"Let them say," said Sasha, calmly.

"Don't you feel offended?" asked Foma, with curiosity. "But you are not greedy. It's advantageous to you to be with me. I am rich, and yet you are going away; that shows you're not greedy."

"I?" Sasha thought awhile and said with a wave of the hand: "Perhaps I am not greedy--what of it? I am not of the very lowest of the street women. And against whom shall I feel a grudge? Let them say whatever they please. It will be only human talk, not the bellowing of bulls. And human holiness and honesty are quite familiar to me! Eh, how well I know them! If I were chosen as a judge, I would acquit the dead only l" and bursting into malicious laughter, Sasha said: "Well, that will do, we've spoken enough nonsense. Sit down at the table!"

On the morning of the next day Foma and Sasha stood side by side on the gangway of a steamer which was approaching a harbour on the Ustye.

Sasha's big black hat attracted everybody's attention by its deftly bent brim, and its white feathers, and Foma was ill at ease as he stood beside her, and felt as though inquisitive glances crawled over his perplexed face. The steamer hissed and quivered as it neared the landing-bridge, which was sprinkled by a waiting crowd of people attired in bright summer clothes, and it seemed to Foma that he noticed among the crowd of various faces and figures a person he knew, who now seemed to be hiding behind other people's backs, and yet lifted not his eye from him.

"Let's go into the cabin!" said he to his companion uneasily.

"Don't acquire the habit of hiding your sins from people," replied Sasha, with a smile. "Have you perhaps noticed an acquaintance there?"

"Mm. Yes. Somebody is watching me."

"A nurse with a milk bottle? Ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, there you're neighing!" said Foma, enraged, looking at her askance. "Do you think I am afraid?"

"I can see how brave you are."

"You'll see. I'll face anybody," said Foma, angrily, but after a close look at the crowd in the harbour his face suddenly a.s.sumed another expression, and he added softly:

"Oh, it's my G.o.dfather."

At the very edge of the landing-stage stood Yakov Tarasovich, squeezed between two stout women, with his iron-like face lifted upward, and he waved his cap in the air with malicious politeness. His beard shook, his bald crown flashed, and his small eye pierced Foma like borers.

"What a vulture!" muttered Foma, raising his cap and nodding his head to his G.o.dfather.

His bow evidently afforded great pleasure to Mayakin. The old man somehow coiled himself up, stamped his feet, and his face seemed beaming with a malicious smile.

"The little boy will get money for nuts, it seems!" Sasha teased Foma.

Her words together with his G.o.dfather's smile seemed to have kindled a fire in Foma's breast.

"We shall see what is going to happen," hissed Foma, and suddenly he became as petrified in malicious calm. The steamer made fast, and the people rushed in a wave to the landing-place. Pressed by the crowd, Mayakin disappeared for awhile from the sight of his G.o.dson and appeared again with a maliciously triumphant smile. Foma stared at him fixedly, with knitted brow, and came toward him slowly pacing the gang planks.

They jostled him in the back, they leaned on him, they squeezed him, and this provoked Foma still more. Now he came face to face with the old man, and the latter greeted him with a polite bow, and asked:

"Whither are you travelling, Foma Ignatyich?"

"About my affairs," replied Foma, firmly, without greeting his G.o.dfather.

"That's praiseworthy, my dear sir!" said Yakov Tarasovich, all beaming with a smile. "The lady with the feathers--what is she to you, may I ask?"

"She's my mistress," said Foma, loud, without lowering his eyes at the keen look of his G.o.dfather.

Sasha stood behind him calmly examining over his shoulder the little old man, whose head hardly reached Foma's chin. Attracted by Foma's loud words, the public looked at them, scenting a scandal. And Mayakin, too, perceived immediately the possibility of a scandal and instantly estimated correctly the quarrelsome mood of his G.o.dson. He contracted his wrinkles, bit his lips, and said to Foma, peaceably:

"I have something to speak to you about. Will you come with me to the hotel?"

"Yes; for a little while."

"You have no time, then? It's a plain thing, you must be making haste to wreck another barge, eh?" said the old man, unable to contain himself any longer.

"And why not wreck them, since they can be wrecked?" retorted Foma, pa.s.sionately and firmly.

"Of course, you did not earn them yourself; why should you spare them?

Well, come. And couldn't we drown that lady in the water for awhile?"

said Mayakin, softly.

"Drive to the town, Sasha, and engage a room at the Siberian Inn.

I'll be there shortly!" said Foma and turning to Mayakin, he announced boldly:

"I am ready! Let us go!"

Neither of them spoke on their way to the hotel. Foma, seeing that his G.o.dfather had to skip as he went in order to keep up with him, purposely took longer strides, and the fact that the old man could not keep step with him supported and strengthened in him the turbulent feeling of protest which he was by this time scarcely able to master.

"Waiter!" said Mayakin, gently, on entering the hall of the hotel, and turning toward a remote corner, "let us have a bottle of moorberry kva.s.s."

"And I want some cognac," ordered Foma.

"So-o! When you have poor cards you had better always play the lowest trump first!" Mayakin advised him sarcastically.

"You don't know my game!" said Foma, seating himself by the table.

"Really? Come, come! Many play like that."

"How?"

"I mean as you do--boldly, but foolishly."

"I play so that either the head is smashed to pieces, or the wall broken in half," said Foma, hotly, and struck the table with his fist.

"Haven't you recovered from your drunkenness yet?" asked Mayakin with a smile.

Foma seated himself more firmly in his chair, and, his face distorted with wrathful agitation, he said:

"G.o.dfather, you are a sensible man. I respect you for your common sense."

"Thank you, my son!" and Mayakin bowed, rising slightly, and leaning his hands against the table.

"Don't mention it. I want to tell you that I am no longer twenty. I am not a child any longer."

"Of course not!" a.s.sented Mayakin. "You've lived a good while, that goes without saying! If a mosquito had lived as long it might have grown as big as a hen."

"Stop your joking!" Foma warned him, and he did it so calmly that Mayakin started back, and the wrinkles on his face quivered with alarm.

"What did you come here for?" asked Foma.

"Ah! you've done some nasty work here. So I want to find out whether there's much damage in it! You see, I am a relative of yours. And then, I am the only one you have."