His big gristly nose and his yellow, sunken cheeks reminded Foma of his godfather.
"Fate!" The old man repeated the exclamation of his interlocutor with confidence, and began to smile.

"Fate in life is like a fisherman on the river: it throws a baited hook toward us into the tumult of our life and we dart at it with greedy mouths.

Then fate pulls up the rod--and the man is struggling, flopping on the ground, and then you see his heart is broken.

That's how it is, my dear man." Foma closed his eyes, as if a ray of the sun had fallen full on them, and shaking his head, he said aloud: "True! That is true!" The companions looked at him fixedly: the old man, with a fine, wise smile; the large-eyed man, unfriendly, askance.

This confused Foma; he blushed and walked away, thinking of Fate and wondering why it had first treated him kindly by giving him a woman, and then took back the gift from him, so simply and abusively?
And he now understood that the vague, caustic feeling which he carried within him was a grudge against Fate for thus sporting with him.