Oh!" Whenever she told him: "You," or "according to your merchant fashion," it seemed to Foma that she was pushing him away from her with these words.

This at once saddened and offended him.

He was silent, looking at her small maidenly figure, which was always somehow particularly well dressed, always sweet-scented like a flower.

Sometimes he was seized with a wild, coarse desire to embrace and kiss her.

But her beauty and the fragility of her thin, supple body awakened in him a fear of breaking and disfiguring her, and her calm, caressing voice and the clear, but somewhat cautious look of her eyes chilled his passion; it seemed to him as though she were looking straight into his soul, divining all his thoughts.