Do not hinder me from being like a man." "Pooh! How you've learned to speak! With so much anger, like the hail striking against the roof! Very well, be like a man, but in order to be like a man it might be less dangerous for you to go to the tavern; the people there are after all better than Sophya's people.

And you, young man, you should have learned to discriminate one person from another.
Take Sophya, for instance: What does she represent?
An insect for the adornment of nature and nothing more!" Intensely agitated, Foma set his teeth together and walked away from Mayakin, thrusting his hands still deeper into his pockets.

But the old man soon started again a conversation about Medinskaya.
They were on their way back from the bay after an inspection of the steamers, and seated in a big and commodious sledge, they were enthusiastically discussing business matters in a friendly way.

It was in March.

The water under the sledge-runners was bubbling, the snow was already covered with a rather dirty fleece, and the sun shone warmly and merrily in the clear sky.
"Will you go to your lady as soon as we arrive ?" asked Mayakin, unexpectedly, interrupting their business talk.
"I will," said Foma, shortly, and with displeasure.
"Mm.