bye to every
one.... What now? embracing, eh?'

Arkady flung himself on the neck of his former leader and friend, and
the tears fairly gushed from his eyes.

'That's what comes of being young!' Bazarov commented calmly. 'But I
rest my hopes on Katerina Sergyevna. You'll see how quickly she'll
console you! Good-bye, brother!' he said to Arkady when he had got into
the light cart, and, pointing to a pair of jackdaws sitting side by
side on the stable roof, he added, 'That's for you! follow that
example.'

'What does that mean?' asked Arkady.

'What? Are you so weak in natural history, or have you forgotten that
the jackdaw is a most respectable family bird? An example to you!...
Good-bye!'

The cart creaked and rolled away.

Bazarov had spoken truly. In talking that evening with Katya, Arkady
completely forgot about his former teacher. He already began to follow
her lead, and Katya was conscious of this, and not surprised at it. He
was to set off the next day for Maryino, to see Nikolai Petrovitch.
Anna Sergyevna was not disposed to put any constraint on the young
people, and only on account of the proprieties did not leave them by
themselves for too long together. She magnanimously kept the princess
out of their way; the latter had been reduced to a state of tearful
frenzy by the news of the proposed marriage. At first Anna Sergyevna
was afraid the sight of their happiness might prove rather trying to
herself, but it turned out quite the other way; this sight not only did
not distress her, it interested her, it even softened her at last. Anna
Sergyevna felt both glad and sorry at this. 'It is clear that Bazarov
was right,' she thought; 'it has been curiosity, nothing but curiosity,
and love of ease, and egoism ...'

'Children,' she said aloud, 'what do you say, is love a purely
imaginary feeling?'

But neither Katya nor Arkady even understood her. They were shy with
her; the fragment of conversation they had involuntarily overheard
haunted their minds. But Anna Sergyevna soon set their minds at rest;
and it was not difficult for her--she had set her own mind at rest.

CHAPTER XXVII

Bazarov's old parents were all the more overjoyed by their son's
arrival, as it was quite unexpected. Arina Vlasyevna was greatly
excited, and kept running backwards and forwards in the house, so that
Vassily Ivanovitch compared her to a 'hen partridge'; the short tail of
her abbreviated jacket did, in fact, give her som