Fathers and Sons

  ‘Look at those roots! Yevgeny’s so strong! The pedlar jumped right into the air… I think that oak there would have come out!…’

  ‘Most commendable!’ Father Aleksey said finally, not knowing what to answer and how to get away from the old man’s raptures.

  One day a muzhik from the neighbouring village brought Vasily Ivanovich his brother, who had typhus. The poor man lay face down on a bundle of straw and was dying; dark blotches covered his body, and he had long lost consciousness. Vasily Ivanovich expressed his regret that no one had sought medical help earlier and stated that there was no hope. And in fact the muzhik didn’t get his brother home: he died in the cart.

  Three days later Bazarov came into his father’s room and asked if he had any lunar caustic.5

  ‘Yes, I do. Why do you need it?’

  ‘I need… to cauterize a cut.’

  ‘On whom?’

  ‘On myself.’

  ‘What do you mean, on yourself? Why? What is this cut? Where is it?’

  ‘Here on my finger. Today I went over to the village, you know – the one they brought the muzhik with typhus from. For some reason they were going to do an autopsy, and it’s a long time since I had any practice in that.’

  ‘So then what?’

  ‘So I asked the district doctor – and, well, I cut myself.’

  Vasily Ivanovich went all pale and without a word rushed to his study. He came back at once with a piece of lunar caustic in his hand. Bazarov was going to take it and go out.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Vasily Ivanovich, ‘let me do this myself.’

  Bazarov smiled ironically.

  ‘You are a glutton for practice!’

  ‘Please don’t make jokes. Show me your finger. The cut isn’t big. Is that painful?’

  ‘Press harder, don’t be frightened.’

  Vasily Ivanovich stopped.

  ‘What do you think, Yevgeny, wouldn’t it be better to cauterize it with iron?’

  ‘We should have done that before. But now, in real terms, even the lunar caustic is no use. If I’ve got infected, it’s too late now.’

  ‘How… too late?’ – Vasily Ivanovich could hardly bring out the words.

  ‘It surely is that. It’s been a bit more than four hours since then.’

  Vasily Ivanovich cauterized the cut a little more.

  ‘Didn’t the district doctor have any lunar caustic?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘My God, how can that be! A doctor – and he doesn’t have such an essential thing.’

  ‘You should have seen his lancets,’ said Bazarov and went out. Till that evening and in the course of the next day Vasily Ivanovich picked on every excuse to go into his son’s room, and, though he not only didn’t mention his cut but even made an effort to speak about wholly extraneous subjects, he nonetheless looked so fixedly into his eyes and observed him so nervously that Bazarov lost patience and threatened to leave. Vasily Ivanovich gave him his word not to worry, especially since Arina Vlasyevna, from whom of course he concealed everything, was beginning to nag him why he wasn’t sleeping and what was the matter with him. He held out for two whole days although he very much didn’t like his son’s look – he watched him furtively all the time… but on the third day at dinner he couldn’t contain himself any more. Bazarov was sitting with his head slumped and hadn’t touched a single dish.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating, Yevgeny?’ he asked, putting on an unconcerned expression. ‘I think they’ve cooked the food nicely.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, so I don’t eat.’

  ‘Don’t you have any appetite? What about your head?’ he added in a timid voice. ‘Does it ache?’

  ‘Yes, it does. Why shouldn’t it ache?’

  Arina Vlasyevna sat up and listened alertly.

  ‘Don’t get angry, Yevgeny, please,’ Vasily Ivanovich went on. ‘But won’t you let me take your pulse?’

  Bazarov raised himself a bit.

  ‘Without taking it I can tell you I have a fever.’

  ‘And have you been shivering?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I’ll go and lie down, and send me in some lime tea. I must have caught a chill.’

  ‘So that’s why I heard you coughing last night,’ said Arina Vlasyevna.

  ‘I caught a chill,’ Bazarov repeated and went out.

  Arina Vlasyevna busied herself with making the lime tea while Vasily Ivanovich went into the next room and silently tore his hair.

