He went into one of the small rooms of the house, whose two windows overlooked the garden. In the middle of the room stood an oval table, surrounded with old-fashioned, leather-covered chairs; on one partition hung a clock in a long case with a glass door, in the corner was a cupboard for dishes, and opposite the windows, by the walls, was an oaken sideboard as big as a fair-sized room. “Are you coming from the banquet?” asked Luba, entering. Foma nodded his head mutely. “Well, how was it? Grand?” “It was terrible!” Foma smiled. “I sat there as if on hot coals. They all looked there like peacocks, while I looked like a barn-owl.” Luba was taking out dishes from the cupboard and said nothing to Foma. “Really, why are you so sad?” asked Foma again, glancing at her gloomy face. She turned to him and said with enthusiasm and anxiety: “Ah, Foma! What a book I’ve read! If you could only understand it!” “It must be a good book, since it worked you up in this way,” said Foma, smiling. “I did not sleep. I read all night long. Just think of it: you read--and it seems to you that the gates of another kingdom are thrown open before you. And the people there are different, and their language is different, everything different! Life itself is different there.” “I don’t like this,” said Foma, dissatisfied. “That’s all fiction, deceit; so is the theatre. The merchants are ridiculed there. Are they really so stupid? Of course! Take your father, for example.” “The theatre and the school are one and the same, Foma,” said Luba, instructively. “The merchants used to be like this. And what deceit can there be in books?” “Just as in fairy--tales, nothing is real.” “You are wrong! You have read no books; how can you judge? Books are precisely real. They teach you how to live.” “Come, come!” Foma waved his hand. “Drop it; no good will come out of your books! There, take your father, for example, does he read books? And yet he is clever! I looked at him today and envied him. His relations with everybody are so free, so clever, he has a word for each and every one. You can see at once that whatever he should desire he is sure to attain.” “What is he striving for?” exclaimed Luba. “Nothing but money. But there are people that want happiness for all on earth, and to gain this end they work without sparing themselves; they suffer and perish! How can my father be compared with these?” “You need not compare them. They evidently like one thing, while your father likes another.” “They do not like anything!” How’s that? “They want to change everything.” “So they do strive for something?” said Foma, thoughtfully. “They do wish for something?” “They wish for happiness for all!” cried Luba, hotly. “I can’t understand this,” said Foma, nodding his head. “Who cares there for my happiness? And then again, what happiness can they give me, since I, myself, do not know as yet what I want? No, you should have rather looked at those that were at the banquet.”