were
near to him and with whom he talked a great deal, always spoke to him of
life. His father, his aunt, his godfather, Lubov, Sophya Pavlovna, all
these either taught him to understand life, or complained of it. He
recalled the words said by the old man on the steamer about Fate, and
many other remarks on life, reproaches and bitter complaints against it,
which he happened to hear from all sorts of people.

"What does it mean?" he thought, "what is life, if it is not man? And
man always speaks as if life were something else, something outside
of man, and that something hinders him from living. Perhaps it is the
devil?"

A painful feeling of fear fell on the youth; he shuddered and hastily
looked around. The street was deserted and quiet; the dark windows of
the houses stared dimly into the dark of night, and along the walls and
fences Foma's shadow followed him.

"Driver!" he cried out aloud, quickening his steps. The shadow started
and crawled after him, frightened, black, silent. It seemed to Foma that
there was a cold breath behind him, and that something huge, invisible,
and terrible was overtaking him. Frightened, he almost ran to meet
the cab, which appeared noisily from the darkness, and when he seated
himself in the cab, he dared not look back, though he wished to do so.

CHAPTER VII

ABOUT a week passed since Foma spoke to Medinskaya. And her image
stood fixedly before Foma by night and by day, awakening in his heart
a gnawing feeling of anxiety. He longed to go to her, and was so much
afflicted over her that even his bones were aching from the desire of
his heart to be near her again. But he was sternly silent; he frowned
and did not care to yield to this desire, industriously occupying
himself with his affairs and provoking in himself a feeling of anger
against the woman. He felt that if he went up to her, he would no longer
find her to be the same as he had left her; something must have changed
within her after that conversation, and she would no longer receive him
as cordially as before, would not smile at him the clear smile that used
to awaken in him strange thoughts and hopes. Fearing that all this was
lost and that something else must have taken its place, he restrained
himself and suffered.

His work and his longing for the woman did not hinder him from thinking
of life. He did not philosophize about this enigma, which was already
stirring a feeling of alarm in his heart; he was not able t