familiar outline of a dear face.

‘Arkasha! Arkasha!’ cried Kirsanov, and he ran waving his hands…. A few instants later, his lips were pressed to the beardless, dusty, sunburnt-cheek of the youthful graduate.

CHAPTER II

‘Let me shake myself first, daddy,’ said Arkady, in a voice tired from travelling, but boyish and clear as a bell, as he gaily responded to his father’s caresses; ‘I am covering you with dust.’

‘Never mind, never mind,’ repeated Nikolai Petrovitch, smiling tenderly, and twice he struck the collar of his son’s cloak and his own greatcoat with his hand. ‘Let me have a look at you; let me have a look at you,’ he added, moving back from him, but immediately he went with hurried steps towards the yard of the station, calling, ‘This way, this way; and horses at once.’

Nikolai Petrovitch seemed far more excited than his son; he seemed a little confused, a little timid. Arkady stopped him.

‘Daddy,’ he said, ‘let me introduce you to my great friend, Bazarov, about whom I have so often written to you. He has been so good as to promise to stay with us.’

Nikolai Petrovitch went back quickly, and going up to a tall man in a long, loose, rough coat with tassels, who had only just got out of the carriage, he warmly pressed the ungloved red hand, which the latter did not at once hold out to him.

‘I am heartily glad,’ he began, ‘and very grateful for your kind intention of visiting us…. Let me know your name, and your father’s.’

‘Yevgeny Vassilyev,’ answered Bazarov, in a lazy but manly voice; and turning back the collar of his rough coat, he showed Nikolai Petrovitch his whole face. It was long and lean, with a broad forehead, a nose flat at the base and sharper at the end, large greenish eyes, and drooping whiskers of a sandy colour; it was lighted up by a tranquil smile, and showed self-confidence and intelligence.

‘I hope, dear Yevgeny Vassilyitch, you won’t be dull with us,’ continued Nikolai Petrovitch.

Bazarov’s thin lips moved just perceptibly, though he made no reply, but merely took off his cap. His long, thick hair did not hide the prominent bumps on his head.

‘Then, Arkady,’ Nikolai Petrovitch began again, turning to his son, ‘shall the horses be put to at once? or would you like to rest?’

‘We will rest at home, daddy; tell them to harness the horses.’

‘At once, at once,’ his father assented. ‘Hey, Piotr, do you hear? Get things ready, my good boy; look sharp.’

Piotr, who as a modernised servant had not kissed the young master’s hand, but only bowed to him from a distance, again vanished through the gateway.

‘I came here with the carriage, but there are three horses for your coach too,’ said Nikolai Petrovitch fussily, while Arkady drank some water from an iron dipper brought him by the woman in charge of the station, and Bazarov began smoking a pipe and went up to the driver, who was taking out the horses; ‘there are only two seats in the carriage, and I don’t know how your friend’ …

‘He will go in the coach,’ interposed Arkady in an undertone. ‘You must not stand on ceremony with him, please. He’s a splendid fellow, so simple—you will see.’

Nikolai Petrovitch’s coachman brought the horses round.

‘Come, hurry up, bushy beard!’ said Bazarov, addressing the driver.

‘Do you hear, Mityuha,’ put in another driver, standing by with his hands thrust behind him into the opening of his sheepskin coat, ‘what the gentleman called you? It’s a bushy beard you are too.’

Mityuha only gave a jog to his hat and pulled the reins off the heated shaft-horse.

‘Look sharp, look sharp, lads, lend a hand,’ cried Nikolai Petrovitch; ‘there’ll be something to drink our health with!’

In a few minutes the horses were harnessed; the father and son were installed in the carriage; Piotr climbed up on to the box; Bazarov jumped into the coach, and nestled his head down into the leather cushion; and both the vehicles rolled away.

CHAPTER III

‘So here you are, a graduate at last, and come home again,’ said Nikolai Petrovitch, touching Arkady now on the shoulder, now on the knee. ‘At last!’

‘And how is uncle? quite well?’ asked Arkady, who, in spite of the genuine, almost childish delight filling his heart, wanted as soon as possible to turn the conversation from the emotional into a commonplace channel.

‘Quite well. He was thinking of coming with me to meet you, but for some reason or other he gave up the idea.’

‘And how long have you been waiting for me?’ inquired Arkady.

‘Oh, about five hours.’

‘Dear old dad!’

Arkady turned round quickly to his father, and gave him a sounding kiss on the cheek. Nikolai Petrovitch gave vent to a low chuckle.

‘I have got such a capital horse for you!’ he began. ‘You will see. And your room has been fresh papered.’

