o argue, but
he began to listen attentively to everything that men said of life, and
he tried to remember their words. They did not make anything clear to
him; nay, they increased his perplexity and prompted him to regard them
suspiciously. They were clever, cunning and sensible--he saw it; in
dealings with them it was always necessary to be on one's guard; he knew
already that in important matters none of them spoke as they thought.
And watching them carefully, he felt that their sighs and their
complaints of life awakened in him distrust. Silently he looked at
everybody with suspicion, and a thin wrinkle masked his forehead.

One morning his godfather said to him on the Exchange:

"Anany has arrived. He would like to see you. Go up to him toward
evening, and see that you hold your tongue. Anany will try to loosen it
in order to make you talk on business matters. He is cunning, the
old devil; he is a holy fox; he'll lift his eyes toward heaven, and
meanwhile will put his paw into your pocket and grab your purse. Be on
your guard."

"Do we owe him anything?" asked Foma.

"Of course! We haven't paid yet for the barge, and then fifty
five-fathom beams were taken from him not long ago. If he wants
everything at once--don't give. A rouble is a sticky thing; the longer
it turns about in your hand, the more copecks will stick to it. A
rouble is like a good pigeon--it goes up in the air, you turn around and
see--it has brought a whole flock with it into the pigeon-house."

"But how can we help paying it now, if he demands it?"

"Let him cry and ask for it--and you roar--but don't give it to him."

"I'll go up there soon."

Anany Savvich Shchurov was a rich lumber-dealer, had a big saw-mill,
built barges and ran rafts. He had had dealings with Ignat, and Foma had
more than once seen this tall, heavily-bearded, long-armed, white-haired
old man, who kept himself as erect as a pine-tree. His big, handsome
figure, his open face and his clear eyes called forth in Foma a feeling
of respect for Shchurov, although he heard it rumoured that this
lumber-dealer had gained his wealth not by honest toil and that he
was leading an evil life at home, in an obscure village of the forest
district; and Ignat had told Foma that when Shchurov was young and was
but a poor peasant, he sheltered a convict in the bath-house, in his
garden, and that there the convict made counterfeit money for him. Since
that time Anany began to grow rich. One