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 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.’