Paul Petrovitch gone, Bazarov stood awhile in thought. Then he exclaimed:
"Splendid indeed! Yet also unutterably stupid! What a comedy to play! Talk of educated dogs dancing on their hind legs!... However, I could not have refused him, for, otherwise, he would have struck me and then"—Bazarov turned pale, for his pride had been aroused—"well, then I should have strangled him like a kitten!"
He returned to his microscope, but found his heart to be still beating, and the coolness necessary to scientific observation to have disappeared.
"I suppose he saw us this morning," he continued to himself. "Yet surely he is not doing this on his brother's behalf? For what is there in a kiss? No; something else is in the background. Bah! What if it should be that he himself is in love with her? Yes, that is it. It is as clear as day. What a mess! Truly a horrible mess, however it be viewed! For first of all I am to have my brains blown out, and then I am to be made to leave this place! And there is Arkady to consider, and that old heifer Nikolai Petrovitch. Awkward! Awkward indeed!"
However, the day dragged its slow length along. Thenichka remained practically non-existent (in other words, she kept to her room as closely as a mouse to its hole), Nikolai Petrovitch walked about with a careworn air (it had been reported to him that mildew had begun to attack the wheat), and Paul Petrovitch's mien of icy urbanity succeeded in damping the spirits of Prokofitch himself.
Presently Bazarov sat down to write a letter to his father, but tore it up, and threw the pieces under the table.
"Should I be killed," he reflected, "my parents will hear of it soon enough. But I shall not be killed—I have yet far to wander about the world."
Next he ordered Peter to call him at dawn; and inasmuch as the order was accompanied with a mention of important business, Peter jumped to the conclusion that it was Bazarov's intention to take him to St. Petersburg. Bazarov then retired to rest. Yet, late though he had done so, he was troubled with fantastic visions. Ever before him there flitted Madame Odintsov, who was also his mother. And ever behind her there walked a black cat, which was also Thenichka. For his part, Paul Petrovitch figured as a forest which the dreamer was engaged to fight.
At length, when four o'clock arrived, Peter came to rouse him. Hastily dressing himself, he left the house with the valet. The morning was fine and fresh, and though a few wisps of cloud were trailing across the pale-blue transparency of the zenith, a light dew had coated the grass and foliage with drops, and was shining like silver on spiders' webs. The steaming earth seemed still to be seeking to detain the roseate traces of dawn in her embrace; but presently every quarter of the sky became lit up, and resounded again to the songs of larks.
Bazarov walked straight ahead until he reached the copse—then seated himself at the shadowy edge of the trees, and explained to Peter the services which he looked to the latter to perform; upon which the "cultured" menial came near to fainting, and was calmed only with an assurance that he would but have to stand at a distance, as a looker-on, and that in no case would responsibility attach to his person.