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"Frown?"
"Are you ill, perhaps? Be careful. If there is anything, tell me."
"You are strong," said Foma of a sudden musingly.
"I? That's right. God has favoured me with strength."
"How hard you struck him!" exclaimed the boy in a low voice,
lowering his head.
Ignat was about to put a piece of bread with caviar into his
mouth, but his hand stopped, held back by his son's exclamation;
he looked interrogatively at Foma's drooping head and asked:
"You mean Yefim, don't you?"
"Yes, he was bleeding. And how he walked afterward, how he
cried," said the boy in a low voice.
"Mm," roared Ignat, chewing a bite. "Well, are you sorry for him?"
"It's a pity!" said Foma, with tears in his voice.
"Yes. So that's the kind of a fellow you are," said Ignat.
Then, after a moment's silence, he filled a wineglass with vodka,
emptied it, and said sternly, in a slightly reprimanding tone:
"There is no reason why you should pity him. He brawled at
random, and therefore got what he deserved. I know him: he is a
good fellow, industrious, strong and not a bit foolish.


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