his whole life on one card--a woman's love--and when
that card fails, turns sour, and lets himself go till he's fit for
nothing, is not a man, but a male. You say he's unhappy; you ought to
know best; to be sure, he's not got rid of all his fads. I'm convinced
that he solemnly imagines himself a superior creature because he reads
that wretched _Galignani_, and once a month saves a peasant from a
flogging.'

'But remember his education, the age in which he grew up,' observed
Arkady.

'Education?' broke in Bazarov. 'Every man must educate himself, just as
I've done, for instance.... And as for the age, why should I depend on
it? Let it rather depend on me. No, my dear fellow, that's all
shallowness, want of backbone! And what stuff it all is, about these
mysterious relations between a man and woman? We physiologists know
what these relations are. You study the anatomy of the eye; where does
the enigmatical glance you talk about come in there? That's all
romantic, nonsensical, aesthetic rot. We had much better go and look at
the beetle.'

And the two friends went off to Bazarov's room, which was already
pervaded by a sort of medico-surgical odour, mingled with the smell of
cheap tobacco.

CHAPTER VIII

Pavel Petrovitch did not long remain present at his brother's interview
with his bailiff, a tall, thin man with a sweet consumptive voice and
knavish eyes, who to all Nikolai Petrovitch's remarks answered,
'Certainly, sir,' and tried to make the peasants out to be thieves and
drunkards. The estate had only recently been put on to the new reformed
system, and the new mechanism worked, creaking like an ungreased wheel,
warping and cracking like homemade furniture of unseasoned wood.
Nikolai Petrovitch did not lose heart, but often he sighed, and was
gloomy; he felt that the thing could not go on without money, and his
money was almost all spent. Arkady had spoken the truth; Pavel
Petrovitch had more than once helped his brother; more than once,
seeing him struggling and cudgelling his brains, at a loss which way to
turn, Pavel Petrovitch moved deliberately to the window, and with his
hands thrust into his pockets, muttered between his teeth, '_mais je
puis vous de l'argent_,' and gave him money; but to-day he had none
himself, and he preferred to go away. The petty details of agricultural
management worried him; besides, it constantly struck him that Nikolai
Petrovitch, for all his zeal and industry, did not se