“Will you go to sleep now?” asked Foma, firmly shaking her hand.
“I’ll read a little.”
“You’re to your books as the drunkard to his whisky,” said the youth, with pity.
“What is there that is better?”
Walking along the street he looked at the windows of the house and in one of them he noticed Luba’s face. It was just as vague as everything that the girl told him, even as vague as her longings. Foma nodded his head toward her and with a consciousness of his superiority over her, thought:
“She has also lost her way, like the other one.”
At this recollection he shook his head, as though he wanted to frighten away the thought of Medinskaya, and quickened his steps.
Night was coming on, and the air was fresh. A cold, invigorating wind was violently raging in the street, driving the dust along the sidewalks and throwing it into the faces of the passers-by. It was dark, and people were hastily striding along in the darkness. Foma wrinkled his face, for the dust filled his eyes, and thought:
“If it is a woman I meet now—then it will mean that Sophya Pavlovna will receive me in a friendly way, as before. I am going to see her tomorrow. And if it is a man—I won’t go tomorrow, I’ll wait.”
But it was a dog that came to meet him, and this irritated Foma to such an extent that he felt like striking him with his cane.