Many of us certainly have feelings like that; but while these two
intellectuals are endeavouring to analyse happiness, and losing it in
the process of analysis, the two young lovers, Arkady and Katya, whose
brows are never furrowed by cerebration, are finding happiness in the
familiar human way. In answer to his declaration of love, she smiled
at him through her tears. "No one who has not seen those tears in the
eyes of the beloved, knows yet to what a point, faint with shame and
gratitude, a man may be happy on earth."

Although the character of Bazarov dominates the whole novel, Turgenev
has, I think, displayed genius of a still higher order in the creation
of that simple-minded pair of peasants, the father and mother of the
young nihilist. These two are old-fashioned, absolutely pious,
dwelling in a mental world millions of miles removed from that of
their son; they have not even a remote idea of what is passing in his
mind, but they look on him with adoration, and believe him to be the
greatest man in all Russia. At the end of a wonderful sketch of the
mother, Turgenev says: "Such women are not common nowadays. God knows
whether we ought to rejoice!"

This humble pair, whom another novelist might have treated with scorn,
are glorified here by their infinite love for their son. Such love as
that seems indeed too great for earth, too great for time, and to
belong only to eternity. The unutterable pathos of this love consists
in the fact that it is made up so largely of fear. They fear their son
as only ignorant parents can fear their educated offspring; it is
something that I have seen often, that every one must have observed,
that arouses the most poignant sympathy in those that understand it.
It is the fear that the boy will be bored at home; that he is longing
for more congenial companionship elsewhere; that the very solicitude