Nikolai wonders at the distance between him and his son. He looks the landscape for emotional consolation, noticing the birdsong and the “pale blue sky, reddened by the sunset,” which brings quiet daydreams about his late wife, their courtship, and happy marriage (45). Fenechka’s voice shatters the reverie, and he is once more an anxious older man: “oh how Bazarov would have made fun of him, if he’d known what he was feeling at that moment” (47). Nikolai tries to explain his state of mind to his brother, but the self-involved and unimaginative Pavel is largely unmoved (47).

Bazarov asks Arkady to go to town to visit Nikolai’s recently arrived civil service relative, as the older people will not be there. It will be a diversion before Bazarov faces his own parents, where “I’ll probably get bored” (47). Bazarov does not answer Arkady about whether he plans to return to Marino after his family visit.

Though Arkady is “delighted” with the proposal, he “considered it his obligation to conceal his emotions. It is not for nothing that he was a nihilist!” (48).