And what does the newly-married couple say to
each other after the wedding, in the bedroom? Foma tried to think
what he would say in such a case, and confused, he began to laugh,
finding no appropriate words. Then he recalled Luba Mayakin. She
would surely be first to say something, uttering some
unintelligible words, which were foreign to herself. Somehow it
seemed to him that all her words were foreign, and she did not
speak as was proper for a girl of her age, appearance and descent.
And here his thoughts rested on Lubov's complaints. His gait became
slower; he was now astounded by the fact that all the people that
were near to him and with whom he talked a great deal, always spoke
to him of life. His father, his aunt, his godfather, Lubov, Sophya
Pavlovna, all these either taught him to understand life, or
complained of it. He recalled the words said by the old man on the
steamer about Fate, and many other remarks on life, reproaches and
bitter complaints against it, which he happened to hear from all
sorts of people.
"What does it mean?" he thought, "what is life, if it is not man?
And man always speaks as if life were something else, something
outside of man, and that something hinders him from living.
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