In youth, as at high tide, go straight! A way is open to you everywhere.

But you must know when it is time to steer.

The waters recede--here you see a sandbank, there, a rock; it is necessary to know all this and to slip off in time, in order to reach the harbour safe and sound." "I will reach it!" said the boy, looking at his father proudly and with confidence.
"Eh?
You speak courageously!" Ignat burst into laughter.

And the aunt also began to laugh kindly.
Since his trip with his father on the Volga, Foma became more lively and talkative at home, with his father, with his aunt and with Mayakin.

But on the street, in a new place, or in the presence of strangers, he was always gloomy, always looking about him with suspicion, as though he felt something hostile to him everywhere, something hidden from him spying on him.
At nights he sometimes awoke of a sudden and listened for a long time to the silence about him, fixedly staring into the dark with wide-open eyes.