alicious
mournfulness, 'You are here,' he retreated. Fenitchka at once gathered
up all her roses and went out of the arbour. 'It was wrong of you,
Yevgeny Vassilyevitch,' she whispered as she went. There was a note of
genuine reproach in her whisper.

Bazarov remembered another recent scene, and he felt both shame and
contemptuous annoyance. But he shook his head directly, ironically
congratulated himself 'on his final assumption of the part of the gay
Lothario,' and went off to his own room.

Pavel Petrovitch went out of the garden, and made his way with
deliberate steps to the copse. He stayed there rather a long while; and
when he returned to lunch, Nikolai Petrovitch inquired anxiously
whether he were quite well--his face looked so gloomy.

'You know, I sometimes suffer with my liver,' Pavel Petrovitch answered
tranquilly.

CHAPTER XXIV

Two hours later he knocked at Bazarov's door.

'I must apologise for hindering you in your scientific pursuits,' he
began, seating himself on a chair in the window, and leaning with both
hands on a handsome walking-stick with an ivory knob (he usually walked
without a stick), 'but I am constrained to beg you to spare me five
minutes of your time ... no more.'

'All my time is at your disposal,' answered Bazarov, over whose face
there passed a quick change of expression directly Pavel Petrovitch
crossed the threshold.

'Five minutes will be enough for me. I have come to put a single
question to you.'

'A question? What is it about?'

'I will tell you, if you will kindly hear me out. At the commencement
of your stay in my brother's house, before I had renounced the pleasure
of conversing with you, it was my fortune to hear your opinions on many
subjects; but so far as my memory serves, neither between us, nor in my
presence, was the subject of single combats and duelling in general
broached. Allow me to hear what are your views on that subject?'

Bazarov, who had risen to meet Pavel Petrovitch, sat down on the edge
of the table and folded his arms.

'My view is,' he said, 'that from the theoretical standpoint, duelling
is absurd; from the practical standpoint, now--it's quite a different
matter.'

'That is, you mean to say, if I understand you right, that whatever
your theoretical views on duelling, you would not in practice allow
yourself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction?'

'You have guessed my meaning absolutely.'

'Very good. I am very glad