FATHERS AND SONS
by Ivan Turgenev
CHAPTER 1
"Well, Peter? Cannot you see them yet?" asked
a barin of about forty who, hatless, and clad in a
dusty jacket over a pair of tweed breeches,
stepped on to the verandah of a posting-house
on the 20th day of May, 1859. The person
addressed was the barin's servant—a
round-cheeked young fellow with small, dull
eyes and a chin adorned with a tuft of
pale-coloured down.
Glancing along the high road in a
supercilious manner, the servant (in whom
everything, from the turquoise ear-ring to
the dyed, pomaded hair and the mincing
gait, revealed the modern, the rising
generation) replied: "No, barin, I cannot."
"Is that so?" queried the barin.
"Yes," the servant affirmed. The barin sighed,
and seated himself upon a bench. While he is
sitting there with his knees drawn under him and
his eyes moodily glancing to right and left, the
reader may care to become better acquainted
with his personality.
His name was Nikolai Petrovitch Kirsanov, and
he owned (some fifteen versts from the
posting-house) a respectable little property of
about two hundred souls (or, as, after that he
had apportioned his peasantry allotments, and
set up a "farm," he himself expressed it, a
property "of two thousand desiatini"). His father,
one of the generals of 1812, had spent his life
exclusively in military service as the
commander, first of a brigade, and then of a
division; and always he had been quartered in
the provinces, where his rank had enabled him
to cut a not inconspicuous figure.
As for Nikolai Petrovitch himself, he was born in
Southern Russia (as also was his elder brother,
Paul—of whom presently), and, until his
fourteenth year, received his education amid a
circle of hard-up governors, free-and-easy
aides-de-camp, and sundry staff and regimental
officers.
His mother came of the family of the
Koliazins, and, known in maidenhood as
Agathe, and subsequently as Agathoklea
Kuzminishna Kirsanov, belonged to the
type of "officer's lady." That is to say, she
wore pompous mobcaps and rustling silk
dresses, was always the first to approach
the cross in church, talked volubly and in a
loud tone, of set practice admitted her
sons to kiss her hand in the morning, and
never failed to bless them before retiring to
rest at night. In short, she lived the life
which suited her.
As the son of a general, Nikolai Petrovitch was
bound—though he evinced no particular
bravery, and might even have seemed a
coward—to follow his brother Paul's example by
entering the army; but unfortunately, owing to
the fact that, on the very day when there arrived
the news of his commission, he happened to
break his leg, it befell that, after two months in
bed, he rose to his feet a permanently lamed
man.
When his father had finished wringing his hands
over the mischance, he sent his son to acquire a
civilian education; whence it came about that
Nikolai, at eighteen, found himself a student at
the University of St. Petersburg. At the same
period his brother obtained a commission in one
of the regiments of Guards; and, that being so,
their father apportioned the two young men a
joint establishment, and placed it under the
more or less detached supervision of Ilya
Koliazin, their maternal uncle and a leading
tchinovnik.
That done, the father returned to his division
and his wife, and only at rare intervals sent
his sons sheets of grey foolscap (scrawled
and re-scrawled in flamboyant calligraphy) to
which there was appended, amid a bower of
laborious flourishes, the signature "Piotr
Kirsanov, Major-General." In the year 1835
Nikolai Petrovitch obtained his university
degree; and in the same year General
Kirsanov was retired for incompetence at a
review, and decided to transfer his quarters
to St. Petersburg.
Unfortunately, just as he was on the point both
of renting a house near the Tavritchesky
Gardens and of being enrolled as a member of
the English Club, a stroke put an end to his
career, and Agathoklea Kuzminishna followed
him soon afterwards, since never had she
succeeded in taking to the dull life of the capital,
but always had hankered after the old provincial
existence.
Already during his parents' lifetime, and to their
no small vexation, Nikolai Petrovitch had
contrived to fall in love with the daughter of a
certain tchinovnik named Prepolovensky, the
landlord of his flat; and since the maiden was
not only comely, but one of the type known as
"advanced" (that is to say, she perused an
occasional "Science" article in one newspaper
or another), he married her out of hand as soon
as the term of mourning was ended, and,
abandoning the Ministry of Provincial Affairs to
which, through his father's influence, he had
been posted, embarked upon connubial felicity
in a villa adjoining the Institute of Forestry.
Thence, after a while, the couple removed to a
diminutive, but in every way respectable, flat
which could boast of a spotless vestibule and an
icy-cold drawing-room; and thence, again, they
migrated to the country, where they settled for
good, and where, in due time, they had born to
them a son Arkady. The existence of husband
and wife was one of perfect comfort and
tranquillity. Almost never were they parted from
one another, they read together, they played the
piano together, and they sang duets.
Also, she would garden or superintend
the poultry-yard, and he would set forth
a-hunting, or see to the management of
the estate. Meanwhile Arkady led an
existence of equal calm and comfort,
and grew, and waxed fat; until, in 1847,
when ten years had been passed in this
idyllic fashion, Kirsanov's wife breathed
her last. The blow proved almost more
than the husband could bear—so much
so that his head turned grey in a few
weeks.
