FATHERS AND CHILDREN
what our young men of this generation are!
They are like that—our successors!'
' Our successors! * repeated Nikolai Petro-
vitch, with a dejected smile. He had been sit-
ting on thorns, all through the argument, and
had done nothing but glance stealthily, with a
sore heart, at Arkady. * Do you know what 1
was reminded of, brother ? I once had a dispute
with our poor mother; she stormed, and wouldn't
listen to me. At last I said to her, " Of course,
you can't understand me ; we belong/1 I said,
* to two different generations/* She was dread-
fully offended, while I thought, " There *s no
help for it. It's a bitter pill, but she has to
swallow it" You see, now, our turn has come,
and our successors can say to us, "You
are not of our generation; swallow your
pill."'
* You are beyond everything in your gener-
osity and modesty/ replied Pavel Petrovitch.
* I 'm convinced, on the contrary, that you and
I are far more in the right than these young
gentlemen, though we do perhaps express our-
selves in old-fashioned language, vieilli, and have
not the same insolent conceit , . . And the
swagger of the young men nowadays I You
ask one, *Do you take red wine or white ?"
a It is my custom to prefer red !" he answers
In a deep bass, with a face as solemn as if the
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