t--a kiss? There
must be something else in it. Bah! isn't he perhaps in love with her
himself? To be sure, he's in love; it's as clear as day. What a
complication! It's a nuisance!' he decided at last; 'it's a bad job,
look at it which way you will. In the first place, to risk a bullet
through one's brains, and in any case to go away; and then Arkady ...
and that dear innocent pussy, Nikolai Petrovitch. It's a bad job, an
awfully bad job.'

The day passed in a kind of peculiar stillness and languor. Fenitchka
gave no sign of her existence; she sat in her little room like a mouse
in its hole. Nikolai Petrovitch had a careworn air. He had just heard
that blight had begun to appear in his wheat, upon which he had in
particular rested his hopes. Pavel Petrovitch overwhelmed every one,
even Prokofitch, with his icy courtesy. Bazarov began a letter to his
father, but tore it up, and threw it under the table.

'If I die,' he thought, 'they will find it out; but I'm not going to
die. No, I shall struggle along in this world a good while yet.' He
gave Piotr orders to come to him on important business the next morning
directly it was light. Piotr imagined that he wanted to take him to
Petersburg with him. Bazarov went late to bed, and all night long he
was harassed by disordered dreams.... Madame Odintsov kept appearing in
them, now she was his mother, and she was followed by a kitten with
black whiskers, and this kitten seemed to be Fenitchka; then Pavel
Petrovitch took the shape of a great wood, with which he had yet to
fight. Piotr waked him up at four o'clock; he dressed at once, and went
out with him.

It was a lovely, fresh morning; tiny flecked clouds hovered overhead in
little curls of foam on the pale clear blue; a fine dew lay in drops on
the leaves and grass, and sparkled like silver on the spiders' webs;
the damp, dark earth seemed still to keep traces of the rosy dawn; from
the whole sky the songs of larks came pouring in showers. Bazarov
walked as far as the copse, sat down in the shade at its edge, and only
then disclosed to Piotr the nature of the service he expected of him.
The refined valet was mortally alarmed; but Bazarov soothed him by the
assurance that he would have nothing to do but stand at a distance and
look on, and that he would not incur any sort of responsibility. 'And
meantime,' he added, 'only think what an important part you have to
play!' Piotr threw up his hands, looked down, and leaned again