“We’ll soon see to what species of mammal this specimen belongs,” Bazarov said to Arkady the following day as they mounted the staircase of the hotel where Madame Odintsov was staying. “I can smell something wrong here.”

“I’m surprised at you,” cried Arkady. “What? You, of all people, Bazarov, clinging to that narrow morality which . . .”

“What a funny fellow you are!” said Bazarov carelessly, cutting him short. “Don’t you know that in my dialect and for my purpose ‘something wrong’ means ‘something right’? That’s just my advantage. Didn’t you tell me yourself this morning that she made a strange marriage, though, to my mind to marry a rich old man is far from a strange thing to do — but on the contrary, sensible enough. I don’t believe the gossip of the town, but I should like to think, as our enlightened governor says, that it’s just.”

Arkady made no answer, and knocked at the door of the apartment. A young servant in livery ushered the two friends into a large room, furnished in bad taste like all Russian hotel rooms, but filled with flowers. Madame Odintsov soon appeared in a simple morning dress. In the light of the spring sunshine she looked even younger than before. Arkady introduced Bazarov, and noticed with concealed astonishment that he seemed embarrassed, while Madame Odintsov remained perfectly calm, as she had been on the previous day. Bazarov was himself conscious of feeling embarrassed and was annoyed about it. “What an idea! Frightened of a female,” he thought, and lolling in an armchair, quite like Sitnikov, he began to talk in an exaggeratedly casual manner, while Madame Odintsov kept her clear eyes fixed on him.

Anna Sergeyevna Odintsova was the daughter of Sergei Nikolayevich Loktev, notorious for his personal beauty, speculations and gambling, who after fifteen years of a stormy and sensational life in Petersburg and Moscow, ended by ruining himself completely at cards and was obliged to retire to the country, where soon afterwards he died, leaving a very small property to his two daughters — Anna, a girl of twenty at that time, and Katya, a child of twelve. Their mother, who belonged to an impoverished princely family, had died in Petersburg while her husband was still in his heyday. Anna’s position after her father’s death was a very difficult one. The brilliant education which she had received in Petersburg had not fitted her for the cares of domestic and household economy — nor for an obscure life buried in the country. She knew no one in the whole neighborhood, and there was no one she could consult. Her father had tried to avoid all contact with his neighbors; he despised them in his way and they despised him in theirs. However, she did not lose her head, and promptly sent for a sister of her mother’s, Princess Avdotya Stepanovna X. — a spiteful, arrogant old lady who, on installing herself in her niece’s house, appropriated the best rooms for herself, grumbled and scolded from morning till night and refused to walk a step, even in the garden, without being attended by her one and only serf, a surly footman in a threadbare pea-green livery with light-blue trimming and a three-cornered hat. Anna patiently put up with all her aunt’s caprices, gradually set to work on her sister’s education and, it seemed, was already reconciled to the idea of fading away in the wilderness . . . But fate had decreed otherwise. She happened to be seen by a certain Odintsov, a wealthy man of forty-six, an eccentric hypochondriac, swollen, heavy and sour, but not stupid and quite good-natured; he fell in love with her and proposed marriage. She agreed to become his wife, and they lived together for six years; then he died, leaving her all his property. For nearly a year after his death Anna Sergeyevna remained in the country; then she went abroad with her sister, but stayed only in Germany; she soon grew tired of it and came back to live at her beloved Nikolskoe, nearly thirty miles from the town of X. Her house was magnificent, luxuriously furnished and had a beautiful garden with conservatories; her late husband had spared no expense to gratify his wishes. Anna Sergeyevna rarely visited the town, and as a rule only on business; even then she did not stay long. She was not popular in the province; there had been a fearful outcry when she married Odintsov; all sorts of slanderous stories were invented about her; it was asserted that she had helped her father in his gambling escapades and even that she had gone abroad for a special reason to conceal some unfortunate consequences ............