Two hours later he knocked at Bazarov's door.
'I must apologise for hindering you in your scientific pursuits,' he began, seating himself on a chair in the window, and leaning with both hands on a handsome walking-stick with an ivory knob (he usually walked without a stick), 'but I am constrained to beg you to spare me five minutes of your time ... no more.'
'All my time is at your disposal,' answered Bazarov, over whose face there passed a quick change of expression directly Pavel Petrovitch crossed the threshold.
'Five minutes will be enough for me. I have come to put a single question to you.'
'A question? What is it about?'
'I will tell you, if you will kindly hear me out. At the commencement of your stay in my brother's house, before I had renounced the pleasure of conversing with you, it was my fortune to hear your opinions on many subjects; but so far as my memory serves, neither between us, nor in my presence, was the subject of single combats and duelling in general broached. Allow me to hear what are your views on that subject?'
Bazarov, who had risen to meet Pavel Petrovitch, sat down on the edge of the table and folded his arms.
'My view is,' he said, 'that from the theoretical standpoint, duelling is absurd; from the practical standpoint, now—it's quite a different matter.'
'That is, you mean to say, if I understand you right, that whatever your theoretical views on duelling, you would not in practice allow yourself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction?'
'You have guessed my meaning absolutely.'