The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький
found Bazarov at the hotel where the pair were putting up, and had great difficulty in persuading him to join in the projected call upon the Governor.
"Well, well!" eventually said Bazarov. "I have laid a hand upon the tow-rope, so it ill becomes me to complain of its weight. As we are here to inspect the local lions, let us inspect them."
To the young men the Governor accorded a civil enough welcome, but neither bade them be seated nor set the example himself. A man in a perpetual hurry and ferment, he, on rising in the morning, was accustomed to don a tight uniform and stiff collar, and then to give himself up to such an orgy of orders-giving that he never finished a single meal. As the result, he was known throughout the province as "Bardeloue"—in reference, be it said, not to the great French preacher,4 but to burda, fermented liquor. After inviting Arkady and Bazarov to the coming ball, the Governor, two minutes later, repeated the invitation as though he had never given it; while likewise he mistook the pair for brothers, and addressed them throughout as "the Messieurs Kaiserov."
Subsequently, as the pair were proceeding homewards, a man of small stature, and dressed in a "Slavophil" costume, leapt from a passing drozhki, and, with a cry of "Evgenii Vasilitch!" flung himself upon Bazarov.
"Is that you, Herr Sitnikov?" remarked Bazarov without even checking his stride. "What chance brings you hither?"
"A pure accident," was the other's reply as, turning to the drozhki, he signed to the coachman to follow at a foot's pace. "You see, I had business to do with my father, and he invited me to pay him a visit." Sitnikov hopped across a puddle. "Also, on learning of your arrival, I have been to call at your place." (True enough, on subsequently reaching the hotel, the two friends found awaiting them Sitnikov's visiting-card, with the corners turned down, and one side of it inscribed with his name in the French fashion, and the other with his name in Slavonic characters.)
"You are from the Governor's, I suppose?" continued the little man. "I sincerely hope not, however."
"Your hopes are vain."
"Then I too, alas, must pay him my devoirs. But first introduce me to your friend."
"Sitnikov—Kirsanov," responded Bazarov without halting.
"Delighted!" minced Sitnikov as he stepped back, struck an attitude, and hurriedly doffed his super-elegant gloves. "I have heard much of you, Monsieur Kirsanov. I too am an old acquaintance—I might even say, an old pupil—of Evgenii Vasilitch's. Through him it was that I came by my spiritual regeneration."
Arkady glanced at Bazarov's "old pupil," and saw that he had small, dull, pleasant, nervous features; also that his narrow, sunken eyes expressed a great restlessness, and that his lips were parted in a perpetual smile of a wooden and ingratiating order.
"Do you know," Sitnikov continued, "when Evgenii Vasilitch first told me that we ought to ignore every species of authority I experienced a sense of rapture, I felt as though I had suddenly ripened. 'Ah,' I thought, 'at last have I found my man!' By the way, Evgenii Vasilitch, you must come and see a certain lady of my acquaintance—one who, beyond all others, is the person to understand you, and to look upon your coming as a red-letter event. Perhaps you have heard of her already?"
"No. Who is she?" asked Bazarov reluctantly.
"A Madame Kukshin—a Madame, I should say, Evdoksia Kukshin. And she is not merely a remarkable character and a woman of light and leading; she is also representative of the émancipée, in the best sense of the word. But look here. How would it be if all three of us were to go and see her? She lives only two steps away, and she would give us luncheon. You have not lunched already, I presume?"
"No, we have not."
"Then the arrangement would suit us all. By the way, she is independent, but a married woman."
"Good-looking?" queried Bazarov.
"N-No—one could not exactly say that."
"Then why ask us to go and see her?"
"Ah, ha! You will have your jest, I see. But remember that she will stand us a bottle of champagne."
"The practicality of the man!"
Sitnikov gave a shrill giggle.
"Shall we go?" he added.
"I cannot decide."
Here Arkady put in a word.
"We have come to inspect the local people," he remarked, "so let us inspect them."
"True enough," seconded Sitnikov. "And, of course, you must come, Monsieur Kirsanov. We could not go without you."
"What? Are all three of us to descend upon her?"
"What matter? She herself is an odd person."
"And you say that she will stand us a bottle of champagne."
"Yes; or even a bottle apiece," asserted Sitnikov. "I will go bail upon that."
"Go bail with what?"
"With my head."
"Your purse would have been better; but lead on."
1 François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), the great French minister, ambassador, littérateur, and educationalist.
2 Madame Svietchin (1782-1857), wife of the Russian General Svietchin. For more than forty years she maintained a famous salon.
3 Etienne Bonnot de Mably de Condillac (1715-1780), a French philosopher who based knowledge solely upon the physical senses.
4 Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a professor in the Jesuit College of Bourges.
XIII
The villa in which Avdotia, or Evdoksia, Nikitishna Kukshin resided was one of the usual Moscow pattern, and stood in one of the recently consumed streets (for as we know, every fifth year sees each of our provincial capitals burnt to the ground) of the town of ——. Beside the front door there hung (over a cracked, crooked visiting-card) a bell-handle, while in the hall the visitors were met by a female who constituted, not exactly a maidservant, but a mob-capped "lady companion." And it need hardly be added that these two phenomena, the bell-handle and the "lady companion," constituted clear evidence of the "progressiveness" of the hostess's views.
On Sitnikov inquiring whether Avdotia Nikitishna were within, a shrill voice interrupted him from an adjoining room:
"Is that you, Victor? Pray enter."
The female in the mob-cap disappeared.
"I have not come alone," Sitnikov responded as, after an inquiring glance at Arkady and Bazarov, he divested himself of his greatcoat, and revealed thereunder a sort of sack jacket.
"Never mind," the voice replied. "Entrez, s'il vous plaît."
The young men did as bidden, and found themselves in a room which resembled a workshop rather than a parlour. On tables were piled promiscuous papers, letters and Russian magazines (most of the latter uncut); everywhere on the floor were to be seen gleaming the fag-ends of cigarettes; and on a leather-padded sofa a lady—youngish, flaxen-haired, and clad in a négligée soiled silk gown—was lolling in a semi-recumbent position. About her stumpy wrists were clasped a large pair of bracelets, and over her head was thrown a lace mantilla. Rising, she draped her shoulders carelessly in a velvet tippet with faded