“Well, let her go. And I am alone.” Ookhtishchev, waving his cane, began to whistle, looking at his companion.
“Sha’n’t I be able to get along without her?” asked Foma, looking somewhere in front of him and then, after a pause, he answered himself softly and irresolutely:
“Of course, I shall.”
“Listen to me!” exclaimed Ookhtishchev. “I’ll give you some good advice. A man must be himself. While you, you are an epic man, so to say, and the lyrical is not becoming to you. It isn’t your genre.”
“Speak to me more simply, sir,” said Foma, having listened attentively to his words.
“More simply? Very well. I want to say, give up thinking of this little lady. She is poisonous food for you.”
“She told me the same,” put in Foma, gloomily.
“She told you?” Ookhtishchev asked and became thoughtful. “Now, I’ll tell you, shouldn’t we perhaps go and have supper?”
“Let’s go,” Foma assented. And he suddenly roared obdurately, clinching his fists and waving them in the air: “Well, let us go, and I’ll get wound up; I’ll break loose, after all this, so you can’t hold me back!”
“What for? We’ll do it modestly.”