ster and comically winked his
eyes, finding no reply to his words.

"Do you understand, I say?"

"Yes. I understand!" drawled Yefim. "But what is all this noise about?
On account of--"

"Silence!"

Foma's eyes, which flashed wildly, and his face distorted with wrath,
suggested to the captain the happy thought to leave his master as soon
as possible and, turning around quickly, he walked off.

"Pshaw! How terrible! As it seems the apple did not fall too far from
the tree," he muttered sneeringly, walking on the deck. He was angry at
Foma, and considered himself offended for nothing, but at the same time
he began to feel over himself the real, firm hand of a master. For years
accustomed to being subordinate, he rather liked this manifestation of
power over him, and, entering the cabin of the old pilot, he related
to him the scene between himself and his master, with a shade of
satisfaction in his voice.

"See?" he concluded his story. "A pup coming from a good breed is an
excellent dog at the very first chase. From his exterior he is so-so. A
man of rather heavy mind as yet. Well, never mind, let him have his
fun. It seems now as though nothing wrong will come out of this. With a
character like his, no. How he bawled at me! A regular trumpet, I tell
you! And he appointed himself master at once. As though he had sipped
power and strictness out of a ladle."

Yefim spoke the truth: during these few days Foma underwent a striking
transformation. The passion now kindled in him made him master of the
soul and body of a woman; he eagerly absorbed the fiery sweetness of
this power, and this burned out all that was awkward in him, all that
gave him the appearance of a somewhat stupid, gloomy fellow, and,
destroying it, filled his heart with youthful pride, with the
consciousness of his human personality. Love for a woman is always
fruitful to the man, be the love whatever it may; even though it were to
cause but sufferings there is always much that is rich in it. Working
as a powerful poison on those whose souls are afflicted, it is for the
healthy man as fire for iron, which is to be transformed into steel.

Foma's passion for the thirty-year-old woman, who lamented in his
embraces her dead youth, did not tear him away from his affairs; he was
never lost in the caresses, or in his affairs, bringing into both his
whole self. The woman, like good wine, provoked in him alike a thirst
for labour and for love, and she, too,