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his master was pointing. Several carts drawn by horses with no bridles were clattering along a narrow
track. Each held one or at most two peasants, in open sheepskin coats.
    ‘Indeed they are, sir,’ pronounced Pyotr.
    ‘Where are they going, to the town?’
    ‘One must assume so. To the tavern,’ he added scornfully, inclining slightly towards the driver as if asking for his opinion.
     But the driver didn’t stir. He was a fellow of the old school and didn’t hold with new-fangled views.
    ‘I’m having a lot of trouble with the peasants this year,’ Nikolay Petrovich went on, turning to his son. ‘They aren’t paying
     their quit-rent. 1 What can we do?’
    ‘And are you happy with the hired labourers?’
    ‘Yes,’ Nikolay Petrovich said in a low voice. ‘The trouble is that people are getting at them. And there is still no real
     will to work. They are ruining the harnesses. But their ploughing hasn’t been too bad. It’ll all come right in the end. So
     are you becoming interested in farming?’
    ‘It’s such a pity you’ve no shade at home,’ Arkady remarked, not answering the last question.
    ‘I’ve put up a big awning above the balcony on the north side,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘Now we can have dinner outside.’
    ‘It’ll look pretty suburban… but none of that matters. The air is so good here! It smells so wonderful! I really think there’s
     nowhere in the world where the air smells as good as in this bit of country! And the sky…’
    Arkady suddenly stopped speaking, looked surreptitiously behind him out of the corner of his eye and fell silent.
    ‘Of course,’ remarked Nikolay Petrovich, ‘you were born here, so everything here must seem special to you…’
    ‘But, Papa, it makes no difference where a man is born.’
    ‘Still…’
    ‘No, it makes absolutely no difference.’
    Nikolay Petrovich looked sideways at his son and the carriage went another quarter of a mile before their conversation resumed.
    ‘I can’t remember if I wrote to tell you,’ Nikolay Petrovich began, ‘your old nanny Yegorovna died.’

    ‘Did she? Poor old woman! And is Prokofyich still alive?’
    ‘He is and he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s just as grumpy. Generally speaking you won’t find big changes at Marino.’
    ‘Do you still have the same bailiff?’ 2
    ‘I’ve changed my bailiff. I decided I wouldn’t any longer employ old house serfs 3 who’d been freed, or at any rate I wouldn’t give them jobs involving responsibility.’ (Arkady looked meaningfully at Pyotr.)
     ‘
Il est libre, en effet
,’ 4 Nikolay Petrovich said in a low voice, ‘but he’s just a valet. My new bailiff’s a townsman. 5 He seems a sensible fellow. I’m giving him 250 roubles a year. 6 By the way,’ added Nikolay Petrovich, rubbing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand, which with him was always a sign of
     embarrassment, ‘I told you just now you wouldn’t find any changes at Marino… That’s not quite true. I feel I ought to warn
     you, although…’
    He faltered for a moment and went on, now speaking in French.
    ‘A strict moralist would find my frankness inappropriate, but firstly this is something which can’t be concealed, and secondly
     you know I’ve always had definite principles about the relationship of father and son. Of course you are quite entitled to
     condemn me. At my age… In a word, the… the girl, of whom you’ve probably already heard…’
    ‘You mean Fenechka?’ Arkady asked, casually.
    Nikolay Petrovich went red.
    ‘Please don’t say her name so loudly… Well, yes… she’s now living with me. I’ve put her in the main house… there were two
     small rooms free. But all that can be changed.’
    ‘For goodness’ sake, Papa, why?’
    ‘Your friend will be staying with us… it’s awkward…’
    ‘Please don’t worry about Bazarov. He’s above that kind of thing.’
    ‘And then there’s you,’ said Nikolay Petrovich. ‘The trouble is the rooms in the