He had heard it more than once and was already picturing to himself this godchild riding on a white horse to his godfather and godmother; he was riding in the darkness, over the desert, and he saw there all the unbearable miseries to which sinners are condemned.

And he heard their faint moans and requests: "Oh! Man! Ask the Lord yet how long are we to suffer here!" Then it appeared to Foma that it was he who was riding at night on the white horse, and that the moans and the implorings were addressed to him.

His heart contracts with some incomprehensible desire; sorrow compressed his breast and tears gathered in his eyes, which he had firmly closed and now feared to open.
He is tossing about in his bed restlessly.
"Sleep, my child.

Christ be with you!" says the old woman, interrupting her tale of men suffering for their sins.
But in the morning after such a night Foma rose sound and cheerful, washed himself hastily, drank his tea in haste and ran off to school, provided with sweet cakes, which were awaited by the always hungry little Yozhov, who greedily subsisted on his rich friend's generosity.
"Got anything to eat ?" he accosted Foma, turning up his sharp-pointed nose.

"Let me have it, for I left the house without eating anything.