Fathers And Sons

Bazarov and Arkady go for a walk, noticing that some trees are more successful than others. Bazarov sees Fenechka, immediately calls her a “pretty girl,” and compliments Nikolai’s taste when Arkady explains their relationship (33). Bazarov pronounces Arkady’s brother Mitya adorable, and inspects the baby’s teething gums. Fenechka and another servant, Dunyasha, compliment Bazarov on Mitya’s affection for him, which Bazarov attributes to his “way with them” and is not at all surprised by (33). When the women leave, Bazarov asserts that he likes that Fenechka is not shy. Arkady likes her, but feels his father should marry her. Bazarov ridicules him for expressing such an old-fashioned view. He is similarly critical of the family estate, and asserts that the peasants are doing their best to swindle Nikolai.

Bazarov argues that the only important thing is unvarnished fact—that finding beauty or awe in nature is ridiculous (35): “nature’s not a temple, but a workshop where man’s the laborer” (35). The sound of Nikolai playing Schubert on the cello in the house interrupts Bazarov and Arkady’s conversation. As the “sweet melody flowed through the air like honey,” Bazarov “burst out laughing” (35), angering Arkady.

Two weeks later, everyone has settled into a new domestic routine. Arkady does nothing, Bazarov pursues his science, Fenechka sometimes seeks Bazarov out to babysit, Pavel’s resentment of the younger man grows, and Nikolai is “afraid of the young nihilist and had some doubts about his influence on Arkady, but listened to him eagerly and attended his experiments in chemistry and physics willingly (35-36). Bazarov breaks class barriers, treating the servants as though “he was almost one of them, and not a master” (36).

Summer arrives, and the two young men busy themselves with specimen collecting. They argue frequently. One day, Nikolai overhears them discussing him. Arkady defends his father, but Bazarov calls Nikolai “antiquated; his song’s been sung” (36). Bazarov asserts that Arkady should correct his father’s habit of reading Pushkin, and instead read the German materialist philosophy of Ludwig Buchner. This marks Bazarov as a cultural heretic: the classical Romantic poet and novelist Pushkin is the father of Russian literature. Bazarov’s dismissal is akin to claiming Shakespeare is pointless drivel.

Nikolai regrets that Bazarov stands in the way of Nikolai becoming “close to Arkady” (37). Earlier that day, Arkady replaced Nikolai’s beloved work by Pushkin with an inscrutable German text by Buchner. The German text defeats Nikolai, who reads German but cannot grasp the work’s meaning: “either I’m stupid or it’s all rubbish. I must be stupid” (37). Still, Nikolai admits to Pavel that Bazarov might be right about Nikolai being behind the times, for all his efforts to update his estate and keep up with modern practices.

The next day at teatime, an argument erupts. Bazarov criticizes a local landowner as a “lousy little aristocrat” (38). Pavel, incensed, retorts that England shows that aristocracies can be crucial to a stable “social structure” (39). Bazarov asserts that abstract ideology is useless and that at the current moment, the best thing to do is to reject everything, including art and poetry. Arkady chimes in that the “Russian people” demand the kind of rejection Bazarov champions. Pavel denies that Bazarov has any knowledge of the Russian people, who value tradition (40). Bazarov concedes this, but mocks Pavel for his distance from the peasantry: “you don’t even know how to talk to them” (41).

Bazarov angrily argues that his generation rejects philosophy and debate because “simply talking all the time [is] simply vulgar and doctrinaire” (41). Still, he concedes that doing something about everyday practical problems conflicts with his nihilism. Pavel realizes that the real trouble will come when the nihilists are “prepared to take action,” but Arkady argues in defense of “destruction” (42). Pavel calls this barbaric, defending the value of “civilization” (43).

When Pavel asserts that the nihilists are a tiny minority, Bazarov retorts that this is enough to burn down Moscow. Pavel accuses Bazarov of Satanic pride and criticizes Arkady for idolizing Bazarov. Bazarov declares that he will concede if Pavel can show “a single institution of contemporary life that doesn’t deserve absolute and merciless rejection” (44). Pavel offers up the “peasant commune” as one such institution. Bazarov smirks, and crudely alludes to Nikolai’s relationship with Fenechka, pointing out that peasant commune fathers-in-law had the right to sexual relationships with the wives of their sons. He argues that the peasants are corrupt and prone to stealing.

Nikolai casts “painful glances” at his son during this exchange, and in response to Pavel’s still-simmering anger, recalls his own youthful disputes with his mother. He told her “we belong to different generations” and he laments that his turn has now come to swallow this “bitter pill” (44).