an, and that's
all about it! Why do I like chemistry? Why do you like apples?--by
virtue of our sensations. It's all the same thing. Deeper than that men
will never penetrate. Not every one will tell you that, and, in fact, I
shan't tell you so another time.'

'What? and is honesty a matter of the senses?'

'I should rather think so.'

'Yevgeny!' Arkady was beginning in a dejected voice ...

'Well? What? Isn't it to your taste?' broke in Bazarov. 'No, brother.
If you've made up your mind to mow down everything, don't spare your
own legs. But we've talked enough metaphysics. "Nature breathes the
silence of sleep," said Pushkin.'

'He never said anything of the sort,' protested Arkady.

'Well, if he didn't, as a poet he might have--and ought to have said
it. By the way, he must have been a military man.'

'Pushkin never was a military man!'

'Why, on every page of him there's, "To arms! to arms! for Russia's
honour!"'

'Why, what stories you invent! I declare, it's positive calumny.'

'Calumny? That's a mighty matter! What a word he's found to frighten me
with! Whatever charge you make against a man, you may be certain he
deserves twenty times worse than that in reality.'

'We had better go to sleep,' said Arkady, in a tone of vexation.

'With the greatest pleasure,' answered Bazarov. But neither of them
slept. A feeling almost of hostility had come over both the young men.
Five minutes later, they opened their eyes and glanced at one another
in silence.

'Look,' said Arkady suddenly, 'a dry maple leaf has come off and is
falling to the earth; its movement is exactly like a butterfly's
flight. Isn't it strange? Gloom and decay--like brightness and life.'

'Oh, my friend, Arkady Nikolaitch!' cried Bazarov, 'one thing I entreat
of you; no fine talk.'

'I talk as best I can.... And, I declare, its perfect despotism. An
idea came into my head; why shouldn't I utter it?'

'Yes; and why shouldn't I utter my ideas? I think that fine talk's
positively indecent.'

'And what is decent? Abuse?'

'Ha! ha! you really do intend, I see, to walk in your uncle's
footsteps. How pleased that worthy imbecile would have been if he had
heard you!'

'What did you call Pavel Petrovitch?'

'I called him, very justly, an imbecile.'

'But this is unbearable!' cried Arkady.

'Aha! family feeling spoke there,' Bazarov commented coolly. 'I've
noticed how obstinately it sticks to people. A man's ready to give up
everything