conversation idle gossip?... Or perhaps you
consider me as a woman unworthy of your confidence? I know you despise
us all.'

'I don't despise you, Anna Sergyevna, and you know that.'

'No, I don't know anything ... but let us suppose so. I understand your
disinclination to talk of your future career; but as to what is taking
place within you now ...'

'Taking place!' repeated Bazarov, 'as though I were some sort of
government or society! In any case, it is utterly uninteresting; and
besides, can a man always speak of everything that "takes place" in
him?'

'Why, I don't see why you can't speak freely of everything you have in
your heart.'

'Can _you_?' asked Bazarov.

'Yes,' answered Anna Sergyevna, after a brief hesitation.

Bazarov bowed his head. 'You are more fortunate than I am.'

Anna Sergyevna looked at him questioningly. 'As you please,' she went
on, 'but still something tells me that we have not come together for
nothing; that we shall be great friends. I am sure this--what should I
say, constraint, reticence in you will vanish at last.'

'So you have noticed reticence ... as you expressed it ... constraint?'

'Yes.'

Bazarov got up and went to the window. 'And would you like to know the
reason of this reticence? Would you like to know what is passing within
me?'

'Yes,' repeated Madame Odintsov, with a sort of dread she did not at
the time understand.

'And you will not be angry?'

'No.'

'No?' Bazarov was standing with his back to her. 'Let me tell you then
that I love you like a fool, like a madman.... There, you've forced it
out of me.'

Madame Odintsov held both hands out before her; but Bazarov was leaning
with his forehead pressed against the window pane. He breathed hard;
his whole body was visibly trembling. But it was not the tremor of
youthful timidity, not the sweet alarm of the first declaration that
possessed him; it was passion struggling in him, strong and
painful--passion not unlike hatred, and perhaps akin to it.... Madame
Odintsov felt both afraid and sorry for him.

'Yevgeny Vassilyitch!' she said, and there was the ring of unconscious
tenderness in her voice.

He turned quickly, flung a searching look on her, and snatching both
her hands, he drew her suddenly to his breast.

She did not at once free herself from his embrace, but an instant
later, she was standing far away in a corner, and looking from there at
Bazarov. He rushed at her ...

'You have misunderst