³
He’s become a bigwig now and writes to me that as a relation he wants to see us and invites us both with Arkady to town.’

‘Will you go?’ asked Pavel Petrovich.

‘No. And will you?’

‘I won’t either. That’s all I need – to traipse thirty miles for a glass of something. Mathieu wants to show off to us in
all his
glory. To hell with him! He’ll get enough provincial flattery and will survive without ours. What’s so great about Privy Councillor!
⁴
If I’d gone on in that stupid service career I’d have been a general aide-de-camp by now.
⁵
And then you and I are pensioners.’

‘Yes, dear Brother. I can see it’s time to order our coffins and cross our arms over our breast,’ Nikolay Petrovich said with
a sigh.

‘Well, I won’t give in so quickly,’ his brother muttered. ‘That medical person and I will have another set-to, I foresee it.’

The set-to occurred that very evening over tea. Pavel Petrovich had come into the drawing room all ready for the fray, in
a decisive and irritable mood. He was just looking for a pretext to attack the enemy; but the pretext was long in coming.
Bazarov generally didn’t talk much in front of the ‘Kirsanov old gentlemen’ (as he called the two brothers), and that evening
he was feeling out of sorts and drank cup after cup in silence. Pavel Petrovich was all on fire with impatience; at last his
desires were fulfilled.

The name of a neighbouring landowner came up. ‘Useless creature, aristocratic trash,’ calmly commented Bazarov, who had come
across him in St Petersburg.

‘May I ask you a question?’ Pavel Petrovich began, and his lips began to tremble. ‘By your way of thinking do the words “useless
creature” and “aristocrat” mean one and the same thing?’

‘I said “aristocratic trash”,’ said Bazarov, lazily taking a sip of tea.

‘You did indeed. But I assume that you have the same opinion of aristocrats as you have of aristocratic trash. I feel it my
duty to inform you that I do not share that opinion. I venture to say that everyone knows me to be a liberal man, a lover
of progress; but that is precisely why I respect aristocrats – real aristocrats. Remember, my dear sir,’ (at these words Bazarov
looked up at Pavel Petrovich) ‘remember my dear sir,’ he repeated acidly ‘the aristocrats of England. They do not give up
one iota of their rights, and that is why they respect the rights of others; they demand what is due to them, and that is
why
they themselves perform what is due
from them.
The aristocracy gave England freedom and maintains it.’

‘We’ve heard that old story many times,’ Bazarov countered, ‘but what do you want to demonstrate by that?’

‘By
thert
, my dear sir, I want to demonstrate,’ (Pavel Petrovich when he got angry deliberately mispronounced
that
in an affected way although he knew very well that proper usage didn’t admit it. This idiosyncrasy was the remnant of traditions
going back to the time of Alexander I. The great men of the day, on the rare occasions when they spoke their mother tongue,
would use such corruptions of language to show we are Russians through and through, at the same time we are noblemen who are
licensed to ignore school rules) ‘by
thert
I want to demonstrate that, without a sense of one’s own dignity, without self-respect – and in the aristocrat these feelings
are highly developed – there is no solid foundation for the public… for the
bien public
,
⁶
for the edifice of society. Character, my dear sir, is the key; man’s character must be firm as a rock, because on it everything
is built. I know very well, for example, that you see fit to ridicule my habits, my clothes, even my personal fastidiousness
– but all this comes from a sense of self-respect, from a sense of duty, yes, sir, yes, duty. I live in the country, in the
back of beyond, but I don’t let myself go, I have respect for the human being I am.’

‘Excuse me, Pavel Petrovich,’ said Bazarov, ‘there you are respecting yourself and sitting with your arms folded. What does
that do for the
bien public
? Without self-respect you’d be doing exactly the same.’

Pavel Petrovich went pale.

‘That’s a quite different question. It certainly doesn’t suit me to explain to you now why I’m sitting with my arms folded,
to use your phrase. I want only to say that aristocracy is a principle, and in our day and age only amoral and worthless people
can live without principles. I said that to Arkady the day after he came here and I say it again now to you. Don’t you think
so, Nikolay?’

