d in the most
circumspect manner to question Bazarov about his work, about his
health, and about Arkady.... But Bazarov's replies were reluctant and
casual; and, once noticing that his father was trying gradually to lead
up to something in conversation, he said to him in a tone of vexation:
'Why do you always seem to be walking round me on tiptoe? That way's
worse than the old one.'--'There, there, I meant nothing!' poor Vassily
Ivanovitch answered hurriedly. So his diplomatic hints remained
fruitless. He hoped to awaken his son's sympathy one day by beginning
_a propos_ of the approaching emancipation of the peasantry, to talk
about progress; but the latter responded indifferently: 'Yesterday I
was walking under the fence, and I heard the peasant boys here, instead
of some old ballad, bawling a street song. That's what progress is.'

Sometimes Bazarov went into the village, and in his usual bantering
tone entered into conversation with some peasant: 'Come,' he would say
to him, 'expound your views on life to me, brother; you see, they say
all the strength and future of Russia lies in your hands, a new epoch
in history will be started by you--you give us our real language and
our laws.'

The peasant either made no reply, or articulated a few words of this
sort, 'Well, we'll try ... because, you see, to be sure....'

'You explain to me what your _mir_ is,' Bazarov interrupted; 'and is it
the same _mir_ that is said to rest on three fishes?'

'That, little father, is the earth that rests on three fishes,' the
peasant would declare soothingly, in a kind of patriarchal,
simple-hearted sing-song; 'and over against ours, that's to say, the
_mir_, we know there's the master's will; wherefore you are our
fathers. And the stricter the master's rule, the better for the
peasant.'

After listening to such a reply one day, Bazarov shrugged his shoulders
contemptuously and turned away, while the peasant sauntered slowly
homewards.

'What was he talking about?' inquired another peasant of middle age and
surly aspect, who at a distance from the door of his hut had been
following his conversation with Bazarov.--'Arrears? eh?'

'Arrears, no indeed, mate!' answered the first peasant, and now there
was no trace of patriarchal singsong in his voice; on the contrary,
there was a certain scornful gruffness to be heard in it: 'Oh, he
clacked away about something or other; wanted to stretch his tongue a
bit. Of course, he's a gentleman