dy, drawing
himself up.

'Unhappy boy!' wailed Pavel Petrovitch, he was positively incapable of
maintaining his firm demeanour any longer. 'If you could only realise
what it is you are doing for your country. No; it's enough to try the
patience of an angel! Force! There's force in the savage Kalmuck, in
the Mongolian; but what is it to us? What is precious to us is
civilisation; yes, yes, sir, its fruits are precious to us. And don't
tell me those fruits are worthless; the poorest dauber, _un
barbouilleur_, the man who plays dance music for five farthings an
evening, is of more use than you, because they are the representatives
of civilisation, and not of brute Mongolian force! You fancy yourselves
advanced people, and all the while you are only fit for the Kalmuck's
hovel! Force! And recollect, you forcible gentlemen, that you're only
four men and a half, and the others are millions, who won't let you
trample their sacred traditions under foot, who will crush you and walk
over you!'

'If we're crushed, serve us right,' observed Bazarov. 'But that's an
open question. We are not so few as you suppose.'

'What? You seriously suppose you will come to terms with a whole
people?'

'All Moscow was burnt down, you know, by a farthing dip,' answered
Bazarov.

'Yes, yes. First a pride almost Satanic, then ridicule--that, that's
what it is attracts the young, that's what gains an ascendancy over the
inexperienced hearts of boys! Here's one of them sitting beside you,
ready to worship the ground under your feet. Look at him! (Arkady
turned away and frowned.) And this plague has spread far already. I
have been told that in Rome our artists never set foot in the Vatican.
Raphael they regard as almost a fool, because, if you please, he's an
authority; while they're all the while most disgustingly sterile and
unsuccessful, men whose imagination does not soar beyond 'Girls at a
Fountain,' however they try! And the girls even out of drawing. They
are fine fellows to your mind, are they not?'

'To my mind,' retorted Bazarov, 'Raphael's not worth a brass farthing;
and they're no better than he.'

'Bravo! bravo! Listen, Arkady ... that's how young men of to-day ought
to express themselves! And if you come to think of it, how could they
fail to follow you! In old days, young men had to study; they didn't
want to be called dunces, so they had to work hard whether they liked
it or not. But now, they need only say, "Everything in the