"Just put that book on my table. That is said not without reflection--everything on earth is rational! See someone thought of it. Yes. It is even very cleverly expressed. And were it not for the fools, it might have been perfectly correct. But as fools are always in the wrong place, it cannot be said that everything on earth is rational. And yet, I'll look at the book. Maybe there is common sense in it. Goodbye, Foma! Will you stay here, or do you want to drive with me?""I'll stay here a little longer."
"Very well."
Lubov and Foma again remained alone.
"What a man your father is," said Foma, nodding his head toward the direction of his godfather.
"Well, what kind of a man do you think he is?""He retorts every call, and wants to cover everything with his words.""Yes, he is clever. And yet he does not understand how painful my life is," said Lubov, sadly.
"Neither do I understand it. You imagine too much.""What do I imagine?" cried the girl, irritated.
"Why, all these are not your own ideas. They are someone else's.""Someone else's. Someone else's."
She felt like saying something harsh; but broke down and became silent. Foma looked at her and, setting Medinskaya by her side, thought sadly:
"How different everything is--both men and women--and you never feel alike."They sat opposite each other; both were lost in thought, and neither one looked at the other. It was getting dark outside, and in the room it was quite dark already. The wind was shaking the linden-trees, and their branches seemed to clutch at the walls of the house, as though they felt cold and implored for shelter in the rooms.
"Luba!" said Foma, softly.
She raised her head and looked at him.
"Do you know, I have quarrelled with Medinskaya.""Why?" asked Luba, brightening up.
"So. It came about that she offended me. Yes, she offended me.""Well, it's good that you've quarrelled with her," said the girl, approvingly, "for she would have turned your head. She is a vile creature; she is a coquette, even worse than that. Oh, what things I know about her!""She's not at all a vile creature," said Foma, morosely. "And you don't know anything about her. You are all lying!""Oh, I beg your pardon!"
"No. See here, Luba," said Foma, softly, in a beseeching tone, "don't speak ill of her in my presence. It isn't necessary. I know everything. By God! She told me everything herself.""Herself!" exclaimed Luba, in astonishment. "What a strange woman she is! What did she tell you?""That she is guilty," Foma ejaculated with difficulty, with a wry smile.
"Is that all?" There was a ring of disappointment in the girl's question; Foma heard it and asked hopefully:
"Isn't that enough?"
"What will you do now?"
"That's just what I am thinking about."
"Do you love her very much?"
Foma was silent. He looked into the window and answered confusedly:
"I don't know. But it seems to me that now I love her more than before.""Than before the quarrel?"
"Yes."
"I wonder how one can love such a woman!" said the girl, shrugging her shoulders.
"Love such a woman? Of course! Why not?" exclaimed Foma.
"I can't understand it. I think, you have become attached to her just because you have not met a better woman.""No, I have not met a better one!" Foma assented, and after a moment's silence said shyly, "Perhaps there is none better.""Among our people," Lubov interposed.
"I need her very badly! Because, you see, I feel ashamed before her.""Why so?"
"Oh, in general, I fear her; that is, I would not want her to think ill of me, as of others. Sometimes I feel disgusted. I think--wouldn't it be a great idea to go out on such a spree that all my veins would start tingling. And then I recall her and I do not venture. And so everything else, I think of her, 'What if she finds it out?' and I am afraid to do it.""Yes," the girl drawled out thoughtfully, "that shows that you love her. I would also be like this. If I loved, I would think of him--of what he might say..."
"And everything about her is so peculiar," Foma related softly.
"She speaks in a way all her own. And, God! How beautiful she is!
And then she is so small, like a child."
"And what took place between you?" asked Lubov.
Foma moved his chair closer to her, and stooping, he lowered his voice for some reason or other, and began to relate to her all that had taken place between him and Medinskaya. He spoke, and as he recalled the words he said to Medinskaya, the sentiments that called forth the words were also awakened in him.
"I told her, 'Oh, you! why did you make sport of me?'" he said angrily and with reproach.
And Luba, her cheeks aflame with animation, spurred him on, nodding her head approvingly:
"That's it! That's good! Well, and she?"
"She was silent!" said Foma, sadly, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"That is, she said different things; but what's the use?"He waved his hand and became silent. Luba, playing with her braid, was also silent. The samovar had already become cold. And the dimness in the room was growing thicker and thicker, outside the window it was heavy with darkness, and the black branches of the linden-trees were shaking pensively.
"You might light the lamp," Foma went on.
"How unhappy we both are," said Luba, with a sigh.
Foma did not like this.
"I am not unhappy," he objected in a firm voice. "I am simply--not yet accustomed to life.""He who knows not what he is going to do tomorrow, is unhappy,"said Luba, sadly. "I do not know it, neither do you. Whither go?
Yet go we must, Why is it that my heart is never at ease? Some kind of a longing is always quivering within it.""It is the same with me," said Foma. " I start to reflect, but on what? I cannot make it clear to myself. There is also a painful gnawing in my heart. Eh! But I must go up to the club.""Don't go away," Luba entreated.
"I must. Somebody is waiting there for me. I am going. Goodbye!""Till we meet again!" She held out her hand to him and sadly looked into his eyes.
"Will you go to sleep now?" asked Foma, firmly shaking her hand.
"I'll read a little."
"You're to your books as the drunkard to his whisky," said the youth, with pity.