  Bazarov didn’t get up that day and spent the whole night in a heavy semi-conscious slumber. At one in the morning he opened his eyes with an effort, and in the light of the icon lamp he saw his father’s pale face above him. He asked him to go. Vasily Ivanovich obeyed but very soon came back on tiptoe and kept his eyes on his son, half screened by the doors of a cupboard. Arina Vlasyevna too didn’t go to bed; from time to time she opened the study door a crack and came to listen ‘how Yenyusha is breathing’ and to look at Vasily Ivanovich. She could only see his hunched and motionless back, but even that gave her some comfort. In the morning Bazarov tried to get up. His head turned and he had a nose-bleed and he went back to bed again. Vasily Ivanovich ministered to him, and Arina Vlasyevna came into his room and asked him how he felt. ‘Better,’ he replied and turned to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich gestured to his wife to leave, with both hands. She bit her lip so as not to cry and went out.

  It was as if everything in the house had gone dark. Everyone’s face looked drawn, and a strange quiet reigned: they took away a noisy cock from the yard to the village, who for a long time just couldn’t understand why they were doing this to him. Bazarov continued to lie with his head to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich tried to put various questions to him, but they tired Bazarov, and the old man sat still in his chair, just cracking his knuckles from time to time. He went into the garden for a few minutes and stood there like a statue, as if he’d been struck by some inexplicable shock (an expression of shock never left his face). Then he returned to his son and tried to avoid his wife’s questions. Finally she grabbed his hand and asked him feverishly, almost threateningly, ‘What’s the matter with him?’ He pulled his thoughts together and made himself give her a smile in reply, but to his own horror, instead of a smile somehow there came out a laugh. In the morning he had sent for the doctor. He thought he should warn his son of this so he didn’t become angry.

  Bazarov suddenly turned round on the couch, gave his father a fixed, blank stare and asked for a drink.

  Vasily Ivanovich gave him some water and in doing so felt his forehead. He was on fire.

  ‘Dad,’ Bazarov began in a slow, hoarse voice, ‘my case is no good. I’m infected, and in a few days’ time you’ll be burying me.’

  Vasily Ivanovich stumbled as if someone had hit him on the legs.

  ‘Yevgeny!’ he stammered. ‘Why are you saying that?… For God’s sake! You’ve got a chill…’

  ‘Stop it,’ Bazarov interrupted him. ‘A doctor can’t talk like that. All the signs of infection are there, you know that.’

  ‘Where are the signs… of infection, Yevgeny?… For goodness’ sake!’

  ‘And what’s this?’ said Bazarov, and, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt, he showed his father the ominous red patches that had come up.

  Vasily Ivanovich shivered and went cold from terror.

  ‘Let’s assume,’ he said eventually, ‘let’s assume then… if… even if… this sort of… infection…’

  ‘Pyaemia,’ his son said quietly.

  ‘Yes… a kind of epidemic…’

  ‘Pyaemia, blood-poisoning,’ Bazarov repeated sternly and clearly. ‘Or have you forgotten your lecture notes?’

  ‘Well yes, yes, as you like… But we’ll still get you better!’

  ‘Not a hope! But that’s not the point. I wasn’t expecting to die so soon. To tell the truth, this piece of luck is most unpleasant. You and Mother must both take advantage of the strength of your religion: there’s an opportunity to put it t
o the test.’ He drank a bit more water. ‘But I want to ask you something… while I’m still in control of my head. You know, tomorrow or the day after my brain will be handing in its resignation. Even now I’m not altogether sure if I’m expressing myself clearly. While I was lying there, I kept on thinking that red dogs were running round me while you were pointing me like a blackcock. It was as if I was drunk. Do you understand me all right?’

  ‘Really, Yevgeny, you’re talking quite properly.’

  ‘So much the better. You told me you’d sent for the doctor… That was to keep yourself happy… now do the same for me. Send a special messenger…’

  ‘To Arkady Nikolaich,’ the old man interrupted.

  ‘What Arkady Nikolaich?’ said Bazarov hesitantly. ‘Ah yes! The fledgling! No, don’t bother him: he’s now gone and joined the jackdaws. Don’t look surprised, I’m not raving yet. Send a special messenger to Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova. There’s a landowner near here of that name… Do you know of her?’ (Vasily Ivanovich nodded.) ‘Say Yevgeny Bazarov sends his respects and wants her to know he is dying. Will you do that?’

  ‘I will… Only can it really be possible that you will die, you, Yevgeny… Think about it yourself! After this where can there be any justice?’

  ‘That I don’t know. Just send the messenger.’

