"I have brought with me something which you are unlikely to have been expecting," he said. "For I——"
"But you have brought me yourself," she rejoined. "And that is the best bringing of all."
[1] A freeholder, a member of the class which, in the days of this story, stood midway between the pomiestchik, or landowner, and the Krestianin, or serf.
[2] Magistrate.
XXIII
After speeding Arkady on his way with satirical expressions of regret (as well as giving him to understand that the satirist laboured under no delusions as to the object of the young man's journey), Bazarov withdrew into complete seclusion, since a perfect fever for work had come upon him. Nor did he quarrel any longer with Paul Petrovitch, and the less so since the latter had now come to adopt an exclusively aristocratic attitude, and to express his sentiments only in monosyllables, not in words. Once, and once only, did he allow himself to engage in a controversy with Bazarov over the then current question of the rights of the dvoriané. But suddenly he checked himself, and said with an air of cold politeness:
"It is clear that we shall never understand one another. At all events I have not the honour to understand you."
"True," agreed Bazarov. "For a man may understand the precipitation of ether, and be au fait with what is taking place in the sun, yet, confront him with the fact that another man blows his nose differently from the manner in which he blows his own, and at once that man will become lost in perplexity."
At the same time, there were occasions when Paul Petrovitch requested permission to attend the other's experiments; and once he went so far as to apply his perfumed, clean-shaven features to the microscope, for the purpose of observing how a transparent infusorium could swallow a greenish-looking particle, and then masticate the same with fang-like protuberances which grew in its throat. Still more frequently was Nikolai Petrovitch present in Bazarov's room. Indeed, but for the counter-distraction of estate-management, he would have spent his whole time in the process of what he called "self-improvement." Yet he never hampered the young naturalist: on the contrary, he would seat himself in a remote corner of the room, and, but for a guarded question or two, confine himself solely to silently and absorbedly watching the experiments. Also, at meal times he always endeavoured to turn the conversation in the direction of physics or geology or chemistry, for the reason that he divined in any other direction (that of industry, or, still more, that of politics) there lay a greater danger of collisions, or, at all events, of mutual soreness. For rightly did he divine that his brother's enmity towards Bazarov had by no means abated. And to this conclusion an incident which occurred at a juncture when cholera had just made its appearance in the neighbourhood, and carried off two victims from Marino itself, lent additional colour. One night Paul Petrovitch happened to be seized with a fainting fit, yet refused to apply to Bazarov for assistance; and when Bazarov, on meeting him on the following day, inquired why such a course had not been adopted, Paul Petrovitch—still pale, but as carefully brushed and combed as ever—retorted: "Did not you yourself tell me that you have no belief in medicine?"