“Does it taste good?”
“Not very.”
“So. Never mind, all this is not so bad. Only you are too outspoken. You are ready to confess all your sins to each and every pope that comes along. You must consider it isn’t always necessary to do that. Sometimes by keeping silent you both please people and commit no sins. Yes. A man’s tongue is very seldom sober. Here we are. See, your father does not know that you have arrived. Is he home yet, I wonder?”
He was at home: his loud, somewhat hoarse laughter was heard from the open windows of the rooms. The noise of the carriage, which stopped at the house, caused Ignat to look out of the window, and at the sight of his son he cried out with joy:
“Ah! You’ve come.”
After a while he pressed Foma to his breast with one hand, and, pressing the palm of his other hand against his son’s forehead, thus bending his head back, he looked into his face with beaming eyes and spoke contentedly:
“You are sunburnt. You’ve grown strong. You’re a fine fellow! Madame! How’s my son? Isn’t he fine?”
“Not bad looking,” a gentle, silver voice was heard. Foma glanced from behind his father’s shoulder and noticed that a slender woman with magnificent fair hair was sitting in the front corner of the room, resting her elbows on the table; her dark eyes, her thin eyebrows and plump, red lips strikingly defined on her pale face. Behind her armchair stood a large philodendron-plant whose big, figured leaves were hanging down in the air over her little golden head.
“How do you do, Sophya Pavlovna,” said Mayakin, tenderly, approaching her with his hand outstretched. “What, are you still collecting contributions from poor people like us?”
Foma bowed to her mutely, not hearing her answer to Mayakin, nor what his father was saying to him. The lady stared at him steadfastly and smiled to him affably and serenely. Her childlike figure, clothed in some kind of dark fabric, was almost blended with the crimson stuff of the armchair, while her wavy, golden hair and her pale face shone against the dark background. Sitting there in the corner, beneath the green leaves, she looked at once like a flower, and like an ikon.