ns,
found no companion for himself among these people who were repulsive to
him, and, pale and gloomy, held himself apart from them. During the
past two days he had been drinking heavily with Yozhov, and now he had
a terrible headache. He felt ill at ease in the sedate and yet jolly
company; the humming of the voices, the thundering of the music and the
clamour of the steamer, all these irritated him.

He felt a pressing need to doze off, and he could find no rest from the
thought as to why his godfather was so kind to him today, and why he
brought him hither into the company of the foremost merchants of the
town. Why had he urged so persuasively, and even entreated him to attend
Kononov's mass and banquet?

"Don't be foolish, come!" Foma recalled his godfather's admonitions.
"Why do you fight shy of people? Man gets his character from nature,
and in riches you are lower than very few. You must keep yourself on an
equal footing with the others. Come!"

"But when are you going to speak seriously with me, papa?" Foma had
asked, watching the play of his godfather's face and green eyes.

"You mean about setting you free from the business? Ha, ha! We'll talk
it over, we'll talk it over, my friend! What a queer fellow you are.
Well? Will you enter a monastery when you have thrown away your wealth?
After the example of the saints? Eh?"

"I'll see then!" Foma had answered.

"So. Well, and meanwhile, before you go to the monastery, come along
with me! Get ready quickly. Rub your phiz with something wet, for it is
very much swollen. Sprinkle yourself with cologne, get it from Lubov, to
drive away the smell of the kabak. Go ahead!"

Arriving on the steamer while the mass was in progress, Foma took up a
place on the side and watched the merchants during the whole service.

They stood in solemn silence; their faces had an expression of devout
concentration; they prayed with fervour, deeply sighing, bowing low,
devoutly lifting their eyes heavenward. And Foma looked now at one, now
at another, and recalled what he knew about them.

There was Lup Reznikov; he had begun his career as a brothel-keeper, and
had become rich all of a sudden. They said he had strangled one of
his guests, a rich Siberian. Zubov's business in his youth had been to
purchase thread from the peasants. He had failed twice. Kononov had been
tried twenty years ago for arson, and even now he was indicted for the
seduction of a minor. Together with him, for