Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XIV).djvu/189

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PUNIN AND BABURIN

the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed themselves alive within her. . . But the conviction I carried off at that moment was that the 'new type' was still the same, still the same passionate, impulsive nature. . . Only the impulses by which Musa was carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really was so—the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness and simplicity—all that had significance only in relation to the past, to what would never return. . .

Now it was the present asserted itself.

I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem. . .

I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head.

I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress.

The proceedings began, . . . dragged on. I saw Musa several times every week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the moment of the decision of the whole

167