Nikolay Petrovich nodded in assent.

‘Aristocracy, liberalism, progress, principles,’ Bazarov was saying
meanwhile, ‘goodness, what a lot of foreign… and useless words! A Russian doesn’t need them, even if they come free.’

‘What does a Russian need then, in your opinion? To listen to you, we are in any case living beyond the bounds of humanity,
outside its laws. But really – the logic of history demands…’

‘What’s that logic to us? We’ll get on without it.’

‘How?’

‘Like this. I hope you don’t need logic to put a bit of bread into your mouth when you’re hungry. What good are all these
abstractions to us?’

Pavel Petrovich raised his hands.

‘After that remark I don’t understand you. You insult the Russian people. I do not understand how one can fail to acknowledge
principles and rules! What guides you, then?’

‘Uncle, I’ve already told you we don’t recognize any authority,’ Arkady intervened.

‘We are guided by what we recognize as useful,’ said Bazarov. ‘The most useful course of action at present is to reject –
and we reject.’

‘You reject everything?’

‘Everything.’

‘What? Not just art, poetry… but also… I hardly dare say it…’

‘Everything,’ Bazarov repeated with an air of ineffable calm.

Pavel Petrovich stared at him. He hadn’t expected that answer, and Arkady even went red from pleasure.

‘Come now,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘You reject everything, or more precisely, you destroy everything… But one must also build.’

‘That’s not our concern… First one must clear the ground.’

‘The present condition of the people demands it,’ Arkady said seriously. ‘We must meet those demands, we don’t have the right
to satisfy personal egoism.’

It was clear that Bazarov didn’t like this last sentence, it gave off a whiff of philosophy, i.e. romanticism, for he called
philosophy as well by that name; but he didn’t see the need to contradict his young pupil.

‘No, no!’ Pavel Petrovich exclaimed in a sudden burst of temper. ‘I don’t want to believe that you gentlemen know the Russian
people properly, that you represent their needs, their aspirations! No, the Russian people aren’t what you imagine them to
be. They have a hallowed respect for traditions, they are patriarchal, they can’t live without faith…’

‘I won’t argue with that,’ interrupted Bazarov, ‘I am even prepared to agree that on
that
you are right.’

‘But if I am right…’

‘That still proves nothing.’

‘Proves precisely nothing,’ Arkady repeated with the confidence of an experienced chess player who has foreseen an obviously
dangerous move from his opponent and so is not at all thrown by it.

‘What do you mean proves nothing?’ Pavel Petrovich stuttered in astonishment. ‘So you’re going against your own people?’

‘And what if I am?’ exclaimed Bazarov. ‘Those people think that when it thunders it’s the Prophet Elijah going about the heavens
in a chariot. So? Am I to agree with them? You talk of the people being Russian, but aren’t I Russian myself?’

‘No, you are not Russian after all you’ve just said! I cannot recognize you as a Russian.’

‘My grandfather ploughed the soil,’ Bazarov replied with arrogant pride. ‘Ask any one of your peasants which of us – you or
me – he would first recognize as a fellow countryman. You can’t even talk to them.’

‘And you talk to them and at the same time you hold them in contempt.’

‘What of that, if they deserve contempt! You disapprove of my way of thinking, but why do you assume it’s just accidental,
that it doesn’t come out of that very same national spirit you’re so keen on?’

‘What! So what we really need are nihilists!’

‘Needed or no, that’s not for us to judge. You too regard yourself as serving some purpose.’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, no personal remarks!’ Nikolay Petrovich exclaimed, getting up from his seat.

Pavel Petrovich smiled and, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder, made him sit down again.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t lose control of myself, precisely because of that sense of dignity which Mr… which the doctor
mocks so cruelly. Now let me say this,’ he went on, again addressing Bazarov, ‘perhaps you think that you are teaching something
new? You’re wrong to think that. The kind of materialism you preach has been in vogue several times and it has always turned
out to be groundless…’

‘Another foreign word,’ Bazarov interrupted. He was beginning to get angry and his face took on an ugly, almost copper colour.
‘In the first place, we preach nothing, we’re not like that…’

‘What do you do then?’

