"No. It was from a sense of justice, rather than from a sense of kinship, that I spoke. But since you have no understanding of the former, as an instinct which you simply do not possess, you are not in a position to pass judgment upon such a feeling."
"In other words, 'I, Arkady Kirsanov, am altogether above your comprehension,' Well, I make mute obeisance to that."
"Come, come, Evgenii! We shall end by quarrelling."
"Oh that you would do me the favour to quarrel! We could have a real set-to à outrance, and with our coats off."
"To the end that——?"
"To the end that we might rend one another in pieces. Why not? Here, amid the hay, in this idyllic setting, far from the madding crowd and every human eye, it would be not at all a bad thing. No, you shall not make it up with me! Rather will I seize you by the throat!"
As he extended his long, sharp fingers, Arkady rolled over and prepared jestingly to grapple with his assailant. But the next moment the sight of Bazarov's face, with its expression of malice and the non-jesting menace which lurked in the twisted smile and the flashing eyes, gave him a shock, and filled him with involuntary awe.
"This, then, is where you have got to!" cried Vasili Ivanitch from behind them as, vested in a home-made cotton pea-jacket and a home-made straw hat, the old military doctor suddenly confronted the pair. "I have been searching for you everywhere, and certainly you have chosen a capital spot, and are engaged also in a capital occupation—in the occupation of lying on the earth and gazing at the heavens. For my part, I believe that such an occupation can have its uses."
"I gaze at the heavens only when I am going to sneeze," said Bazarov. Then, turning to Arkady, he added in an undertone: "Forgive me if I hurt you."
"Do not mention it," was Arkady's rejoinder in a similar undertone, as covertly he pressed his friend's hand.