like a bull. But life jostled me aside, crushed me under
foot, gave me no chance. All my patience gave way. Eh! and so I've taken
to drink. I feel that I'll be ruined. Well, that's the only way open to
me!"

"Fool!" said Foma with contempt. "Why did you want to make your way
among men? You should have kept away from them, to the right. Standing
aside, you might have seen where your place was among them, and then
gone right to the point!"

"I don't understand your words." The little man shook his close-cropped,
angular head.

Foma laughed, self-satisfied.

"Is it for you to understand it?" "No; do you know, I think that he whom
God decreed--"

"Not God, but man arranges life!" Foma blurted out, and was even himself
astonished at the audacity of his words. And the little man glancing at
him askance also shrank timidly.

"Has God given you reason?" asked Foma, recovering from his
embarrassment.

"Of course; that is to say, as much as is the share of a small man,"
said Foma's interlocutor irresolutely.

"Well, and you have no right to ask of Him a single grain more! Make
your own life by your own reason. And God will judge you. We are all in
His service. And in His eyes we are all of equal value. Understand?"

It happened very often that Foma would suddenly say something which
seemed audacious even to himself, and which, at the same time, elevated
him in his own eyes. There were certain unexpected, daring thoughts
and words, which suddenly flashed like sparks, as though an impression
produced them from Foma's brains. And he noticed more than once that
whatever he had carefully thought out beforehand was expressed by him
not quite so well, and more obscure, than that which suddenly flashed up
in his heart.

Foma lived as though walking in a swamp, in danger of sinking at each
step in the mire and slime, while his godfather, like a river loach,
wriggled himself on a dry, firm little spot, vigilantly watching the
life of his godson from afar.

After his quarrel with Foma, Yakov Tarasovich returned home, gloomy
and pensive. His eyes flashed drily, and he straightened himself like a
tightly-stretched string. His wrinkles shrank painfully, his face seemed
to have become smaller and darker, and when Lubov saw him in this state
it appeared to her that he was seriously ill, but that he was forcing
and restraining himself. Mutely and nervously the old man flung himself
about the room, casting in reply to his daughter'