Yet, though he sought distraction for his
thoughts by going abroad, he felt
constrained, in the following year, to return
home, where, after a prolonged period of
inaction, he took up the subject of Industrial
Reform. Next, in 1855, he sent his son to the
University of St. Petersburg, and, for the
same reason, spent the following three
winters in the capital, where he seldom went
out, but spent the greater part of his time in
endeavouring to fraternise with his son's
youthful acquaintances.
The fourth winter, however, he was prevented
by various circumstances from spending in St.
Petersburg; and thus in the May of 1859 we see
him—grey-headed, dusty, a trifle bent, and
wholly middle-aged—awaiting his son's
home-coming after the elevation of the latter (in
Nikolai's own footsteps) to the dignity of a
graduate.
Presently either a sense of decency or (more
probably) a certain disinclination to remain
immediately under his master's eye led the
servant to withdraw to the entrance gates, and
there to light a pipe. Nikolai Petrovitch, however,
continued sitting with head bent, and his eyes
contemplating the ancient steps of the
verandah, up which a stout speckled hen was
tap-tapping its way on a pair of splayed yellow
legs, and thereby causing an untidy, but
fastidious-looking, cat to regard it from the
balustrade with marked disapproval.
Meanwhile the sun beat fiercely down, and
from the darkened interior of a neighbouring
granary came a smell as of hot rye straw.
Nikolai Petrovitch sank into a reverie. "My
son Arkady a graduate!"—the words kept
passing and repassing through his mind.
Again and again he tried to think of
something else, but always the same thought
returned to him. Until eventually he reverted
to the memory of his dead wife. "Would that
she were still with me!" was his yearning
reflection. Presently a fat blue pigeon
alighted upon the roadway, and fell to taking
a hasty drink from a pool beside the well.
And almost at the instant that the spectacle
of the bird caught Nikolai Petrovitch's eye, his
ear caught the sound of approaching wheels.
"They are coming, I think," hazarded the
servant as he stepped forward through the
gates. Nikolai Petrovitch sprang to his feet,
and strained his eyes along the road. Yes,
coming into view there was a tarantass,
drawn by three stagehorses; and in the
tarantass there could be seen the band of a
student's cap and the outlines of a familiar,
well-beloved face.
"Arkasha, Arkasha!" was Kirsanov's
cry as, running forward, he waved
his arms. A few moments later he
was pressing his lips to the
sun-tanned, dusty, hairless cheek of
the newly-fledged graduate.
CHAPTER 2
"Yes, but first give me a rub down, dearest
Papa," said Arkady in a voice which, though a
little hoarsened with travelling, was yet clear
and youthful. "See! I am covering you with
dust!" he added as joyously he returned his
father's caresses. "Oh, but that will not
matter," said Nikolai Petrovitch with a loving,
reassuring smile as he gave the collar of his
son's blue cloak a couple of pats, and then
did the same by his own jacket. Thereafter,
gently withdrawing from his son's embrace,
and beginning to lead the way towards the
inn yard, he added: "Come this way, come
this way.
The horses will soon be ready." His
excitement seemed even to outdo his
son's, so much did he stammer and
stutter, and, at times, find himself at a loss
for a word. Arkady stopped him.
"Papa," he said, "first let me introduce my
good friend Bazarov, who is the comrade
whom I have so often mentioned in letters
to you, and who has been kind enough to
come to us for a visit." At once Nikolai
Petrovitch wheeled round, and,
approaching a tall man who, clad in a long
coat with a tasselled belt, had just alighted
from the tarantass, pressed the bare red
hand which, after a pause, the stranger
offered him.
"I am indeed glad to see you!" was
Nikolai Petrovitch's greeting, "I am
indeed grateful to you for your kindness
in paying us this visit! Alas, I hope that,
that——But first might I inquire your
name?" "Evgenii Vasiliev," replied the
other in slow, but virile, accents as,
turning down the collar of his coat, he
revealed his face more clearly. Long
and thin, with a high forehead which
looked flattened at the top and became
sharpened towards the nose, the face
had large, greenish eyes and long,
sandy whiskers.
The instant that the features brightened into a
smile, however, they betokened self-assurance
and intellect. "My dearest Evgenii Vasiliev",
Nikolai Petrovitch continued, "I trust that whilst
you are with us you will not find time hang heavy
upon your hands." Bazarov gave his lips a slight
twitch, but vouchsafed no reply beyond raising
his cap—a movement which revealed the fact
that the prominent convolutions of the skull were
by no means concealed by the superincumbent
mass of indeterminate-coloured hair.
"Now, Arkady," went on Nikolai
Petrovitch as he turned to his son, "shall
we have the horses harnessed at once,
or should you prefer to rest a little?" "Let
us rest at home, Papa. So pray have the
horses put to." "I will," his father agreed.
"Peter! Bestir yourself, my good fellow!"
Being what is known as a "perfectly
trained servant," Peter had neither
approached nor shaken hands with the
young barin, but contented himself with a
distant bow. He now vanished through
the yard gates.