  ‘I’ll send him this very minute and I’ll write the letter myself.’

  ‘No, why do that? Say he sends his respects, nothing more is needed. And now I’ll go back to my dogs. Odd! I want to fix my thoughts on death, but nothing comes of it. I see some sort of blur… and that’s all.’

  He turned again heavily to the wall. Vasily Ivanovich went out of the study and, going to his wife’s bedroom, slumped down on his knees before the icons.

  ‘Pray, Arina, pray!’ he cried. ‘Our son is dying.’

  The doctor, the same district doctor who didn’t have any lunar caustic, came and, after examining the patient, counselled a policy of waiting it out. At this point he said a few words on the possibility of recovery.

  ‘And have you had occasion,’ Bazarov asked, ‘to see people in my position who have not been despatched to the Elysian Fields?’6 He suddenly gripped the leg of a heavy table standing by the couch and moved it from its place.

  ‘Strength, strength!’ he said. ‘It’s all there still, but I have to die! That old peasant at least had time to lose the desire for life, but I… Yes, you go and try to say no to death. Death says no to you, and that’s it! Who’s crying there?’ he said after a pause. ‘Mother? Poor thing! Who will she feed now with her amazing borshch? Vasily Ivanovich, I think you’re snivelling too. Well, if Christianity doesn’t help, be a philosopher, a Stoic7 or something. Didn’t you boast you were a philosopher?’

  ‘I’m no philosopher!’ cried Vasily Ivanovich, and the tears dripped down his cheeks.

  With every hour Bazarov became worse. The disease took a rapid course, as is often the case with surgical infections. He hadn’t yet lost his memory and understood what was said to him; he was still fighting. ‘I don’t want to become delirious,’ he whispered clenching his fists, ‘that’s so absurd!’ And then he said, ‘So take ten from eight, what’s left?’ Vasily Ivanovich went about like a madman, proposing one treatment after another, but did nothing but cover up his son’s legs. ‘Wrap him in cold sheets… an emetic… mustard plasters on the stomach… blood-letting,’ he kept saying with an effort. The doctor, whom he had begged to stay, said yes to his proposals and made the patient drink lemonade; for himself he asked for a nice little pipe, then for something ‘warming and restorative’, namely vodka. Arina Vlasyevna sat on a small, low bench by the door and only from time to time went away to pray; some days before a toilet mirror had slipped from her hands and broken, and she always considered that a bad omen. Even Anfisushka couldn’t say anything to her. Timofeich had set off for Odintsova’s.

  Bazarov had a bad night… He was tormented by a high fever. The morning brought some relief. He asked Arina Vlasyevna to comb his hair; he kissed her hand and drank a couple of mouthfuls of tea. Vasily Ivanovich’s spirits were raised a bit.

  ‘Thank God!’ he kept repeating. ‘The crisis has come… the crisis has passed.’

  ‘Fancy that!’ said Bazarov. ‘All that in a word! He’s found one, he says “crisis” and he’s comforted. It’s amazing how man still believes in words. For example, if you call him a fool and don’t beat him, he’ll be wretched. Call him a genius and don’t give him any money – he’ll be quite satisfied.’

  This little speech of Bazarov’s, reminiscent of his earlier ‘sallies’, stirred Vasily Ivanovich’s emotions.

  ‘Bravo! Brilliantly said, brilliant!’ he exclaimed, pretending to clap his hands.

  Bazarov smiled sadly.

  ‘So what do you think?’ he said. ‘Has the crisis passed or come?’

  ‘You’re better, that’s what I see and that’s what makes me happy,’ Vasily Ivanovich answered.

  ‘Excellent. To be happy is never a bad thing. And that message to her, you remember, did you send it?’

  ‘I did, of course.’

  The change for the better didn’t last long. The attacks of the illness began again. Vasily Ivanovich sat by Bazarov and seemed in special torment. Several times he tried to speak – and couldn’t.

  ‘Yevgeny!’ he eventually uttered. ‘My son, my darling, my beloved son!’

  This unusual appeal had an effect on Bazarov… He turned his head a little and, with an obvious effort to break out of the unconsciousness that lay heavy on him, pronounced the words:

  ‘What, Father?’

