tain that
all people are alike, and it's not worth while to study them. I will
tell you my life some time or other ... but first you tell me yours.'

'I know you very little,' repeated Bazarov. 'Perhaps you are right;
perhaps, really, every one is a riddle. You, for instance; you avoid
society, you are oppressed by it, and you have invited two students to
stay with you. What makes you, with your intellect, with your beauty,
live in the country?'

'What? What was it you said?' Madame Odintsov interposed eagerly. 'With
my ... beauty?'

Bazarov scowled. 'Never mind that,' he muttered; 'I meant to say that I
don't exactly understand why you have settled in the country?'

'You don't understand it.... But you explain it to yourself in some
way?'

'Yes ... I assume that you remain continually in the same place because
you indulge yourself, because you are very fond of comfort and ease,
and very indifferent to everything else.'

Madame Odintsov smiled again. 'You would absolutely refuse to believe
that I am capable of being carried away by anything?'

Bazarov glanced at her from under his brows.

'By curiosity, perhaps; but not otherwise.'

'Really? Well, now I understand why we are such friends; you are just
like me, you see.'

'We are such friends ...' Bazarov articulated in a choked voice.

'Yes!... Why, I'd forgotten you wanted to go away.'

Bazarov got up. The lamp burnt dimly in the middle of the dark,
luxurious, isolated room; from time to time the blind was shaken, and
there flowed in the freshness of the insidious night; there was heard
its mysterious whisperings. Madame Odintsov did not move in a single
limb; but she was gradually possessed by concealed emotion.

It communicated itself to Bazarov. He was suddenly conscious that he
was alone with a young and lovely woman....

'Where are you going?' she said slowly.

He answered nothing, and sank into a chair.

'And so you consider me a placid, pampered, spoiled creature,' she went
on in the same voice, never taking her eyes off the window. 'While I
know so much about myself, that I am unhappy.'

'You unhappy? What for? Surely you can't attach any importance to idle
gossip?'

Madame Odintsov frowned. It annoyed her that he had given such a
meaning to her words.

'Such gossip does not affect me, Yevgeny Vassilyitch, and I am too
proud to allow it to disturb me. I am unhappy because ... I have no
desires, no passion for life. You look at me incred