Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XIV).djvu/174

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PUNIN AND BABURIN

But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding-school hack, that shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly galloping than trotting.

'Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!' I muttered through my teeth.

I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. Baburin and Punin I had not seen either. . . . I had not been to see them.

I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my grandmother into the country 'to feed up,' by the doctor's advice. I did not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the Petersburg university.

III

1849

Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in Petersburg, with a post in the Department

152