The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим ГорькийЧитать онлайн книгу.
"A Nihilist?" queried Nikolai Petrovitch. "I imagine that that must be a term derived from the Latin nihil or 'nothing.' It denotes, I presume, a man who—a man who—well, a man who declines to accept anything."
"Or a man who declines to respect anything," hazarded Paul Petrovitch as he re-applied himself to the butter.
"No, a man who treats things solely from the critical point of view," corrected Arkady.
"But the two things are one and the same, are they not?" queried Paul Petrovitch.
"Oh no. A Nihilist is a man who declines to bow to authority, or to accept any principle on trust, however sanctified it may be."
"And to what can that lead?" asked Paul Petrovitch.
"It depends upon the individual. In one man's case, it may lead to good; in that of another, to evil."
"I see. But we elders view things differently. We folk of the older generation believe that without principles" (Paul Petrovitch pronounced the word softly, and with a French accent, whereas Arkady had pronounced it with an emphasis on the leading syllable)—"without principles it is impossible to take a single step in life, or to draw a single breath. Mais vous avez changé tout cela. God send you health and a general's rank, Messieurs Nihil—how do you pronounce it?"
"Ni-hi-lists," said Arkady distinctly.
"Quite so (formerly we had Hegelists, and now they have become Nihilists)—God send you health and a general's rank, but also let us see how you will contrive to exist in an absolute void, an airless vacuum. Pray ring the bell, brother Nikolai, for it is time for me to take my cocoa."
Nikolai Petrovitch did as requested, and also shouted for Duniasha; but, instead of the latter, there issued on to the terrace Thenichka in person. A young woman of twenty-three, she was pale, and gentle-looking, with dark eyes and hair, a pair of childishly red, pouting lips, and delicate hands. Also, she was clad in a clean cotton gown, a new blue kerchief was thrown lightly over her rounded shoulders, and she was carrying in front of her a large cup of cocoa. Shyly she placed the latter before Paul Petrovitch, while a warm, rosy current of blood suffused the exquisite skin of her comely face, and then she remained standing by the table, with lowered eyes and the tips of her fingers touching its surface. Yet, though she looked as though she were regretting having come, she looked as though she felt that she had a right to be there.
Paul Petrovitch frowned, and Nikolai Petrovitch looked confused.
"Good morning, Thenichka," the latter muttered.
"Good morning," she replied in a low, clear voice. Then she glanced askance at Arkady, and he smiled at her in friendly fashion. Finally she departed with a quiet step and slightly careless gait—the latter a peculiarity of hers.
Silence reigned on the terrace. For a while Paul Petrovitch drank his cocoa. Then he suddenly raised his head, and muttered:
"Monsieur Nihilist is about to give us the pleasure of his company."
True enough, Bazarov could be seen stepping across the flowerbeds. On his linen jacket and trousers was a thick coating of mud, to the crown of his ancient circular hat clung a piece of sticky marshweed, and in his hand he was holding a small bag. Also, something in the bag kept stirring as though it were alive. Approaching the terrace with rapid strides, he nodded to the company and said:
"Good morning, gentlemen! Pardon me for being so late. I shall be back presently, but first my captures must be stowed away."
"What are those captures?" Paul Petrovitch inquired. "Leeches?"
"No, frogs."
"Do you eat them? Or do you breed them?"
"I catch them for purposes of experiment," was Bazarov's only reply as carelessly he entered the house.
"In other words, he vivisects them," was Paul Petrovitch's comment. "In other words, he believes in frogs more than in principles."
Arkady threw his uncle a reproachful look, and even Nikolai Petrovitch shrugged his shoulders, so that Paul Petrovitch himself felt his bon mot to have been out of place, and hastened to divert the subject to the estate and the new steward.
VI
Bazarov, returning, seated himself at the table, and fell to drinking tea. The brothers contemplated him in silence. Arkady glanced covertly from his father to his uncle, and back again.
"Have you walked far this morning?" at length Nikolai Petrovitch inquired.
"To a marsh beside an aspen coppice. By the way, Arkady, I flushed five head of woodcock. Perhaps you would like to go and shoot them?"
"Then you yourself are no sportsman?"
"No."
"That is to say, you prefer physics to anything else?" This from Paul Petrovitch.
"Yes, I prefer physics—in fact, the natural sciences in general—to anything else."
"Well, I am told that the Germanics have made great strides in that department?" (Paul Petrovitch used the term "Germanics" instead of "Germans" ironically, but no one noticed it.)
"True," was Bazarov's careless reply. "In fact, the Germans are, in the same respect, our masters."
"You think highly of the Germans?" Paul Petrovitch's tone was now studiously polite, for he was beginning to feel irritated with the man—his aristocratic nature could not altogether stomach Bazarov's absolute lack of ceremony, the fact that this doctor's son not only knew no diffidence, but actually returned snappish and reluctant answers, and infused a brusquerie akin to rudeness into his tone.
"At least the savants of that part of the world have some energy in them," retorted Bazarov.
"Quite so. And your opinion of our Russian savants is—well, perhaps less flattering?"
"It is, with your leave."
"That constitutes a piece of laudable modesty on your part," Paul Petrovitch observed with a slight hitch of his figure and a toss of his head. "But how comes it about that Arkady has just told us that you recognise no authorities whatsoever? Do you not trust authorities?"
"Why should I? Is anything in the world trustworthy? Certainly, should I be told a fact, I agree with it, but that is all."
"Oh! Then the Germans confine themselves solely to facts?" Paul Petrovitch's face had now assumed an expression of detachment, as though he had suddenly become withdrawn to the ultimate heights of the empyrean.
"No, not all Germans," replied Bazarov with a passing yawn. Clearly he had no mind to continue the controversy. Meanwhile Paul Petrovitch glanced at Arkady as much as to say: "Admit that your friend has beautiful manners!"
"For my own part," he continued, ostentatiously, and with an effort, "I, a fallible mortal, do not favour the Germans. Of course, I am not including in that category the Russo-Germans, who, as we know, are birds of passage. Rather, it is the Germans of Germany proper whom I cannot abide. Once upon a time they used to produce men like Schiller and like—what's his name?—Goethe: for both of which authors my brother has a marked predilection. But now the German nation has become a nation solely of chemists and materialists."
"A good chemist is worth a score of your poets," remarked Bazarov.
"Quite so." Paul Petrovitch hitched his eyebrows a little, as though he had come near to falling asleep. "Er—I take it then that you decline to recognise art, but believe only in science?"
"I have told you that I believe in nothing at all. What after all, is science—that is to say, science in the mass? A science may exist, even as a trade or a profession may exist; but with regard to science in the mass, there is no such thing."
"Very