an enemy in the dark, whom he cannot see, but whose terrible blows
rain on his face. When he first meets her, he remarks to the shocked
Arkady, "What a magnificent body! Shouldn't I like to see it on the
dissecting table!" But he is unable long to admire her with such
scientific aloofness. "His blood was on fire directly if he merely
thought of her; he could easily have mastered his blood, but something
else was taking root in him, something he had never admitted, at which
he had always jeered, at which all his pride revolted." It is this
bewilderment at meeting the two things that are stronger than
life--love and death--that both stupefy and torture this superman. It
is the harsh amazement of one who, believing himself to be free,
discovers that he is really a slave. Just before he dies, he murmurs:
"You see what a hideous spectacle; the worm half-crushed, but writhing
still. And, you see I thought too: I'd break down so many things, I
wouldn't die, why should I! there were problems to solve, and I was a
giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently,
though that makes no difference to any one either. . . . I was needed
by Russia. . . . No, it's clear, I wasn't needed."

Madame Odintsov's profound and subtle remark about happiness is the
key to her character, and shows why she never could have been happy
with Bazarov, or have given him any happiness.

"We were talking of happiness, I believe. . . . Tell me why it is that
even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a fine evening, or a
conversation with sympathetic people, it all seems an intimation of
some measureless happiness existing apart somewhere rather than actual
happiness such, I mean, as we ourselves are in possession of? Why is
it? Or perhaps you have no feeling like that?"