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‘Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?’

Musa stopped again.

‘Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I may say, I’ve come to love from being wretched and dull: and then Paramon Semyonitch with his offers of marriage…. Punin, though he bores me with his verses, he doesn’t scare me, anyway; he doesn’t make me read Karamzin in the evenings, when my head’s ready to drop off my shoulders for weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me cold, too. With them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make me–I shall go. Paramon Semyonitch himself’s always saying: Freedom! freedom! All right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! Freedom for every one else, and keeping me in a cage! I’ll tell him so myself. But if you betray me, or drop a hint–remember; they’ll never set eyes on me again!’

Musa stood in the middle of the path.

‘They’ll never set eyes on me again!’ she repeated sharply. This time, too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if any one looked her straight in the face…. And that was just why she did not lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then she stared straight at the person she was speaking to…. But her small pretty face was aglow with indomitable resolution.

‘Why, Tarhov was right,’ flashed through my head; ‘this girl is a new type.’

‘You’ve no need to be afraid of me,’ I declared, at last.

‘Truly? Even, if … You said something about our relations…. But even if there were …’ she broke off.

‘Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. I am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.’ I pointed to my bosom. ‘Believe me, I know how to appreciate …’

‘Have you got my letter?’ Musa asked suddenly.

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In my pocket.’

‘Give it here … quick, quick!’

I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; but suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, ran quickly down the hill.

I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the tower I discerned, wrapped in an ‘Almaviva’ (‘Almavivas’ were then in the height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov.

‘Aha, my boy,’ thought I, ‘you must have had notice, then, since you’re on the look-out.’

And whistling to myself, I started homewards.

* * * * *

Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he confined himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, luckily, the samovar had not been cleared away. ‘It’s with some trepidation and sinking of heart that I have come to see you,’ he said, as he nibbled a lump of sugar. ‘You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of your honoured grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have already communicated to you.’ Punin passed his finger along the frayed edge of his ancient coat. ‘At home it’s no matter, and in the street, too, it’s no harm; but when one finds one’s self in gilded palaces, one’s poverty stares one in the face, and one feels confused!’ I occupied two small rooms on the ground floor, and certainly it would never have entered any one’s head to call them palaces, still less gilded; but Punin apparently was referring to the whole of my grandmother’s house, though that too was by no means conspicuously sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them the previous day; ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ said he, ‘expected you, though he did declare that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, expected you.’