‘E’en from the cradle fate’s remorseless blowsBaburin drove towards the abyss of woes!But as in darkness gleams the light, so nowThe 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 Semyonitch’s affection, to be his comfort, his prop—his spouse, in short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon Semyonitch’s presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and enthusiasm!’
‘That’s just what’s wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, all tremor. If you love any one you don’t feel tremors in their presence.’
‘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 theGypsieswhich 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.
‘I know,’ said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have no clear idea myself—envy, most likely; it was not devotion to morality, anyway!) ‘I know,’ said I, ‘that it’s no easy matter, no joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you—that it is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your passion—what is to follow? You won’t marry her, you know. And at the same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, her benefactor—and—who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time penetration and sorrow)—possibly her own happiness too....’
And so on, and so on!
For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my hands, said, speaking very quickly, ‘Thank you, thank you. You’re right, of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool—and nothing more! You call him a republican—and he’s simply a fool! Oo! That’s what he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on anywhere!’
‘Ah! so that’s your idea! A fool! can never get on!—but let me tell you,’ I pursued, with sudden heat, ‘let me tell you, my dear Vladimir Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a noble nature! None but worthless people—bad people—get on anywhere and accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool! Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?’
‘You distort my words!’ cried Tarhov. ‘I only wanted to explain how I understand that person. Do you think he’s such a rare specimen? Not a bit of it! I’ve met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It shows that there’s a great deal in him! But there’s nothing in him, not one idea in his head—nothing but a sense of his own dignity.’
‘Even if there is nothing else, that’s an honourable thing,’ I broke in. ‘But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You don’t know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa tells you?’
Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Musa and I ... have other things to talk of. I tell you what,’ he added, his whole body quivering with impatience,—‘I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest nature, how is it he doesn’t see that Musa is not a fit match for him? It’s one of two things: either he knows that what he’s doing to her is something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... and if so, what about his honesty?—or he doesn’t realise it ... and in that case, what can one call him but a fool?’
I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again began talking in a hurried voice. ‘Though ... of course ... I confess you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but now leave me alone, please.’
I was puzzled. ‘Leave you alone?’
‘Yes. I must, don’t you see, think over all you’ve just said, thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me alone!’
‘You ‘re in such a state of excitement ...’ I was beginning.
‘Excitement? I?’ Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. ‘Yes, of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it’s no joking matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.’ He was still squeezing my hands. ‘Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!’
‘Good-bye,’ I repeated. ‘Good-bye, old boy!’ As I was going away I flung a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way upon which he had set his foot—or that I was going? Ideas of the most diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening—till the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of Tarhov’s phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did not see she was not a fit match for him?
But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin—an honest fool!
Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and unshaven chin—he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of tea, she whispered hurriedly: ‘You can say what you like, you may try your utmost, you won’t make any difference.... So there!’ I looked at her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also in a whisper, ‘What’s the meaning of your words?’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ she answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at once: ‘the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank you for nothing, and things won’t be as you ‘d have them, anyway.’ ‘You were there,’ broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point Baburin’s attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa walked away from me.
Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite pastime. ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her lips twitching. ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am whispering about with you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’
‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’
‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s noticing? One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, and hears nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be afraid!’ Musa’s voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may criticise me as you like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way, and I’m not afraid of you.’
I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire—she’s a new type.... She’s—exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What of it! No matter!’
‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in which every one does as he chooses?’
‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything rests on law and justice.’
‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’
‘No.’
‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’
‘Quite free.’
‘Ah! that’s all I wanted to know.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Oh, I wanted to—I wantedyouto tell me that.’
‘Our young lady is anxious to learn,’ Punin observed from the sofa.
When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took leave, ‘Can you really love him so much?’
‘Whether I love him, or whether I don’t, that’smyaffair,’ she answered. ‘What is to be, will be.’
‘Mind what you’re about; don’t play with fire ... you’ll get burnt.’
‘Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can you tell he won’t marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?’
She slammed the door after me.
I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness!
That he would be happy, I was—regretfully—unable to doubt.
Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me—rigid, terrible, white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks.
‘Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!’
‘She has run away,’ Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice.
‘What do you say?’
‘She has run away,’ he repeated.
‘Who?’
‘Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.’
‘A note?’
‘Yes. “I thank you,” she said, “but I am not coming back again. Don’t look for me.” We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew nothing. I can’t speak loud; you must excuse me. I’ve lost my voice.’
‘Musa Pavlovna has left you!’ I exclaimed. ‘Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must be in despair. What does he intend to do now?’
‘He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, “She’s free.” He says, “I don’t want to constrain her.” He has even gone to work, to his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!’
Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down on his pate, which shone like ivory.
‘Ungrateful girl!’ he groaned; ‘who was it gave you food and drink, clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...’
I begged him to sit down, to rest.
Punin shook his head. ‘No, I won’t. I have come to you ... I don’t know what for. I’m like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my eyes, and call, “Musa! Musotchka!” That’s the way to go out of one’s mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?’ Punin glanced at me. ‘Piotr Petrovitch,’ he cried suddenly, and he began trembling all over, ‘you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell me whom she has gone to!’
