ect
of his journey, Bazarov shut himself up in complete solitude; he was
overtaken by a fever for work. He did not dispute now with Pavel
Petrovitch, especially as the latter assumed an excessively
aristocratic demeanour in his presence, and expressed his opinions more
in inarticulate sounds than in words. Only on one occasion Pavel
Petrovitch fell into a controversy with the _nihilist_ on the subject
of the question then much discussed of the rights of the nobles of the
Baltic province; but suddenly he stopped of his own accord, remarking
with chilly politeness, 'However, we cannot understand one another; I,
at least, have not the honour of understanding you.'

'I should think not!' cried Bazarov. 'A man's capable of understanding
anything--how the aether vibrates, and what's going on in the sun--but
how any other man can blow his nose differently from him, that he's
incapable of understanding.'

'What, is that an epigram?' observed Pavel Petrovitch inquiringly, and
he walked away.

However, he sometimes asked permission to be present at Bazarov's
experiments, and once even placed his perfumed face, washed with the
very best soap, near the microscope to see how a transparent infusoria
swallowed a green speck, and busily munched it with two very rapid sort
of clappers which were in its throat. Nikolai Petrovitch visited
Bazarov much oftener than his brother; he would have come every day, as
he expressed it, to 'study,' if his worries on the farm had not taken
off his attention. He did not hinder the young man in his scientific
researches; he used to sit down somewhere in a corner of the room and
look on attentively, occasionally permitting himself a discreet
question. During dinner and supper-time he used to try to turn the
conversation upon physics, geology, or chemistry, seeing that all other
topics, even agriculture, to say nothing of politics, might lead, if
not to collisions, at least to mutual unpleasantness. Nikolai
Petrovitch surmised that his brother's dislike for Bazarov was no less.
An unimportant incident, among many others, confirmed his surmises. The
cholera began to make its appearance in some places in the
neighbourhood, and even 'carried off' two persons from Maryino itself.
In the night Pavel Petrovitch happened to have rather severe symptoms.
He was in pain till the morning, but did not have recourse to Bazarov's
skill. And when he met him the following day, in reply to his question,
'Why he had n