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
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