'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.'
'What? Musa Pavlovna too?' I queried.
'She too. She's a charming girl we have got with us, isn't she? What do you say?'
'Very charming,' I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with extraordinary rapidity.
'She's a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond—it's the truth I am telling you.' He bent down quite to my ear. 'Noble blood, too,' he whispered to me, 'only—you understand—left-handed; the forbidden fruit was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do nothing for her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that's to say, despair, dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps forward, known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and cared for her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into our darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!'
Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more mysteriously: 'You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too…. Didn't you know? he too is of exalted extraction—and on the left side, too. They do say—his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King David…. What do you make of that? A few words—but how much is said? The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That's fine too, isn't it? Eh?'
'Well?' I queried, 'and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards of destiny?'
Punin rubbed his pate again. 'To be sure he was! And with even greater cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon Semyonitch. Wait a bit … how was it? Yes!
'E'en from the cradle fate's remorseless blows
Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes!
But as in darkness gleams the light, so now
The conqueror's laurel wreathes his noble brow!'
Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full rounded vowels, as verses should be read.
'So that's how it is he's a republican!' I exclaimed.
'No, that's not why,' Punin answered simply. 'He forgave his father long ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it's the sorrows of others that trouble him!'
I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the day before, that is to say, on Baburin's matrimonial project,—but I did not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty.
'Did you notice nothing?' he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his eyes, 'while you were with us? nothing special?'
'Why, was there anything to notice?' I asked in my turn.
Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself that no one was listening. 'Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to be a married lady!'
'How so?'
'Madame Baburin,' Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his knees several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a china mandarin.
'Impossible!' I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin's head slowly came to rest, and his hands dropped down. 'Why impossible, allow me to ask?'
'Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady's father; because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love—on the girl's side.'
'Excludes?' Punin repeated excitedly. 'But what about gratitude? and pure affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider this: admitting that Musa's a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon
