"No, go and dissect frogs. Come, Arkady! Au revoir, gentlemen."
And the two friends departed. Left alone, the brothers looked at one another.
"So," at last said Paul Petrovitch, "you see the young men of the day—you see our successors!"
"Our successors—yes," re-echoed Nikolai Petrovitch despondently. Throughout the conversation he had been sitting simply on pins and needles; throughout it he had dared do no more than throw an occasional pained glance at Arkady. "My brother, there came to me just now a curious reminiscence. It was of a quarrel which once I had with my mother. During the contest she raised a great outcry, and refused to listen to a single word I said; until at length I told her that for her to understand me was impossible, seeing that she and I came of different generations. Of course this angered her yet more, but I thought to myself: 'What else could I do? The pill must have been a bitter one, but it was necessary that she should swallow it.' And now our turn is come; now is it for us to be told by our heirs that we come of a different generation from theirs, and must kindly swallow the pill."
"You are too magnanimous and retiring," expostulated Paul Petrovitch. "For my part, I feel sure that we are more in the right than these two youngsters, even though we may express ourselves in old-fashioned terms, and lack their daring self-sufficiency. Indeed, what a puffed-up crowd is the youth of to-day! Should you ask one of them whether he will take white wine or red, he will reply, in a bass voice, and with a face as though the whole universe were looking at him: 'Red is my customary rule.'"
"Should you like some more tea?" interrupted Thenichka, who had been peeping through the doorway, but had not dared to enter during the progress of the dispute.
"No," was Nikolai Petrovitch's reply as he rose to meet her. "So you can order the samovar to be removed."
Meanwhile, with a brief "Bon soir," Paul Petrovitch betook himself to his study.
[1] Ludwig Büchner (1824-1899), German physician and materialist philosopher.
[2] i.e. the census-taking of the serf population.