He looked in silence, and softly tapped his fingers on the edge of the table.

Lubov was uneasily moving about in her chair.

The pendulum of the clock told the seconds with a dull, sighing sound.

And Foma's heart throbbed slowly and painfully, as though conscious that here no one would respond with a warm word to its painful perplexity.
"Work is not exactly everything for a man," said he, more to himself than to these people who had no faith in the sincerity of his words.

"It is not true that in work lies justification.