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‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and knitting his brows.

‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, without taking off my cap.

‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’ Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation, young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room like this, without asking leave.’

I! … young man! … how dared he! … I grew crimson with fury.

‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’

‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right to come into other people’s rooms.’

‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m–at home here–everywhere.’

‘No, excuse me: here–I’m at home; since this room has been assigned to me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’

‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than you what …’

‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age when you … I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to go out of the room….’

There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest expressions of delight.

‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly, and going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me a visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there…. Why stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’

I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not afraid of you!

He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the towel–probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me!

What an insolent fellow your friend is!’ I said to Punin, directly the door had closed behind me.

Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me.

‘To whom did you apply that expression?’ he asked me, with round eyes.

‘Why, to him, of course…. What’s his name? that … Baburin.’

‘Paramon Semyonevitch?’

‘Why, yes; that … blackfaced fellow.’

‘Eh … eh … eh …!’ Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. ‘How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary person! To be sure, he won’t allow any disrespect to him, because–he knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge–and it’s not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, behave very courteously to him; do you know, he’s …’ here Punin bent down quite to my ear,–‘a republican!’

I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov’s manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the province of X—-, one could come across republicans–that upset all my notions, and utterly confounded them!

‘Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,’ repeated Punin; ‘there, so you’ll know for the future how one should speak of a man like that! But now let’s go into the garden. Fancy what I’ve found there! A cuckoo’s egg in a redstart’s nest! a lovely thing!’