“I am bored; I want to work, but I can’t work here.  I will come to your place again; I have left all my apparatus there, too.  In your house one can, at any rate, shut oneself up; while here my father repeats to me, ‘My study is at your disposal—­nobody shall interfere with you,’ and all the time he himself is never a yard away.  It’s the same thing, too, with mother.  I hear her sighing the other side of the wall, and if one goes in to her, one’s nothing to say to her.”

Vassily Ivanovitch was dumbfounded when he broke the news to him.

“Very good...” he faltered, “very good....  I had thought you were to be with us... a little longer.  Three days....  After three years, it’s rather little; rather little, Yevgeny!”

“But I tell you I’m coming back directly.  It’s necessary for me to go.”

“Necessary....  Very good.  Arina and I, of course, did not anticipate this.  She has just begged some flowers from a neighbour; she meant to decorate the room for you.  Liberty... is the great thing; that’s my rule....  I don’t want to hamper you... not...”

He suddenly ceased and rushed from the room.  He had to tell his old wife; that was the trying task that lay before him.  She was utterly crushed, and only a two-hour exhortation from her husband enabled her to control herself until her son’s departure.  When at last he was gone she broke down.  Vassily Ivanovitch bent his grey head against her grey head.

“There’s no hope for it,” she moaned.  “Only I am left you, unchanged for ever, as you for me.”

III.—­The Duel

The two friends journeyed as far as X——­ together.  There Arkady left his companion in order to see Katya.  Bazaroff, determined to cure himself of his passion for Madame Odintsov, made the rest of the journey alone, and took up his quarters once more in the house of Nicolai Petrovitch.

The fact of Arkady’s absence did not tend to improve matters between Pavel Petrovitch and Bazaroff.  After a week the aristocrat’s antipathy passed all bounds.  That night he knocked at Bazaroff’s door, and, gaining admittance, begged in his most delicate manner for five minutes’ conversation.

“I want to hear your views on the subject of duelling,” he said.  Bazaroff, for once, was taken by surprise.

“My view is,” he said at last, “that I should not, in practice, allow myself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction.”

“Your words save me from rather a deplorable necessity.  I have made up my mind to fight you.”

Bazaroff opened his eyes wide.  “Me?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“What for, pray?”

“I cannot endure you; to my idea your presence here is superfluous, I despise you; and if that is not enough for you...”

Pavel Petrovitch’s eyes glittered....  Bazaroff’s, too, were flashing.

“Very good,” he assented; “no need of further explanations.  You’ve a whim to try your chivalrous spirit upon me.  I might refuse you this pleasure, but—­so be it!”