Foma felt alarmed over this advice, and it clouded the clear holiday of his heart.

But this shadow soon melted in his worries over his affairs, and in the caresses of Pelageya.

His life streamed on with the swiftness of a river wave, and each day brought to him new sensations, awakening in him new thoughts.

Pelageya's relations with him contained all the passion of a mistress, all that power of feeling which women of her age put into their passion when drinking the last drops from the cup of life.

But at times a different feeling awoke in her, a feeling not less powerful, and by which Foma became still more attached to her--something similar to a mother's yearning to guard her beloved son from errors, to teach him the wisdom of life.