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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.
'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.
Brought up among such ideas, it was inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust he was untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my seignorial habits or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And so it turned out.
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.
'So, I decided at last 'that's why he has such a blue chin! My attitude to these two persons Punin and Baburin took definite shape from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to respect. And wasn't I afraid of him!
Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon; 'a splendid man but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.
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.
And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age; with what a thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such delicious eloquence was to flow!
It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in reality, about Punin.
'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.
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