Fathers and Sons

"If so, a detestably conceited one."

"Perhaps he is conceited," Nikolai Petrovitch allowed. "But then it would appear that nothing can be done without something of the kind. What I cannot make out is the following. As you know, I have done everything possible to keep up with the times – I have organised my peasantry, I have set up such a farm that throughout the province I am known as 'Fine Kirsanov,' persistently I read and educate myself, in general I try to march abreast of the needs of the day. Yet, though I do all this, I am now given to understand that my day is past and gone! And, brother, I do not say that I am not partially inclined to accept that view."

"For what reason?"

"For the following. To-day, as I was reading Pushkin (I think it was 'The Gipsies' that I had lighted upon), there suddenly entered the room Arkady. Silently, and with an air of kindly regret, and as gently as a child, he withdrew the book from my hand, and laid before me another book – a German production of some kind. That done, he gave me another smile, and departed with my volume of Pushkin under his arm."

"Good gracious! And what might be the book which he has given you?"

"This."

Nikolai Petrovitch extracted from the tail pocket of his frock-coat a copy (ninth edition) of Büchner's well-known work.

Paul Petrovitch turned it over in his hands.

"H'm!" he grunted. "Arkady does indeed seem solicitous for your education! Have you tried reading the book?"

"Yes."

"And how do you like it?"

"Well, either I am a fool or the thing is rubbish. Of the two views, the former seems to me the most probable."

"It is not because you have forgotten your German, I suppose?"

"Oh no. I understand the language perfectly."

Again Paul Petrovitch turned over the book, and again he glanced at his brother from under his brows. A moment's silence ensued.

"By the way," continued Nikolai Petrovitch with an evident desire to change the conversation, "I have received a letter from Koliazin."

"From Matvei Ilyitch?"

"From the same. It seems that he has just arrived at – , for the purpose of carrying out the Revision[12 - i. e. the census-taking of the serf population.] of the province, and he writes very civilly that, as our kinsman, he would be glad to see Arkady and you and myself."

"Do you intend to accept his invitation?" asked Paul Petrovitch.

"I do not. Do you?"

"No. We have no need to drag ourselves fifty versts to eat blanc-mange. The good Mathieu wants to show off a little – that is all. He can do without us. But what an honour to be a Privy Councillor! Had I continued in the Service, continued hauling at the old tow-rope, I myself might have been Adjutant-General! As it is, I, like yourself, am on the shelf."

"Yes, brother. Clearly it is time that we ordered our tombstones, and folded our hands upon our breasts."

A sigh concluded Nikolai Petrovitch's speech.

"But I do not intend to give in so soon," muttered his brother. "There is first going to be a skirmish between that chirurgeon of Arkady's and myself. That I can see beyond a doubt."

And, sure enough, the "skirmish" occurred the same evening. Ready for battle as soon he repaired to the drawing-room for tea, Paul Petrovitch entered angrily, but firmly, and sat waiting for an excuse to advance upon the foe. Yet for a while that excuse hung fire, since Bazarov never said much in the presence of "the old Kirsanovs," and to-night was feeling out of spirits, and drank his tea in absolute silence. However, Paul Petrovitch was so charged with impatience that his wish was bound to attain fulfilment.

It happened that the conversation became turned upon a neighbouring landowner.

"He is just a petty aristocrat," Bazarov drily remarked (it seemed that he and the landowner had met in St. Petersburg).

"Allow me," put in Paul Petrovitch, his lips quivering. "In your view, do the terms 'good-for-nothing' and 'aristocrat' connote the same thing?"

"I said 'petty aristocrat,'" replied Bazarov as he lazily sipped his tea.

"Quite so. Then I take it that you hold the same opinion of aristocrats as of 'petty aristocrats'? Well, I may remark that your opinion is not mine. And to that I would add that, while I myself possess a reputation for Liberal and progressive views, I possess that reputation for the very reason that I can respect real aristocrats. For instance, my dear sir" (the latter term was so heatedly uttered that Bazarov raised his eyebrows), "for instance, my dear sir, take the aristocracy of England. While yielding upon their rights not an iota, they yet know how to respect the rights of others. While demanding fulfilment of obligations due to themselves, they yet fulfil their own obligations. And for those reasons it is to her aristocratic caste that England stands indebted for her freedom. It is because the English aristocratic caste itself supports that freedom."

"A tale which we have heard many times before!" commented Bazarov. "But what are you seeking to prove?"

"I am seeking to prove this," replied Paul Petrovitch. "That without a certain sense of personal dignity, without a sense of self-respect (both of which senses are inborn in the true aristocrat), the social edifice, the bien public, cannot rest upon a durable basis. It is personality that matters, my dear sir: and the human personality requires to be as firm as a rock, in that there rests upon it the entire structure of society. For example, I know that you ridicule my customs, my dress, my fastidious tastes. Yet do those very things proceed from that sense of duty – yes, of duty, I repeat – to which I have just alluded. In other words, I may live in the depths of the country, yet I do not let myself go. For I respect in myself the man."

"Allow me, Paul Petrovitch," said Bazarov. "You say that you respect yourself. Very good. Yet you can sit there with your hands folded! How will that benefit the bien public, seeing that inaction would scarcely seem to argue self-respect?"

Paul Petrovitch blanched a little.

"That is another question altogether," he said. "However, I do not feel called upon to explain the reason why I sit with my hands folded (according to your own estimable term). It will suffice merely to remark that in the aristocratic idea there is contained a principle, and that nowadays men who live without principles are as destitute of morality as they are of moral substance. The same thing did I say to Arkady on the day after his arrival, and I say it now to you. You agree with me, Nikolai, do you not?"

Nikolai Petrovitch nodded assent, while Bazarov exclaimed:

"The aristocratic idea, forsooth! Liberalism, progress, principles! Why, have you ever considered the vanity of those terms? The Russian of to-day does not need them."

"Then what, in your opinion, does he need? To listen to you, one would suppose that we stood wholly divorced from humanity and humanity's laws; whereas, pardon me, the logic of history demands – "

"What has that logic to do with us? We can get on quite well without it."

"How can we do so?"

"Even as I have said. When you want to put a piece of bread into your mouth do you need logic for the purpose? What have these abstractions to do with ourselves?"

Paul Petrovitch waved his hand in disgust.

"I cannot understand you," he said. "You seem to me to be insulting the Russian people. How you or any one else can decline to recognise principles and precepts is a thing which passes my comprehension. For what other basis for action in life have we got?"

Arkady put in a word.

"Both I and Bazarov have told you," he said, "that we recognise no authority of any sort."

"Rather, that we recognise no basis for action save the useful," corrected Bazarov. "At present the course most useful is denial. Therefore we deny."

"Deny everything?"

"Deny everything."

"What? Both poetry and art and – I find it hard to express it? – "

"I repeat, everything," said Bazarov with an ineffable expression of insouciance.