of soda. He had not
been a galley slave--Lubov had lied! And Foma was very much pleased when
he pictured to himself how he would speak to Lubov about her brother.

Now and then she appeared in the doorway during the conversation between
her father and her brother. Her face was radiant with happiness, and her
eyes beamed with joy as she looked at the black figure of Taras, clad in
such a peculiarly thick frock coat, with pockets on the sides and with
big buttons. She walked on tiptoe, and somehow always stretched her neck
toward her brother. Foma looked at her questioningly, but she did not
notice him, constantly running back and forth past the door, with plates
and bottles in her hands.

It so happened that she glanced into the room just when her brother was
telling her father about the galleys. She stopped as though petrified,
holding a tray in her outstretched hands and listened to everything her
brother said about the punishment inflicted upon him. She listened, and
slowly walked away, without catching Foma's astonished and sarcastic
glance. Absorbed in his reflections on Taras, slightly offended by the
lack of attention shown him, and by the fact that since the handshake
at the introduction Taras had not given him a single glance, Foma ceased
for awhile to follow the conversation of the Mayakins, and suddenly he
felt that someone seized him by the shoulder. He trembled and sprang
to his feet, almost felling his godfather, who stood before him with
excited face:

"There--look! That is a man! That's what a Mayakin is! They have seven
times boiled him in lye; they have squeezed oil out of him, and yet he
lives! Understand? Without any aid--alone--he made his way and found his
place and--he is proud! That means Mayakin! A Mayakin means a man who
holds his fate in his own hands. Do you understand? Take a lesson from
him! Look at him! You cannot find another like him in a hundred; you'd
have to look for one in a thousand. What? Just bear this in mind: You
cannot forge a Mayakin from man into either devil or angel."

Stupefied by this tempestuous shock, Foma became confused and did not
know what to say in reply to the old man's noisy song of praise. He saw
that Taras, calmly smoking his cigar, was looking at his father, and
that the corners of his lips were quivering with a smile. His
face looked condescendingly contented, and all his figure somewhat
aristocratic and haughty. He seemed to be amused by the old man's joy.