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‘But with that I can’t agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I suppose, could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I … tremble before him.’

‘Oh, you–that’s a different matter.’

‘How is it a different matter? how? how?’ interrupted Punin. I simply did not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite dropped his rhythmic sing-song in speaking. ‘No,’ he declared; ‘I notice that you have not a good eye for character! No; you can’t read people’s hearts!’ I gave up contradicting him … and to give another turn to the conversation, proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read something together.

Punin was silent for a while.

‘One of the old poets? The real ones?’ he asked at last.

‘No; a new one.’

‘A new one?’ Punin repeated mistrustfully.

‘Pushkin,’ I answered. I suddenly thought of the Gypsies which Tarhov had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad about the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read Pushkin’s poem. The passage came at last, ‘old husband, cruel husband’; Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up impulsively.

‘I can’t,’ he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even me;–‘excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral slanderer; he is a liar … he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut short my visit to-day.’

I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having his own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several times that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air–and all the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, as though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I too went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov.

* * * * *

Without inquiring of any one, with a student’s usual lack of ceremony, I walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no one. I called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going to retreat; but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend appeared. He looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without speaking. I had come to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and though I felt at once that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, still, after talking a little about extraneous matters, I ended by informing him of Baburin’s intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of news did not, apparently, surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the table, and fixing his eyes intently upon me, and keeping silent as before, gave to his features an expression … an expression, as though he would say: ‘Well, what more have you to tell? Come, out with your ideas!’ I looked more attentively into his face…. It struck me as eager, a little ironical, a little arrogant even. But that did not hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On the contrary. ‘You’re showing off,’ was my thought; ‘so I am not going to spare you!’ And there and then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the mischief of yielding to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to respect the freedom and personal life of another man–in short, I proceeded to enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in this manner, I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did not interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his fingers on his chin.