_"Passons,"_ he began again, five minutes later. "I don't understand Turgenev. That Bazarov of his is a fictitious figure, it does not exist anywhere. The fellows themselves were the first to disown him as unlike anyone. That Bazarov is a sort of indistinct mixture of Nozdryov and Byron, _c'est le mot._ Look at them attentively: they caper about and squeal with joy like puppies in the sun. They are happy, they are victorious! What is there of Byron in them!... and with that, such ordinariness! What a low-bred, irritable vanity! What an abject craving to _faire du bruit autour de son nom,_ without noticing that _son nom...._ Oh, it's a caricature! 'Surely,' I cried to him, 'you don't want to offer yourself just as you are as a substitute for Christ?' _Il rit. Il rit beaucoup. Il rit trop._ He has a strange smile. His mother had not a smile like that. _Il rit toujours._" Silence followed again. "They are cunning; they were acting in collusion on Sunday," he blurted out suddenly.... "Oh, not a doubt of it," I cried, pricking up my ears. "It was a got-up thing and it was too transparent, and so badly acted." "I don't mean that. Do you know that it was all too transparent on purpose, that those... who had to, might understand it. Do you understand that?" "I don't understand." "_Tant mieux; passons._ I am very irritable to-day." "But why have you been arguing with him, Stepan Trofimovitch?" I asked him reproachfully. "_Je voulais convertir_--you'll laugh of course--_cette pauvre_ auntie, _elle entendra de belles choses!_ Oh, my dear boy, would you believe it. I felt like a patriot. I always recognised that I was a Russian, however... a genuine Russian must be like you and me. _Il y a là dedans quelque chose d'aveugle et de louche._" "Not a doubt of it," I assented. "My dear, the real truth always sounds improbable, do you know that? To make truth sound probable you must always mix in some falsehood with it. Men have always done so. Perhaps there's something in it that passes our understanding. What do you think: is there something we don't understand in that triumphant squeal? I should like to think there was. I should like to think so."