Chapter 5 three

"Well, you are at last a bachelor and have returned from your studies," said Nikolai Petrovitch, patting Arkady now on the shoulder and now on the knee, "but that day will come." "How is Uncle? How are you?" Although Arkady was full of enthusiasm and joy like a child, he still wanted to change the subject to calm the passion and talk about ordinary things. "He's in good health. He was going to come with me to pick you up, but somehow he changed his mind." "How long have you been waiting?" asked Arkady. "I waited for about five hours."

"Oh, what a dad!" Arkady turned and kissed his father a resounding kiss on the cheek.Nikolai Petrovich laughed. "I have prepared a wonderful horse for you! You will see it later, and the walls of your room have been papered." He said one by one. "Is there another room for Bazarov?" "Arrangements can be made for him, too." "Dad, you've got to take care of him. I can't even put into words how much I value our friendship." "You guys already knew each other?" "Not too long." "No wonder I didn't see him when I was in Petersburg last winter. What was he studying?"

"Mainly study natural sciences. He knows everything. He plans to take a doctor's license next year." "Oh, he was a medical student," said Nikolai Petrovitch.He was silent for a while, then raised his finger and asked, "Peter, is the driver over there from our farm?" Peter looked in the direction the master pointed, and saw several small carts, drawn by unshackled horses, walking briskly on the country road. There were one or two peasants sitting in each cart, and all of them were large sheepskins. jacket. "Yes, sir," answered Peter. "Where are they going? Into the city?"

"Looks like going to town. Go to the tavern!" he added contemptuously, leaning forward as if to point out to the driver.The driver was an old legal man, not interested in newcomers or new things at all, he just sat still. "The peasants have given me a lot of trouble this year," said Nikolai Petrovich to his son. "I can't do anything about them if they don't pay the rent!" "And what about the hirelings? Are you satisfied with them?" "Yes." Nikolai Petrovitch seemed unwilling to say that. "But the natives are making them do bad things, and they've broken the yoke. Still, the land is doing well, and it takes a lot of effort. Yes, good things often take a long time. Why, you're interested in farming now?"

"It's a pity that we don't have a shady place in our house," Arkady said without answering his father's question, and changed the subject. "I added a big awning to the north-facing loggia," says Nikolai Petrovich, "and now you can also eat outside." "So it doesn't look like a villa? ... But that's good too. The air here is so fresh! I don't think the air anywhere in the world is as clean as ours! Just say the sky..." Arkady suddenly stopped talking in the middle of his sentence, looked behind him, and fell silent. "Of course, you were born here, and every plant and tree seems..." replied Nikolai Petrovitch.

"No, Dad, it doesn't matter where you were born, it's all the same anyway." "but……" "No, it's all the same anyway." Nikolai Petrovich glanced at his son from the side, walked in silence for half a mile, and then said: "I don't remember whether I mentioned in my letter that your former nurse Yegorovna was dead." "Really? Poor old man! Is Prokofiitch still alive?" "Still alive, hasn't changed a bit, still likes to talk so much. In general, you can't see much change in Marino." "Is the butler still the same?"

"If there is a change, it means that the housekeeper has changed. I am determined not to retain the freed servants, at least to let them take on important duties. (At this moment Arkady gestured with his eyes: Peter is sitting in front of me. ) Ilest Libre, eneffel ①" Nikolai Petrovich lowered his voice, "but he is just a footman. Now my steward is a citizen, and he seems decent, and I pay him two hundred and fifty rubles a year. Besides," Nikolai Petrovich said here, smoothing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand, as he always did when he hesitated, "I said just now that you will not see any change in Marino. , . . . not quite. I consider it my duty to tell you beforehand, though . . . "

-------- ① French: Yes, he is free. He stopped suddenly, and after a while said in French: "A stern moralist might accuse me of being out of character. But, on the one hand, the matter cannot be concealed; Principle. Of course, you can blame me, at my age... In short, this... this girl, you have probably heard about her..." "Fedosya?" asked Arkady indifferently. Nikolai Petrovitch blushed suddenly. "Don't mention her name so loudly. . . Yes . . . she's living with me now, and I've made her move in . . . She's been given two rooms. But that can be changed."