I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes....
‘Perhaps she said something in her letter,’ I began....
‘She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we will persuade her. Only think what a man she’s bringing to ruin.’
Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. ‘Save us, friend, let us go to her.’
My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement.
I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together—that would only spoil all our efforts—that I was ready to do my best, but would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, ‘Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.’ At last he began to cry. ‘Tell me at least one thing,’ he asked ... ‘ishehandsome, young?’
‘Yes, he is young,’ I answered.
‘He is young,’ repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; ‘and she is young.... It’s from that that all the trouble’s sprung!’
This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for ever, and I never heard his laugh again.
I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything positive.... Tarhov’s name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly collapsed completely. ‘Very good, very good, sir, thank you,’ he said with a pitiful face, using the word ‘sir,’ which he had never done before; ‘only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... or he’ll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.’
As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, and doubled up at each step....
‘It’s a bad look-out. It’s the end of him, that’s what it means,’ I thought.
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.’
‘So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,’ was the thought that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well.
I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin said, ‘Till we meet!’ both with one voice pronounced, ‘Good-bye.’
Punin even returned me a volume of theTelegraphI had brought him, as much as to say, ‘he had no need of anything of that kind now.’
A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Réaumur. Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock’s feathers round the crown. Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head—and she was simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov’s voice! I looked round.... Yes, it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside him—wasn’t it Musa?
But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly galloping than trotting.
‘Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!’ I muttered through my teeth.
I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. Baburin and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them.
I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my grandmother into the country ‘to feed up,’ by the doctor’s advice. I did not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the Petersburg university.
Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man.
One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing my official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and stench and dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of a solitary car, that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on which a poor-looking wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare black cloth, was shaking up and down as it was jolted violently over the uneven pavement. An old man with a white head was walking alone after the hearse.
I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him.
‘Whom are you burying?’ I asked.
‘Nikander Vavilitch Punin,’ he answered.
I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend....
‘May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?’
‘You may.... I was following him alone; now there’ll be two of us.’
Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man since I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face stood out sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and suffering, of continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin’s whole figure; want and poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When everything was over, when what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the damp ... yes, undoubtedly damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, after standing a couple of minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the newly risen mound of sandy clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were embittered, face, his dry, sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about to move away; but I detained him.
‘Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had no idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and talk of our dead friend.’
Baburin did not answer me at once.
‘It’s two years since I found my way to Petersburg,’ he observed at last; ‘I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care to visit me, come.’ He gave me his address. ‘Come in the evening; in the evening we are always at home ... both of us.’
‘Both of you?’
‘I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that’s why she did not come too. Though, indeed, it’s quite enough for one person to go through this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody believed in it all!’
I was a little surprised at Baburin’s last words, but I said nothing, called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused.
The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how subdued he had grown—especially the last time I saw him; and now he had made his last reckoning with life;—life is in grim earnest, it seems! Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house which reminded me of the Moscow ‘nest’: the Petersburg abode was almost shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. A few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as Musa—and only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he wanted to show me that he had after all come by his own.
Musa was greatly changed—in face, in voice, and in manners; but her eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their black centres had lost their lustre. ‘I am broken in, I am tame, I am good,’ her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty self-consciousness had left her.
Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very feeble, had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was miserable if he had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is true, that he made them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really played with them himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died out, and he kept his memory for nothing but verses; a few days before his death he recited a passage from theRossiad; but Pushkin he feared, as children fear bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also remained undiminished; he worshipped him as much as ever, and even at the last, wrapped about by the chill and dark of the end, he had faltered with halting tongue, ‘benefactor!’ I learned also from Musa that soon after the Moscow episode, it had been Baburin’s fate once more to wander all over Russia, continually tossed from one private situation to another; that in Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, in a private business, which situation he had, however, been obliged to leave a few days before, owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: Baburin had ventured to stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable smile, with which Musa accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; it put the finishing touch to the impression made on me by her husband’s appearance. They had hard work, the two of them, to make a bare living—there was no doubt of it. He took very little part in our conversation; he seemed more preoccupied than grieved.... Something was worrying him.
‘Paramon Semyonitch, come here,’ said the cook, suddenly appearing in the doorway.
‘What is it? what’s wanted?’ he asked in alarm.
‘Come here,’ the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin buttoned up his coat and went out.
When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with no smile: ‘I don’t know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to make an end of myself,—once more, just as in Voronezh, I met with Paramon Semyonitch—and he saved me once again.... Not a word that could wound me did I hear from him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing of me—I was not worthy of that; but he loved me ... and I became his wife. What was I to do? I had failed of dying; and I could not live either after my own choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so—it was a mercy to be thankful for. That is all.’
She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile came back to her lips. ‘Whether life’s easy for me, you needn’t ask,’ was the meaning I fancied now in that smile.
The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin had left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his death she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing incessantly, as though she were calling some one ... the neighbours were very much scared, and fancied that it was Punin’s soul that had passed into the cat.
