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Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day to Tarhov’s, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: ‘Listen, Petya, my boy; I guess what you’ve come for, and what you want to talk about; but I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by common sense, we’re friends no longer, we’re not even acquainted, and I shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.’

I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him–and he of it.

* * * * *

‘Is that your final decision?’ I pronounced mournfully.

‘Yes, Petya, my boy, it’s final.’

‘In that case, there’s nothing for me but to say good-bye.’

Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids…. He was too happy at that moment.

‘Good-bye, Petya, old boy,’ he said, a little through his nose, with a candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth.

What was I to do? I left him to his ‘happiness.’ As I slammed the door after me, the other door of the room slammed also–I heard it.

* * * * *

It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless acquaintances. I secretly hoped–such is human weakness–that I should not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance.

I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined myself to whispering to Punin, ‘I have discovered nothing, and my advice to you is to give up all hope.’ Punin glanced at me with his swollen, red little eyes–the only red left in his face–muttered something inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate voice, ‘My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be happy,’ he added, with some effort; ‘and I humbly beg you not to allude to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.’