"Why change it, Dad?" "It's not convenient for your friend to come to our house..." "You mean Bazarov? Don't worry at all, he doesn't have that kind of worldly prejudice." "Of course, you have a place to live, but the small wing room for guests is too simple." Nikolai Petrovich said. "How do you say that, father?" Arkady hurriedly stopped him. "You seem to be paying for it. How bad it is!" "Of course I should be ashamed." Nikolai Petrovitch blushed more and more. "Come, papa, come, please don't say any more!" Arkady smiled and comforted his father kindly. "There's nothing to pay for!" He thought to himself.A sudden tenderness for his kind and weak father rose in his heart, and in this compassionate tenderness was mixed with a certain private pride. "Stop talking," he repeated.He prided himself on having such an open-minded attitude.

Nikolai Petrovich, who was still stroking his brow, glanced at his son furtively through his fingers, and felt as if his heart had been pulled... But he immediately reproached himself. "From here on, it's our field." After a long silence, he spoke again. "Look ahead, isn't that our wood?" asked Arkady. "Yes, it belongs to our family, but it was sold, and it will be cut down this year." "Why sell it?" "Lack of money. Besides, this land will be distributed to farmers." "Are those peasants who don't pay you rent?"

"It's up to them whether to pay it or not, but sooner or later they will." "It would be a pity to cut down that wood," said Arkady, looking round at the scene. The land they walked was not beautiful, plain after plain, undulating to the horizon, occasionally dotted with small woods and winding gullies with sparse, low bushes, just like the old atlases of Catherine's time. the same.The creek and its crumbling banks, the tiny pond and its dilapidated gates, the tiny villages and low, half-roofed farmhouses, the leaning mills and wattle hedges, the empty barns beside the mills and the hee The gaping gates, the church with its peeling plaster, the deserted cemetery, and the crumbling wooden crosses made Arkady sad to see.And as if on purpose, the peasants he met were all dressed in rags, with pitiful poor horses under their crotches, and even the firecracker willows by the roadside were short of branches and leaves, without bark, just like unkempt beggars , and those emaciated, dirty, and starved cows greedily gnawed at the grass tips by the ditch, as if they had just struggled out of the terrible claws. In the beautiful spring, these tired cows The animals looked so pitiful, and reminded one again of the long, lonely winter and the blizzard... "No," thought Arkady, "this is a poor place, people are not industrious, life is not rich, you can't, you can't If it continues like this, it must be reformed...but how to change the law and where to start?..." Arkady was meditating all the way... But while he was meditating, Spring was showing its beauty.Everything around—the trees, the bushes, the grass—are all green, bathed in the warm spring breeze, swaying lightly and breathing softly.Everywhere the song of larks is sown.The crested wheat hen hovered and called at a low altitude close to the grassland, and then silently set foot on the grass pier in the swamp.The rooks lingering in the spring wheat field added a few elegant moles to the verdant green, but they wormed their way into the rye field that was beginning to turn white, occasionally showing their little heads in the misty wheat waves.Arkady looked, looked, and felt a lazy warmth flow over his breast, drowning his thoughts.He took off his overcoat, looked at his father happily, like an innocent child... and his father embraced him again. "It's almost there," said Nikolai Petrovich, "you have only to climb up the mound and you'll see our house. We can live comfortably together, Arkady, and help me with the farm, if You don't tire of your words. Now we should be closer and get to know each other better, don't you think?" "Of course," answered Arkady. "What a beautiful day it is!" "To welcome you, dear son. Yes, it is the best time for mid-spring, and I completely agree with what Pushkin wrote—do you remember "Evgeny Onegin"?" Spring, spring, time for love! But your coming makes me sad. ... "Arkady," said Bazarov's voice from the carriage, "pass me a box of matches, I have no pipe left." Nikolai Petrovich stopped reciting.Arkady, who was listening on the sidelines, was feeling both joy and sympathy and pity, when he heard the call and hurriedly took out a silver matchbox from his pocket and ordered Peter to deliver it to Bazarov. "Would you like a cigar?" asked Bazarov. "Give me one," answered Arkady. Peter brought back a thick black cigar with the matches, and Arkady immediately lit it and smoked it. The sharp smell of the old leaves made Nikolai Petrovich, who had never smoked, quietly— - In order not to make his son feel wronged - he turned his face away and looked elsewhere. A quarter of an hour later, the two carriages stopped in front of the steps of the new house with red iron tiles and gray wooden walls.This is Marino, also known as Xincun, but farmers call it "poor village".