tiful dark eyes, nothing was reflected but the light of the
stars. He was not born an idealist, and his fastidiously dry and
sensuous soul, with its French tinge of cynicism was not capable of
dreaming....

'Do you know what?' Bazarov was saying to Arkady the same night. 'I've
got a splendid idea. Your father was saying to-day that he'd had an
invitation from your illustrious relative. Your father's not going; let
us be off to X----; you know the worthy man invites you too. You see
what fine weather it is; we'll stroll about and look at the town. We'll
have five or six days' outing, and enjoy ourselves.'

'And you'll come back here again?'

'No; I must go to my father's. You know, he lives about twenty-five
miles from X----. I've not seen him for a long while, and my mother
too; I must cheer the old people up. They've been good to me,
especially my father; he's awfully funny. I'm their only one too.'

'And will you be long with them?'

'I don't suppose so. It will be dull, of course.'

'And you'll come to us on your way back?'

'I don't know ... I'll see. Well, what do you say? Shall we go?'

'If you like,' observed Arkady languidly.

In his heart he was highly delighted with his friend's suggestion, but
he thought it a duty to conceal his feeling. He was not a nihilist for
nothing!

The next day he set off with Bazarov to X----. The younger part of the
household at Maryino were sorry at their going; Dunyasha even cried ...
but the old folks breathed more easily.

CHAPTER XII

The town of X---- to which our friends set off was in the jurisdiction
of a governor who was a young man, and at once a progressive and a
despot, as often happens with Russians. Before the end of the first
year of his government, he had managed to quarrel not only with the
marshal of nobility, a retired officer of the guards, who kept open
house and a stud of horses, but even with his own subordinates. The
feuds arising from this cause assumed at last such proportions that the
ministry in Petersburg had found it necessary to send down a trusted
personage with a commission to investigate it all on the spot. The
choice of the authorities fell upon Matvy Ilyitch Kolyazin, the son of
the Kolyazin, under whose protection the brothers Kirsanov had once
found themselves. He, too, was a 'young man'; that is to say, he had
not long passed forty, but he was already on the high road to becoming
a statesman, and wore a star on each side