The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"What does this mean?" he asked, rushing to the side of his brother.

"It is nothing," answered Pavel Petrovitch, faintly. "I had a little dispute with Mr. Bazaroff, and I have had to pay for it a little. I am the only person to blame in all this.... Mr. Bazaroff has behaved most honourably."

After that incident Bazaroff's stay in the house any longer was an impossibility. He left the same day, calling at Madame Odintsov's house on his way home to see Arkady. He found his friend engaged to Katya and in the seventh heaven of delight. Madame Odintsov would have had him stay.

"Why should you not stay now?" she said. "Stay... it's exciting talking to you... one seems walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gains courage as one goes on. Do stay."

"Thanks for the suggestion," he retorted, "and for your flattering opinion of my conversational talent. But I think I have already been moving too long in a sphere which is not my own. Flying fishes can hold out for a time in the air, but soon they must splash back into the water; allow me, too, to paddle in my own element."

Madame Odintsov looked at Bazaroff. His pale face was twitching with a bitter smile. "This man did love me!" she thought, and she felt pity for him, and held out her hand to him with sympathy.

He, too, understood her. "No!" he said, stepping back a pace. "I am a poor man, but I have never taken charity so far. Good-bye and good luck to you."

"I am certain we are not seeing each other for the last time," she declared, with an unconscious gesture.

"Anything may happen!" answered Bazaroff, and he bowed and went away.

IV.--The Passing of Bazaroff

Bazaroff's old parents were all the more overjoyed at their son's arrival, as it was quite unexpected. His mother was greatly excited and his father, touching his neck with his fingers, turned his head round as though he were trying whether it were properly screwed on, and then, all at once, he opened his wide mouth and went off into a perfectly noiseless chuckle.

"I've come to you for six whole weeks, governor," Bazaroff said to him. "I want to work, so please don't hinder me now."

But though his father and mother almost effaced themselves, scarcely daring to ask him a question, even to discover what he would like for dinner, the fever of work fell away. It was replaced by dreary boredom or vague restlessness. He began to seek the society of his father and to smoke with him in silence. Now and again he even assisted at some of the medical operations which his father conducted as a charity. Once he pulled a tooth out from a pedlar's head, and Vassily Ivanovitch never ceased boasting about the extraordinary feat.

One day in a neighbouring village, the news was brought them that a peasant had died of typhus. Three days later Bazaroff came into his father's room and asked him if he had any caustic to burn a cut in his finger.

"What sort of a cut? where is it?"

"Here, on my finger. I have been dissecting that peasant who died of typhus fever."

Vassily Ivanovitch suddenly turned quite white. All that day he watched his son's face stealthily. On the third day Bazaroff could not touch his food.

"Have you no appetite? And your head?" he at last asked, timidly; "does it ache?"

"Yes, of course it aches."

"Don't be angry, please," continued Vassily Ivanovitch. "Won't you let me feel your pulse?"

Bazaroff got up. "I can tell you without feeling my pulse," he said. "I am feverish."

"Has there been any shivering?"

"Yes, there's been shivering, too; I'll go and lie down."

Bazaroff did not get up again all day, and passed the whole night in heavy, half-unconscious slumber. At one o'clock in the morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw, by the light of a lamp, his father's pale face bending over him, and told him to go away. The old man begged his pardon, but he quickly came back on tiptoe, and, half hidden by the cupboard door, he gazed persistently at his son. His wife did not go to bed either, and, leaving the study door open a very little, she kept coming up to it to listen "how Enyusha was breathing" and to look at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing but his motionless bent back, but even that afforded her some faint consolation.

In the morning Bazaroff spoke to his father in a slow, drowsy voice.

"Governor, I am in a bad way; I've got the infection, and in a few days you will have to bury me."

Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back as if someone had aimed a blow at his leg.

"God have mercy on you! What do you mean? You have only caught a cold. I've sent for the doctor and you'll soon be cured."

"Come, that's humbug. I've got the typhus; you can see it in my arm. You told me you'd sent for the doctor. You did that to comfort yourself... comfort me, too; send a messenger to Madame Odintsov; she's a lady with an estate... Do you know?" (Vassily Ivanovitch nodded.) "Yevgeny Bazaroff, say, sends his greetings, and sends word he is dying. Will you do that?"

"Yes, I will do it... But it is an impossible thing for you to die... Think only! Where would divine justice be after that?"