of wine and food, and then they
courted favours of him, fawned upon him, borrowed of him money which he
scattered about without counting, drawing it from the banks, and already
borrowing it on promissory notes. In the cheap taverns hair-dressers,
markers, clerks, functionaries and choristers surrounded him like
vultures; and among these people he always felt better--freer. In these
he saw plain people, not so monstrously deformed and distorted as that
"clean society" of the elegant restaurants; these were less depraved,
cleverer, better understood by him. At times they evinced wholesome,
strong emotions, and there was always something more human in them.
But, like the "clean society," these were also eager for money, and
shamelessly fleeced him, and he saw it and rudely mocked them.

To be sure, there were women. Physically healthy, but not sensual, Foma
bought them, the dear ones and the cheap ones, the beautiful and the
ugly, gave them large sums of money, changed them almost every week,
and in general, he treated the women better than the men. He laughed at
them, said to them disgraceful and offensive words, but he could never,
even when half-drunk, rid himself of a certain bashfulness in their
presence. They all, even the most brazen-faced, the strongest and the
most shameless, seemed to him weak and defenseless, like small children.
Always ready to thrash any man, he never laid a hand on women, although
when irritated by something he sometimes abused them indecently. He felt
that he was immeasurably stronger than any woman, and every woman seemed
to him immeasurably more miserable than he was. Those of the women who
led their dissolute lives audaciously, boasting of their depravity,
called forth in Foma a feeling of bashfulness, which made him timid
and awkward. One evening, during supper hour, one of these women,
intoxicated and impudent, struck Foma on the cheek with a melon-rind.
Foma was half-drunk. He turned pale with rage, rose from his chair,
and thrusting his hands into his pockets, said in a fierce voice which
trembled with indignation:

"You carrion, get out. Begone! Someone else would have broken your head
for this. And you know that I am forbearing with you, and that my arm is
never raised against any of your kind. Drive her away to the devil!"

A few days after her arrival in Kazan, Sasha became the mistress of a
certain vodka-distiller's son, who was carousing together with Foma.
Going away with her