‘And is there a room for Bazarov?’

‘We will find one for him too.’

‘Please, dad, make much of him. I can’t tell you how I prize his friendship.’

‘Have you made friends with him lately?’

‘Yes, quite lately.’

‘Ah, that’s how it is I did not see him last winter. What does he study?’

‘His chief subject is natural science. But he knows everything. Next year he wants to take his doctor’s degree.’

‘Ah! he’s in the medical faculty,’ observed Nikolai Petrovitch, and he was silent for a little. ‘Piotr,’ he went on, stretching out his hand, ‘aren’t those our peasants driving along?’

Piotr looked where his master was pointing. Some carts harnessed with unbridled horses were moving rapidly along a narrow by-road. In each cart there were one or two peasants in sheepskin coats, unbuttoned.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Piotr.

‘Where are they going,—to the town?’

‘To the town, I suppose. To the gin-shop,’ he added contemptuously, turning slightly towards the coachman, as though he would appeal to him. But the latter did not stir a muscle; he was a man of the old stamp, and did not share the modern views of the younger generation.

‘I have had a lot of bother with the peasants this year,’ pursued Nikolai Petrovitch, turning to his son. ‘They won’t pay their rent. What is one to do?’

‘But do you like your hired labourers?’

‘Yes,’ said Nikolai Petrovitch between his teeth. ‘They’re being set against me, that’s the mischief; and they don’t do their best. They spoil the tools. But they have tilled the land pretty fairly. When things have settled down a bit, it will be all right. Do you take an interest in farming now?’

‘You’ve no shade; that’s a pity,’ remarked Arkady, without answering the last question.

‘I have had a great awning put up on the north side over the balcony,’ observed Nikolai Petrovitch; ‘now we can have dinner even in the open air.’

‘It’ll be rather too like a summer villa…. Still, that’s all nonsense. What air though here! How delicious it smells! Really I fancy there’s nowhere such fragrance in the world as in the meadows here! And the sky too.’

Arkady suddenly stopped short, cast a stealthy look behind him, and said no more.

‘Of course,’ observed Nikolai Petrovitch, ‘you were born here, and so everything is bound to strike you in a special——’

‘Come, dad, that makes no difference where a man is born.’

‘Still——’

‘No; it makes absolutely no difference.’

Nikolai Petrovitch gave a sidelong glance at his son, and the carriage went on a half-a-mile further before the conversation was renewed between them.

‘I don’t recollect whether I wrote to you,’ began Nikolai Petrovitch, ‘your old nurse, Yegorovna, is dead.’

‘Really? Poor thing! Is Prokofitch still living?’

‘Yes, and not a bit changed. As grumbling as ever. In fact, you won’t find many changes at Maryino.’

‘Have you still the same bailiff?’

‘Well, to be sure there is a change there. I decided not to keep about me any freed serfs, who have been house servants, or, at least, not to intrust them with duties of any responsibility.’ (Arkady glanced towards Piotr.) ‘Il est libre, en effet,’ observed Nikolai Petrovitch in an undertone; ‘but, you see, he’s only a valet. Now I have a bailiff, a townsman; he seems a practical fellow. I pay him two hundred and fifty roubles a year. But,’ added Nikolai Petrovitch, rubbing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand, which was always an indication with him of inward embarrassment, ‘I told you just now that you would not find changes at Maryino…. That’s not quite correct. I think it my duty to prepare you, though….’

He hesitated for an instant, and then went on in French.

‘A severe moralist would regard my openness, as improper; but, in the first place, it can’t be concealed, and secondly, you are aware I have always had peculiar ideas as regards the relation of father and son. Though, of course, you would be right in blaming me. At my age…. In short … that … that girl, about whom you have probably heard already …’

‘Fenitchka?’ asked Arkady easily.

Nikolai Petrovitch blushed. ‘Don’t mention her name aloud, please…. Well … she is living with me now. I have installed her in the house … there were two little rooms there. But that can all be changed.’

‘Goodness, daddy, what for?’

‘Your friend is going to stay with us … it would be awkward …’

‘Please don’t be uneasy on Bazarov’s account. He’s above all that.’

‘Well, but you too,’ added Nikolai Petrovitch. ‘The little lodge is so horrid—that’s the worst of it.’

‘Goodness, dad,’ interposed Arkady, ‘it’s as if you were apologising; I wonder you’re not ashamed.’

‘Of course, I ought to be ashamed,’ answered Nikolai Petrovitch, flushing more and more.

‘Nonsense, dad, nonsense; please don’t!’ Arkady smiled affectionately. ‘What a thing to apologise for!’ he thought to himself, and his heart was