Отцы и дети

FATHERS AND SONS

Translated by Richard Hare

Ivan TURGENEV

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УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Т87

ISBN 978-5-9925-1252-6

 
Тургенев, Иван Сергеевич.
Т87 
 Отцы и дети : книга для чтения на английском языке / Пер. с рус. Ричарда Хэйра. — СанктПетербург : КАРО, 2017. — 320 с. (Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1252-6.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей роман И. С. Тургенева 
«Отцы и дети», ставший знаковым для своего времени, образ 
Евгения Базарова был воспринят многими читателями как пример для подражания. Бескомпромиссность, нежелание считаться ни с какими авторитетами, приоритет полезного над прекрасным — вот черты «нового человека», «человека 1860-х годов».

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2017

Chapter 1

“Well, Pyotr, still not in sight?” was the question 
asked on 20th May, 1859, by a gentleman of about 
forty, wearing a dusty overcoat and checked trousers, 
who came out hatless into the low porch of the posting 
station at X. He was speaking to his servant, a chubby 
young fellow with whitish down growing on his chin 
and with dim little eyes.
The servant, in whom everything — the turquoise 
ring in his ear, the hair plastered down with grease 
and the polite flexibility of his movements — indicated a man of the new improved generation, glanced 
condescendingly along the road and answered, “No, 
sir, definitely not in sight.”
“Not in sight?” repeated his master.
“No, sir,” replied the servant again.
His master sighed and sat down on a little bench. 
We will introduce him to the reader while he sits, with 
his feet tucked in, looking thoughtfully around.
His name was Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. He 
owned, about twelve miles from the posting station, 

Dedicated to the memory of 
Vissarion Grigor’evich Belinsky

a fine property of two hundred serfs or, as he called 
it — since he had arranged the division of his land 
with the peasants — a “farm” of nearly five thousand 
acres. His father, a general in the army, who had served 
in 1812, a crude, almost illiterate, but good-natured type 
of Russian, had stuck to a routine job all his life, first 
commanding a brigade and later a division, and lived 
permanently in the provinces, where by virtue of his 
rank he was able to play a certain part. Nikolai Petrovich 
was born in south Russia, as was his elder brother Pavel, 
of whom we shall hear more; till the age of fourteen he 
was educated at home, surrounded by cheap tutors, 
free-and-easy but fawning adjutants, and all the usual 
regimental and staff people. His mother, a member of 
the Kolyazin family, was called Agatha as a girl, but as 
a general’s wife her name was Agafoklea Kuzminishna 
Kirsanov; she was a domineering military lady, wore 
gorgeous caps and rustling silk dresses; in church she 
was the first to go up to the cross, she talked a lot in a 
loud voice, let her children kiss her hand every morning and gave them her blessing at night — in fact, she 
enjoyed her life and got as much out of it as she could. 
As a general’s son, Nikolai Petrovich — though so far 
from brave that he had even been called a “funk” — 
was intended, like his brother Pavel, to enter the army; 
but he broke his leg on the very day he obtained a 
commission and after spending two months in bed he 

never got rid of a slight limp for the rest of his life. His 
father gave him up as a bad job and let him go in for 
the civil service. He took him to Petersburg as soon 
as he was eighteen and placed him in the university 
there. His brother happened at the same time to become an officer in a guards regiment. The young men 
started to share a flat together, and were kept under 
the remote supervision of a cousin on their mother’s 
side, Ilya Kolyazin, an important official. Their father 
returned to his division and to his wife and only occasionally wrote to his sons on large sheets of grey 
paper, scrawled over in an ornate clerkly handwriting; 
the bottom of these sheets was adorned with a scroll 
enclosing the words, “Pyotr Kirsanov, Major-General.” 
In 1835 Nikolai Petrovich graduated from the university, and in the same year General Kirsanov was put 
on the retired list after an unsuccessful review, and 
came with his wife to live in Petersburg. He was about 
to take a house in the Tavrichesky Gardens, and had 
joined the English club, when he suddenly died of an 
apoplectic fit. Agafoklea Kuzminishna soon followed 
him to the grave; she could not adapt herself to a dull 
life in the capital and was consumed by the boredom 
of retirement from regimental existence. Meanwhile 
Nikolai Petrovich, during his parents’ lifetime and 
much to their distress, had managed to fall in love 
with the daughter of his landlord, a petty official called 

Prepolovensky. She was an attractive and, as they call 
it, well-educated girl; she used to read the serious 
articles in the science column of the newspapers. He 
married her as soon as the period of mourning for his 
parents was over, and leaving the civil service, where 
his father had secured him a post through patronage, 
he started to live very happily with his Masha, first in 
a country villa near the Forestry Institute, afterwards 
in Petersburg in a pretty little flat with a clean staircase 
and a draughty drawing room, and finally in the country where he settled down and where in due course his 
son, Arkady, was born. Husband and wife lived well 
and peacefully; they were hardly ever separated, they 
read together, they sang and played duets together on 
the piano, she grew flowers and looked after the poultry 
yard, he busied himself with the estate and sometimes 
hunted, while Arkady went on growing in the same 
happy and peaceful way. Ten years passed like a dream. 
Then in 1847 Kirsanov’s wife died. He hardly survived 
this blow and his hair turned grey in a few weeks; he 
was preparing to travel abroad, if possible to distract his 
thoughts… but then came the year 1848. He returned 
unwillingly to the country and after a rather long penod 
of inactivity he began to take an interest in improving 
his estate. In 1855 he brought his son to the university 
and spent three winters in Petersburg with him, hardly 
going out anywhere and trying to make acquaintance 

