"Look!" cried Arkady after a pause. "Do you see that withered maple leaf fluttering to the ground? Are not its movements exactly like those of a butterfly? Strange that an object so joyous and full of life should be able so to counterfeit an object mournful and dead!"
"My friend," protested Bazarov, "let me make at least this request of you: that you do not talk in 'beautiful language.'"
"I talk as I am able. I decline to be domineered over. Should a thought chance to enter my head, why should I not express it?"
"Similarly am I at liberty to express the thought that to talk in 'beautiful language' is sheerly indecent."
"Indecent? Then swearing is not indecent?"
"Aha! I perceive you still to be minded to follow in your uncle's footsteps. How the idiot would have rejoiced if he could have heard you!"
"What did you call Paul Petrovitch?"
"I called him merely what he is—merely an idiot."
"Have done!" shouted Arkady.
"Therein I detect the tie of blood," said Bazarov calmly. "It is a very stubborn factor, I have noticed, in some people. A man may abjure everything else, and cut himself adrift from every other prejudice, yet still remain powerless to confess that the brother who habitually steals his shirts is a thief. You see, the difficulty lies in the word 'my.' Is not that so?"