entreated Lubov, pressing close to her brother.

"Perhaps you have something to say to me?" asked Taras, calmly.

"I?" exclaimed Foma. "What can I say? I cannot say anything. It is you
who--you, I believe, know everything."

"You have nothing then to discuss with me?" asked Taras again.

"I am very pleased."

He turned sideways to Foma and inquired of Lubov:

"What do you think--will father return soon?"

Foma looked at him, and, feeling something akin to respect for the man,
deliberately left the house. He did not feel like going to his own huge
empty house, where each step of his awakened a ringing echo, he strolled
along the street, which was enveloped in the melancholy gray twilight of
late autumn. He thought of Taras Mayakin.

"How severe he is. He takes after his father. Only he's not so restless.
He's also a cunning rogue, I think, while Lubka regarded him almost as a
saint. That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge.
And she--she was kind toward me." But all these thoughts stirred in
him no feelings--neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov.
He carried with him something painful and uncomfortable, something
incomprehensible to him, that kept growing within his breast, and it
seemed to him that his heart was swollen and was gnawing as though from
an abscess. He hearkened to that unceasing and indomitable pain, noticed
that it was growing more and more acute from hour to hour, and, not
knowing how to allay it, waited for the results.

Then his godfather's trotter passed him. Foma saw in the carriage the
small figure of Yakov Mayakin, but even that aroused no feeling in him.
A lamplighter ran past Foma, overtook him, placed his ladder against the
lamp post and went up. The ladder suddenly slipped under his weight, and
he, clasping the lamp post, cursed loudly and angrily. A girl jostled
Foma in the side with her bundle and said:

"Excuse me."

He glanced at her and said nothing. Then a drizzling rain began to fall
from the sky--tiny, scarcely visible drops of moisture overcast the
lights of the lanterns and the shop windows with grayish dust. This dust
made him breathe with difficulty.

"Shall I go to Yozhov and pass the night there? I might drink with him,"
thought Foma and went away to Yozhov, not having the slightest desire
either to see the feuilleton-writer or to drink with him.

At Yozhov's he found a shaggy fellow sitting on the lounge. He had on a
blouse and gra