Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume V).djvu/39

 listened to him, and could not make out what could be his special line. At one moment his talk was of the part played by the Celtic race in history; then he was carried away to the ancient world, and discoursed upon the Æginetan marbles, harangued with great warmth on the sculptor living in the time of Phidias, Onetas, who was, however, transformed by him into Jonathan, which lent his whole discourse a half-Biblical, half-American flavour; then he suddenly bounded away to political economy and called Bastiat a fool or a block-head, 'as bad as Adam Smith and all the physiocrats.' 'Physiocrats,' murmured Bambaev after him 'aristocrats?' Among other things Voroshilov called forth an expression of bewilderment on Bambaev's face by a criticism, dropped casually in passing, of Macaulay, as an old-fashioned writer, superseded by modern historical science; as for Gneist, he declared he need scarcely refer to him, and he shrugged his shoulders. Bambaev shrugged his shoulders too. 'And all this at once, without any inducement, before strangers, in a cafe'—Litvinov reflected, looking at the fair hair, clear eyes, and white teeth of his new acquaintance (he was specially embarrassed by those large sugar-white teeth, and those hands with their inappropriate gesticulations), 19