Foma admired her words and listened to her just as eagerly as to her father; but whenever she started to speak of Taras with love and anguish, it seemed to him that she was hiding another man under that name, perhaps that same Yozhov, who according to her words, had to leave the university for some reason or other, and go to Moscow.

There was a great deal of simplemindedness and kindness in her, which pleased Foma, and ofttimes her words awakened in him a feeling of pity for her; it seemed to him that she was not alive, that she was dreaming though awake.
His conduct at the funeral feast for his father became known to all the merchants and gave him a bad reputation.

On the Exchange, he noticed, everybody looked at him sneeringly, malevolently, and spoke to him in some peculiar way.

One day he heard behind him a low exclamation, full of contempt: "Gordyeeff! Milksop!" He felt that this was said of him, but he did not turn around to see who it was that flung those words at him.

The rich people, who had inspired him with timidity before, were now losing in his eyes the witchery of their wealth and wisdom.