‘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 old _Polar 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 have _squeezed_ us 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,