Stupefied by such a dinner, they went to sleep; and for two or three hours Mayakin's house was filled with snoring and with drowsy sighs.
Awaking from sleep, they drank tea and talked about local news, the choristers, the deacons, weddings, or the dishonourable conduct of this or that merchant.

After tea Mayakin used to say to his wife: "Well, mother, hand me the Bible." Yakov Tarasovich used to read the Book of Job more often than anything else.

Putting his heavy, silver-framed spectacles on his big, ravenous nose, he looked around at his listeners to see whether all were in their places.
They were all seated where he was accustomed to see them and on their faces was a familiar, dull and timid expression of piety.
"There was a man in the land of Uz," began Mayakin, in a hoarse voice, and Foma, sitting beside Luba on the lounge in the corner of the room, knew beforehand that soon his godfather would become silent and pat his bald head with his hand.

He sat and, listening, pictured to himself this man from the land of Uz.

The man was tall and bare, his eyes were enormously large, like those of the image of the Saviour, and his voice was like a big brass trumpet on which the soldiers played in the camps.
The man was constantly growing bigger and bigger; and, reaching the sky, he thrust his dark hands into the clouds, and, tearing them asunder, cried out in a terrible voice: "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in ?" Dread fell on Foma, and he trembled, slumber fled from his eyes, he heard the voice of his godfather, who said, with a light smile, now and then pinching his beard: "See how audacious he was!" The boy knew that his godfather spoke of the man from the land of Uz, and the godfather's smile soothed the child.