THE SMALL gentleman’s house in the Moscow style, in which Avdotya Nikitishna, otherwise Evdoksya, Kukshin, lived, was in one of the streets of X——, which had been lately burnt down; it is well known that our provincial towns are burnt down every five years. At the door, above a visiting card nailed on all askew, there was a bell-handle to be seen, and in the hall the visitors were met by some one, not exactly a servant, nor exactly a companion, in a cap—unmistakable tokens of the progressive tendencies of the lady of the house. Sitnikov inquired whether Avdotya Nikitishna was at home.
‘I’m not alone,’ observed Sitnikov, with a sharp look at Arkady and Bazarov as he briskly pulled off his overcoat, beneath which appeared something of the nature of a coachman’s velvet jacket.
The young men went in. The room into which they walked was more like a working study than a drawing-room. Papers, letters, fat numbers of Russian journals, for the most part uncut, lay at random on the dusty tables; white cigarette ends lay scattered in every direction. On a leather-covered sofa, a lady, still young, was half reclining. Her fair hair was rather dishevelled; she wore a silk gown, not perfectly tidy, heavy bracelets on her short arms, and a lace handkerchief on her head. She got up from the sofa, and carelessly drawing a velvet cape trimmed with yellowish ermine over her shoulders, she said languidly, ‘Good-morning, Victor,’ and pressed Sitnikov’s hand.
‘Delighted,’ answered Madame Kukshin, and fixing on Bazarov a pair of round eyes, between which was a forlorn little turned-up red nose, ‘I know you,’ she added, and pressed his hand too.
Bazarov scowled. There was nothing repulsive in the little plain person of the emancipated woman; but the expression of her face produced a disagreeable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her, ‘What’s the matter; are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? What are you in a fidget about?’ Both she and Sitnikov had always the same uneasy air. She was extremely unconstrained, and at the same time awkward; she obviously regarded herself as a good-natured, simple creature, and all the while, whatever she did, it always struck one that it was not just what she wanted to do; everything with her seemed, as children say, done on purpose, that’s to say, not simply, not naturally.
‘Yes, yes, I know you, Bazarov,’ she repeated. (She had the habit—peculiar to many provincial and Moscow ladies—of calling men by their surnames from the first day of acquaintance with them.) ‘Will you have a cigar?’
‘A cigar’s all very well,’ put in Sitnikov, who by now was lolling in an armchair, his legs in the air; ‘but give us some lunch. We’re awfully hungry; and tell them to bring us up a little bottle of champagne.’
‘Yes. And do you know for what purpose? To make dolls’ heads so that they shouldn’t break. I’m practical, too, you see. But everything’s not quite ready yet. I’ve still to read Liebig. By the way, have you read Kislyakov’s article on Female Labour, in the Moscow Gazette? Read it please. You’re interested in the woman question, I suppose? And in the schools too? What does your friend do? What is his name?’
‘They tell me you’ve begun singing the praises of George Sand again. A retrograde woman, and nothing else! How can people compare her with Emerson! She hasn’t an idea on education, nor physiology, nor anything. She’d never, I’m persuaded, heard of embryology, and in these days—what can be done without that?’ (Evdoksya even threw up her hands.) ‘Ah, what a wonderful article Elisyevitch has written on that subject! He’s a gentleman of genius.’ (Evdoksya constantly made use of the word ‘gentleman’ instead of the word ‘man.’) ‘Bazarov, sit by me on the sofa. You don’t know, perhaps, I’m awfully afraid of you.’
‘You’re a dangerous gentleman; you’re such a critic. Good God! yes! why, how absurd, I’m talking like some country lady. I really am a country lady, though. I manage my property myself; and only fancy, my bailiff Erofay’s a wonderful type, quite like Cooper’s Pathfinder; something in him so spontaneous! I’ve come to settle here finally; it’s an intolerable town, isn’t it? But what’s one to do?’
‘All its interests are so petty, that’s what’s so awful! I used to spend the winters in Moscow … but now my lawful spouse, Monsieur Kukshin’s residing there. And besides, Moscow nowadays … there, I don’t know—it’s not the same as it was. I’m thinking of going abroad; last year I was on the point of setting off.’
Evdoksya rolled a cigarette up between her fingers, which were brown with tobacco stains, put it to her tongue, licked it up, and began smoking. The maid came in with a tray.
‘Yes, there are,’ answered Evdoksya; ‘but they’re all such empty-headed creatures. Mon amie, Odintsova, for instance, is nice-looking. It’s a pity her reputation’s rather doubtful.… That wouldn’t matter, though, but she’s no independence in her views, no width, nothing … of all that. The whole system of education wants changing. I’ve thought a great deal about it, our women are very badly educated.’
‘There’s no doing anything with them,’ put in Sitnikov; ‘one ought to despise them, and I do despise them fully and completely!’ (The possibility of feeling and expressing contempt was the most agreeable sensation to Sitnikov; he used to attack women in especial, never suspecting that it was to be his fate a few months later to be cringing before his wife merely because she had been born a princess Durdoleosov.) ‘Not a single one of them would be capable of understanding our conversation; not a single one deserves to be spoken of by serious men like us!’
‘I can never listen calmly when women are attacked,’ pursued Evdoksya. ‘It’s awful, awful. Instead of attacking them, you’d better read Michelet’s book, De l’amour. That’s exquisite! Gentlemen, let us talk of love,’ added Evdoksya, letting her arm fall languidly on the rumpled sofa cushion.
A sudden silence followed. ‘No, why should we talk of love,’ said Bazarov; ‘but you mentioned just now a Madame Odintsov … That was what you called her, I think? Who is that lady?’
‘She’s charming, charming!’ piped Sitnikov. ‘I will introduce you. Clever, rich, a widow. It’s a pity, she’s not yet advanced enough; she ought to see more of our Evdoksya. I drink to your health, Evdoxie! Let us clink glasses! Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin! Et toc, et toc, et tin-tin-tin!!!’
The lunch dragged on a long while. The first bottle of champagne was followed by another, a third, and even a fourth.… Evdoksya chattered without pause; Sitnikov seconded her. They had much discussion upon the question whether marriage was a prejudice or a crime, and whether men were born equal or not, and precisely what individuality consists in. Things came at last to Evdoksya, flushed from the wine she had drunk, tapping with her flat finger-tips on the keys of a discordant piano, and beginning to sing in a hoarse voice, first gipsy songs, and then Seymour Schiff’s song, ‘Granada lies slumbering’; while Sitnikov tied a scarf round his head, and represented the dying lover at the words—
Arkady could not stand it at last. ‘Gentlemen, it’s getting something like Bedlam,’ he remarked aloud. Bazarov, who had at rare intervals put in an ironical word in the conversation—he paid more attention to the champagne—gave a loud yawn, got up, and, without taking leave of their hostess, he walked off with Arkady. Sitnikov jumped up and followed them.
‘Well, what do you think of her?’ he inquired, skipping obsequiously from right to left of them. ‘I told you, you see, a remarkable personality! If we only had more women like that! She is, in her own way, an expression of the highest morality.’
‘And is that establishment of your governor’s an expression of the highest morality too?’ observed Bazarov, pointing to a ginshop which they were passing at that instant.
Sitnikov again went off into a shrill laugh. He was greatly ashamed of his origin, and did not know whether to feel flattered or offended at Bazarov’s unexpected familiarity.
