himself.

The servant, from a feeling of propriety, and perhaps, too, not anxious
to remain under the master's eye, had gone to the gate, and was smoking
a pipe. Nikolai Petrovitch bent his head, and began staring at the
crumbling steps; a big mottled fowl walked sedately towards him,
treading firmly with its great yellow legs; a muddy cat gave him an
unfriendly look, twisting herself coyly round the railing. The sun was
scorching; from the half-dark passage of the posting station came an
odour of hot rye-bread. Nikolai Petrovitch fell to dreaming. 'My son
... a graduate ... Arkasha ...' were the ideas that continually came
round again and again in his head; he tried to think of something else,
and again the same thoughts returned. He remembered his dead wife....
'She did not live to see it!' he murmured sadly. A plump, dark-blue
pigeon flew into the road, and hurriedly went to drink in a puddle near
the well. Nikolai Petrovitch began looking at it, but his ear had
already caught the sound of approaching wheels.

'It sounds as if they're coming sir,' announced the servant, popping in
from the gateway.

Nikolai Petrovitch jumped up, and bent his eyes on the road. A carriage
appeared with three posting-horses harnessed abreast; in the carriage
he caught a glimpse of the blue band of a student's cap, the familiar
outline of a dear face.

'Arkasha! Arkasha!' cried Kirsanov, and he ran waving his hands.... A
few instants later, his lips were pressed to the beardless, dusty,
sunburnt-cheek of the youthful graduate.

CHAPTER II

'Let me shake myself first, daddy,' said Arkady, in a voice tired from
travelling, but boyish and clear as a bell, as he gaily responded to
his father's caresses; 'I am covering you with dust.'

'Never mind, never mind,' repeated Nikolai Petrovitch, smiling
tenderly, and twice he struck the collar of his son's cloak and his own
greatcoat with his hand. 'Let me have a look at you; let me have a look
at you,' he added, moving back from him, but immediately he went with
hurried steps towards the yard of the station, calling, 'This way, this
way; and horses at once.'

Nikolai Petrovitch seemed far more excited than his son; he seemed a
little confused, a little timid. Arkady stopped him.

'Daddy,' he said, 'let me introduce you to my great friend, Bazarov,
about whom I have so often written to you. He has been so good as to
promise to stay with us.'

Nikolai Petrovitch went back quickl