‘This is what we do. At first, not so long ago, we were saying that our civil servants take bribes, that we have no roads,
no trade, no proper courts of justice…’

‘Yes, yes, you’re denouncers – I think that’s the term. I too agree with many of your denouncements, but…’

‘But then we realized that to witter away about the sores on the face of society just isn’t worth doing, it only leads to
trivial and doctrinaire thinking. We came to see that our so-called progressives and denouncers are good for nothing, that
we’re spending our time on nonsense, talking about some kind of art, unconscious creativity, parliamentarianism, the bar and
God knows what else, when what’s at stake is people’s daily bread, when we’re suffocating under the crudest superstition,
when all our public companies are going bankrupt solely because there aren’t enough honest men, when the liberation
⁷
the government is so concerned with will probably bring us little benefit because our muzhiks are happy to rob themselves
in order to go and drink themselves silly in a tavern.’

‘Very well,’ Pavel Petrovich interrupted. ‘You’ve made up your mind about all that and have decided not to do anything serious
about it.’

‘We’ve decided not to do anything serious about it,’ Bazarov repeated gloomily.

He suddenly became angry with himself for having spoken so openly in front of this gentleman.

‘And you just want to hurl abuse?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And that’s called nihilism?’

‘And that’s called nihilism,’ Bazarov repeated again, this time in a particularly insolent tone.

Pavel Petrovich narrowed his eyes slightly.

‘So that’s how things are!’ he said in a strangely calm voice. ‘Nihilism is to bring succour to all our woes, and you, you
are our saviours and heroes. But why do you abuse others, just like those denouncers of what’s wrong? Don’t you talk just
as much hot air as everyone else?’

‘If there’s one thing we’re not guilty of, it’s that,’ Bazarov muttered between his teeth.

‘Well then, are you taking action? Or planning to take action?’

Bazarov didn’t reply. Pavel Petrovich began to tremble but controlled himself at once.

‘Hm!… Taking action, destroying…’ he went on. ‘But how can one destroy without even knowing why?’

‘We destroy because we’re a force,’ said Arkady.

Pavel Petrovich looked at his nephew and gave a smile.

‘Yes, a force. And one that doesn’t have to give an account of itself,’ said Arkady, standing straighter.

‘Wretched boy!’ cried Pavel Petrovich, quite unable to contain himself any longer. ‘If you’d only think what you are supporting
in Russia with your second-rate phrase! No, it would try the patience of an angel! A force! There is a force in a savage Kalmuck
and in a Mongol – but why do we need it? Civilization is our road, yes, yes, sir, it is. We value the fruits she bears. And
don’t tell me those fruits are worthless. The humblest dauber,
un barbouilleur
,
⁸
the cheap pianist who gets five kopecks for an evening, they all bring more benefit than you do, because they are representatives
of civilization and not of crude Mongol force! You imagine yourselves to be advanced – only to sit in a Kalmuck cart! A force!
And lastly, do remember this, you men of force – there are just four and a half of you, but the rest are millions strong.
They won’t let you trample their most hallowed beliefs underfoot. They will crush you!’

‘Even if they crush us, that’s the way we have to go,’ said Bazarov. ‘We shall see what we shall see. We’re not as few as
you suppose.’

‘What? Do you seriously think you can cope, cope with an entire nation?’

‘Moscow, you know, was burnt down by a penny candle,’
⁹
answered Bazarov.

‘Yes, yes. First, you show us almost Satanic pride, then ridicule. This, this is what grabs the interest of the young, this
is what rules the hearts of inexperienced boys! There’s one here sitting next to you, he almost worships you, just look at
him.’ (Arkady turned away and frowned.) ‘And this infection has already spread far and wide. I’m told our painters in Rome
don’t set foot in the Vatican. They think Raphael
¹⁰
almost an idiot because he is an “authority”, but they themselves are disgustingly feeble and unproductive, their own imagination
doesn’t go beyond
A Maiden at the Fountain
,
¹¹
try as they will! And the maiden is execrably painted. You think they’re heroes, don’t you?’