Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XIV).djvu/171

Rh '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,