  ‘Yevgeny,’ Vasily Ivanovich continued and fell on his knees in front of Bazarov although his son didn’t open his eyes and couldn’t see him. ‘Yevgeny, you are better now. God willing, you will recover. But take advantage of this moment, give comfort to your mother and to me and do your duty as a Christian!8 It’s terrible for me to say this to you, it’s terrible. But even more terrible… it’s for eternity, Yevgeny… think, how terrible…’

  The old man’s voice broke, and now there passed over his son’s face a strange look, although he continued to lie with his eyes closed.

  ‘I don’t refuse, if it can give you comfort,’ he said finally. ‘But I don’t think there’s any need yet for hurry. You yourself say I’m better.’

  ‘Yes, you are better, Yevgeny, you are. But who knows, it’s all in God’s will, and, having done your duty…’

  ‘No, I’ll wait,’ Bazarov interrupted him. ‘I agree with you that the crisis has come. But even if you and I are wrong, it doesn’t matter – they can give communion to the unconscious.’

  ‘Please, Yevgeny…’

  ‘I’ll wait. And now I want to sleep. Don’t bother me.’

  And he laid his head where it had been before.

  The old man got up, sat in his chair and, putting his chin in his hands, began to chew his fingers…

  He suddenly heard the rumble of a sprung carriage, the rumble which sounds so very clear in the depths of the countryside. The wheels rolled nearer and nearer, and now he could hear the horses snorting… Vasily Ivanovich jumped up and rushed to the window. A two-seated carriage harnessed to four horses was entering the yard of his little house. Without considering what this might mean, overcome by a surge of mindless joy, he ran out on to the porch… A liveried footman opened the doors of the carriage. A lady in a black veil and cloak got out.

  ‘I am Odintsova,’ she said. ‘Is Yevgeny Vasilyich still alive? Are you his father? I’ve brought a doctor with me.’

  ‘Our benefactor!’ cried Vasily Ivanovich and, seizing her hand, pressed it convulsively to his lips. Meanwhile the doctor Anna Sergeyevna had brought, a small man with spectacles and a German cast of face, unhurriedly got out of the carriage. ‘He’s still alive, my Yevgeny’s still alive and now he’ll be saved! Wife! Wife! An angel from heaven has come to us…’

  ‘Lord above, what is it?’ the old woman stammered, running
out of the drawing room and, without understanding anything, there in the hall she fell at Anna Sergeyevna’s feet and began to kiss her dress like a madwoman.

  ‘Don’t! Don’t!’ Anna Sergeyevna repeated, but Arina Vlasyevna didn’t listen to her while Vasily Ivanovich just went on saying, ‘An angel! An angel!’

  ‘Wo ist der Kranke?9 Und ver is the patsient?’ the doctor said finally, not without some signs of annoyance.

  Vasily Ivanovich collected himself.

  ‘In here, in here, please follow me, wertester Herr College,’10 he added, from distant memory.

  ‘Ach!’ said the German with a sour smile.

  Vasily Ivanovich took him into the study.

  ‘It’s the doctor from Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova,’ he said, bending right down to his son’s ear, ‘and she herself is here.’

  Bazarov suddenly opened his eyes.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I am saying that Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova is here and has brought this gentleman to see you, who is a doctor.’

  Bazarov looked around him.

  ‘She’s here… I want to see her.’

  ‘You will, Yevgeny. But first the doctor and I must have a chat. Since Sidor Sidorych has gone’ (that was the name of the district doctor) ‘I’ll tell him the whole history of your illness, and we’ll have a little consultation!’

  Bazarov looked at the German.

  ‘Well be quick about your chat, and don’t do it in Latin. I do understand the meaning of iam moritur.’11

  ‘Der Herr scheint des Deutschen mächtig zu sein,’12 the new alumnus of Aesculapius13 began, turning to Vasily Ivanovich.

  ‘Ikh… gabe…14 We had better speak Russian,’ the old man said.

  ‘Aha! Zo zat is how it is… Be zo gut…’

  And the consultation began.

  Half an hour later Anna Sergeyevna came into the study accompanied by Vasily Ivanovich. The doctor had already managed to whisper to her that one shouldn’t even think of the patient’s recovery.

  She looked at Bazarov… and stopped at the door, she was so shocked by his inflamed and the same time ghastly face and the lacklustre eyes staring at her. She simply felt chill, agonizing fear. Momentarily the thought flashed through her mind that she wouldn’t have felt that if she had really loved him.