Nikolai and Pavel go to speak to the overseer; Pavel realizes that his brother is not handling the farm correctly but is unable to point out any errors in the management. Even though he has in the past been able to supply money for running the farm, at the present moment he has no extra money to spare and therefore he leaves his brother. Pavel goes to talk to Fenichka, but she is afraid of the cold and distant “aristocratic gentleman.”
Pavel wants to see the child and Fenichka goes to bring it. Pavel notes that Fenichka keeps a very neat and orderly house. When she returns with the child, Pavel admires it and Nikolai arrives. Pavel immediately leaves Nikolai, who remembers how he had met his mistress. He had once stopped for an evening at an inn and found it exceptionally well kept and neat. He asked the innkeeper’s domestic servant to come and be his housekeeper. The woman agreed and brought her young daughter, Fenichka, with her. After a few years, the woman died of cholera, leaving the young girl alone. Nikolai, who had grown fond of Fenichka, asked her to remain and be his companion.
Meanwhile, Pavel has returned to his study, where he stares at the ceiling “with an almost desperate expression.”
The same day, Bazarov also meets Fenichka. He is out in the arbor with Arkady and notices that Fenichka is a very pretty girl. Arkady is pleased for his father’s sake, because as Bazarov says, Nikolai is no fool for attaching himself to this girl. Bazarov plays with the child and enjoys it very much.
As Bazarov and Arkady leave, they discuss the miserable condition of the farm. They discuss various views of nature, and Bazarov rejects the romantic conception of nature being a temple, and calls it instead a workshop in which man can work and educate himself As they approach the house, they hear someone playing Schubert’s “Die Erwartung” on the cello, and when Bazarov discovers that it is Nikolai playing it, he bursts out laughing over the incongruous fact of a country farmer in a distant province playing such a piece of classical music.