‘Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,’ I said at last.
‘Oh, you noticed it?’—Musa sighed. ‘He cannot help being worried. I need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to his principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen them.’ (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old days in Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) ‘I don’t know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will receive ...’
‘Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?’
‘Well, you are in the government service—you are an official.’
‘Well, what of that?’
‘You are, consequently, loyal to the government.’
I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa’s innocence. ‘As to my attitude to the government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won’t enlarge upon that,’ I observed; ‘but you may set your mind at rest. I will make no bad use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband’s ideas ... more than you suppose.’
Musa shook her head.
‘Yes; that’s all so,’ she began, not without hesitation; ‘but you see it’s like this. Paramon Semyonitch’s ideas will shortly, it may be, find expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...’
Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face showed what I was feeling—and Musa noticed it.
As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and by what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin’s behaviour, in his whole demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages in high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered....
‘Well?’ he asked me suddenly: ‘did you set your peasants free?’
I was obliged to confess I had not.
‘Why, I suppose your granny’s dead, isn’t she?’
I was obliged to admit that she was.
‘To be sure, you noble gentlemen,’ Baburin muttered between his teeth, ‘... use other men’s hands ... to poke up your fire ... that’s what you like.’
In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the oldPolar Star, edited by Bestuzhev.
A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at least I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin’s face assumed a different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression.
‘What will be the end of it?’ he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about him. ‘One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it’ll be better, that one will breathe more freely; but it’s quite the other way—everything gets worse and worse! They havesqueezedus right up to the wall! In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... beat me ... even ... yes!’ he added, turning sharply round on his heels and swooping down as it were, upon me: ‘I, a man of full age, was subjected to corporal punishment ... yes;—of other wrongs I will not speak.... But is there really nothing before us but to go back to those old times again? The way they are treating the young people now! ... Yes, it breaks down all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! Wait a bit!’
I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a seat. Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I decided to go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door into the next room suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not the cook’s head, but the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a young man.
‘Something’s wrong, Baburin, something’s wrong!’ he faltered hurriedly, then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure.
Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa’s hand warmly, and withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart.
‘Come to-morrow,’ she whispered anxiously.
‘I certainly will come,’ I answered.
I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter from Musa.
‘Dear Piotr Petrovitch!’ she wrote: ‘Paramon Semyonitch has been this night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don’t know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed up a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with our books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in the town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did not live to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to do. For myself I am not afraid—I shall not die of starvation—but the thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only you are not afraid to visit people in our position.—Yours faithfully,
Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her hand, and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude flitted over her face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the previous day; there was every sign that she had not been to bed or slept all night. Her eyes were red, but from sleeplessness, not from tears. She had not been crying. She was in no mood for weeping. She wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the calamity that had fallen upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa had risen up in her again. She had no time even to be indignant, though she was choking with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal so as to soften his lot—she could think of nothing else. She wanted to go instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to petition, what to demand—this was what she wanted to hear from me, this was what she wanted to consult me about.
I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, to make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful friends....
It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. ‘But tell me, Musa Pavlovna,’ I began, when she sank at last into a chair (till then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting off at once to the aid of Baburin), ‘how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, comes to be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none but young people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to warn you....’
‘Those young people are our friends!’ cried Musa, and her eyes flashed and darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it were, to rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled the expression ‘a new type,’ which Tarhov had once used of her. ‘Years are of no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!’ Musa laid a special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in all her sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in this new, unlooked-for character—in the character of a cultivated and mature woman, fit wife of a republican! ... ‘Some old men are younger than some young ones,’ she pursued, ‘more capable of sacrifice.... But that’s not the point.’
‘I think, Musa Pavlovna,’ I observed, ‘that you are exaggerating a little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his calling ...’
‘Oh, of course,’ Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, ‘he is a working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of December, ... that’s what you meant to say.’
‘In that case, what do you complain of now?’ almost broke from my lips, ... but I restrained myself. ‘Do you consider that the result of the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such attempts?’ I said aloud.
Musa frowned. ‘It is no good talking to you about it,’ was what I read in her downcast face.
‘Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?’ I ventured to ask her. Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from the attic.
Musa started. ‘Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all this!’ she moaned almost despairingly. ‘He did not see how violently in the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor—maybe, the best and truest man in the whole world,—he did not see how they treated that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they threatened him, and the threats they used to him!—only because he was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....’
Musa’s voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf.
Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that moment was that the ‘new type’ was still the same, still the same passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really was so—the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness and simplicity—all that had significance only in relation to the past, to what would never return....
Now it was the present asserted itself.
I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem....
I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head.
I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress.
The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the moment of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in Petersburg. Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the south of Russia. During my absence I heard that Baburin had been acquitted at the trial; it appeared that all that could be proved against him was, that young people regarding him as a person unlikely to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held meetings at his house, and he had been present at their meetings; he was, however, by administrative order sent into exile in one of the western provinces of Siberia. Musa went with him.
‘Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,’ she wrote to me; ‘as, according to his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not for a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. When I said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to myself—for ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end of our days....’