mmented Bazarov. 'You
can see at once that he was a great Latinist in his day! Why, I seem to
remember, you gained the silver medal for Latin prose--didn't you?'

'The Dioscuri, the Dioscuri!' repeated Vassily Ivanovitch.

'Come, shut up, father; don't show off.'

'Once in a way it's surely permissible,' murmured the old man.
'However, I have not been seeking for you, gentlemen, to pay you
compliments; but with the object, in the first place, of announcing to
you that we shall soon be dining; and secondly, I wanted to prepare
you, Yevgeny.... You are a sensible man, you know the world, and you
know what women are, and consequently you will excuse.... Your mother
wished to have a Te Deum sung on the occasion of your arrival. You must
not imagine that I am inviting you to attend this thanksgiving--it is
over indeed now; but Father Alexey ...'

'The village parson?'

'Well, yes, the priest; he ... is to dine ... with us.... I did not
anticipate this, and did not even approve of it ... but it somehow came
about ... he did not understand me.... And, well ... Arina Vlasyevna
... Besides, he's a worthy, reasonable man.'

'He won't eat my share at dinner, I suppose?' queried Bazarov.

Vassily Ivanovitch laughed. 'How you talk!'

'Well, that's all I ask. I'm ready to sit down to table with any man.'

Vassily Ivanovitch set his hat straight. 'I was certain before I
spoke,' he said, 'that you were above any kind of prejudice. Here am I,
an old man at sixty-two, and I have none.' (Vassily Ivanovitch did not
dare to confess that he had himself desired the thanksgiving service.
He was no less religious than his wife.) 'And Father Alexey very much
wanted to make your acquaintance. You will like him, you'll see. He's
no objection even to cards, and he sometimes--but this is between
ourselves ... positively smokes a pipe.'

'All right. We'll have a round of whist after dinner, and I'll clean
him out.'

'He! he! he! We shall see! That remains to be seen.'

'I know you're an old hand,' said Bazarov, with a peculiar emphasis.

Vassily Ivanovitch's bronzed cheeks were suffused with an uneasy flush.

'For shame, Yevgeny.... Let bygones be bygones. Well, I'm ready to
acknowledge before this gentleman I had that passion in my youth; and I
have paid for it too! How hot it is, though! Let me sit down with you.
I shan't be in your way, I hope?'

'Oh, not at all,' answered Arkady.

Vassily Ivanovitch lowered himself, sighing, in