with Arkady’s young comrades. The last winter he 
was unable to go, and here we see him in May, 1859, 
already entirely grey-haired, plump and rather bent, 
waiting for his son, who had just taken his university 
degree, as once he had taken it himself.
The servant, from a feeling of propriety, and perhaps 
also because he was anxious to escape from his master’s 
eye, had gone over to the gate and was smoking a pipe. 
Nikolai Petrovich bowed his head and began to stare at 
the crumbling steps; a big mottled hen walked sedately 
towards him, treading firmly with its thick yellow legs; a 
dirty cat cast a disapproving look at him, as she twisted 
herself coyly round the railing. The sun was scorching; a 
smell of hot rye bread was wafted from the dim entrance 
of the posting station. Nikolai Petrovich started musing. 
“My son… a graduate… Arkasha…” kept on turning 
round in his mind; he tried to think of something else, 
but the same thoughts returned. He remembered his 
dead wife. “She did not live to see it,” he murmured 
sadly. A plump blue pigeon flew on to the road and 
hurriedly started to drink water from a puddle near the 
well. Nikolai Petrovich began to watch it, but his ear had 
already caught the sound of approaching wheels…
“It sounds as if they’re coming, sir,” announced the 
servant, emerging from the gateway.
Nikolai Petrovich jumped up and fixed his eyes on 
the road. A carriage appeared with three posting horses 

abreast; inside it he caught a glimpse of the band of a 
student’s cap and the familiar outline of a dear face…
“Arkasha! Arkasha!” cried Kirsanov, and he ran out 
into the road, waving his arms… A few moments later 
his lips were pressed to the beardless dusty sunburnt 
cheek of the young graduate.

Chapter 2

“Let me shake myself first, daddy,” said Arkady, 
in a voice rather tired from traveling but boyish and 
resonant, as he responded gaily to his father’s greetings; “I’m covering you with dust.”
“Never mind, never mind,” repeated Nikolai Petrovich, smiling tenderly, and struck the collar of his son’s 
cloak and his own greatcoat with his hand. “Let me 
have a look at you; just show yourself,” he added, moving back from him, and then hurried away towards the 
station yard, calling out, “This way, this way, bring the 
horses along at once.
Nikolai Petrovich seemed much more excited than 
his son; he was really rather confused and shy. Arkady 
stopped him.
“Daddy,” he said, “let me introduce you to my great 
friend, Bazarov, about whom I wrote to you so often. 
He has kindly agreed to come to stay with us.”

Nikolai Petrovich turned round quickly and going 
up to a tall man in a long, loose rough coat with tassels, 
who had just climbed out of the carriage, he warmly 
pressed the ungloved red hand which the latter did 
not at once hold out to him.
“I am delighted,” he began, “and grateful for your 
kind intention to visit us; I hope — please tell me your 
name and patronymic.”
“Evgeny Vassilyev,” answered Bazarov in a lazy but 
manly voice, and turning back the collar of his rough 
overcoat he showed his whole face. It was long and thin 
with a broad forehead, a nose flat at the base and sharper 
at the end, large greenish eyes and sand-colored, drooping side whiskers; it was enlivened by a calm smile and 
looked self-confident and intelligent.
“I hope, my dear Evgeny Vassilich, that you won’t be 
bored staying with us,” continued Nikolai Petrovich.
Bazarov’s thin lips moved slightly, but he made no 
answer and merely took off his cap. His fair hair, long 
and thick, did not hide the prominent bumps on his 
broad skull.
“Well, Arkady,” Nikolai Petrovich began again, 
turning to his son, “would you rather have the horses 
brought round at once or would you like to rest?”
“We’ll rest at home, Daddy; tell them to harness the 
horses.”

“At once, at once,” his father exclaimed. “Hey, Pyotr, 
do you hear? Get a move on, my boy.” Pyotr, who as a 
perfectly modern servant had not kissed his master’s 
hand but only bowed to him from a distance, vanished 
again through the gates.
“I came here with the carriage, but there are three 
horses for your tarantass also,” said Nikolai Petrovich 
fussily, while Arkady drank some water from an iron 
bucket brought to him by the woman in charge of the 
station, and Bazarov began smoking a pipe and went 
up to the driver, who was unharnessing the horses. 
“There are only two seats in the carriage, and I don’t 
know how your friend…”
“He will go in the tarantass,” interrupted Arkady 
in an undertone. “Don’t stand on ceremony with him, 
please. He’s a splendid fellow, so simple — you will 
see.”
Nikolai Petrovich’s coachman brought the horses 
round.
“Well, make haste, bushy beard!” said Bazarov, addressing the driver.
“Do you hear, Mitya,” chipped in another driver, 
standing with his hands behind him thrust into the 
slits of his sheepskin coat, “what the gentleman just 
called you? That’s just what you are — a bushy beard.”
Mitya only jerked his hat and pulled the reins off 
the steaming horses.