‘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 the _Gypsies_ which 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. * * * * *