Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume IV).djvu/60



'What do you want frogs for, sir?' one of the boys asked him.

'I'll tell you what for,' answered Bazarov, who possessed the special faculty of inspiring confidence in people of a lower class, though he never tried to win them, and behaved very casually with them; 'I shall cut the frog open, and see what's going on in his inside, and then, as you and I are much the same as frogs, only that we walk on legs, I shall know what's going on inside us too.'

'And what do you want to know that for?'

'So as not to make a mistake, if you're taken ill, and I have to cure you.'

'Are you a doctor then?'

'Yes.'

'Vaska, do you hear, the gentleman says you and I are the same as frogs, that's funny!'

'I'm afraid of frogs,' observed Vaska, a boy of seven, with a head as white as flax, and bare feet, dressed in a grey smock with a stand-up collar.

'What is there to be afraid of? Do they bite?'

'There, paddle into the water, philosophers,' said Bazarov.

Meanwhile Nikolai Petrovitch too had waked up, and gone in to see Arkady, whom he found dressed. The father and son went out on to the terrace under the shelter of the awning;