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He felt sad and oppressed at the consciousness of being unable to talk so much and so fluently as all these people, and here he recalled that Luba Mayakina had more than once scoffed at him on this account. Foma did not like Mayakin's daughter, and since he had learned from his father of Mayakin's intention to marry him to Luba, the young Gordyeeff began to shun her.
Quiet, silent and persistent in his childish desires, he spent all his days over his playthings, with Mayakin's daughter, Luba, quietly looked after by one of the kinswomen, a stout, pock-marked old maid, who was, for some reason or other, nicknamed "Buzya." She was a dull, somewhat timid creature; and even to the children she spoke in a low voice, in words of monosyllables.
The northern column moved along the Lualaba and Congo rivers to the Cameroons; the second column became the industrial and state-building Luba and Lunda peoples in the southern Congo valley and Angola; while the third column moved into Damaraland and mingled with Bushman and Hottentot.
And Luba, her cheeks aflame with animation, spurred him on, nodding her head approvingly: "That's it! That's good! Well, and she?" "She was silent!" said Foma, sadly, with a shrug of the shoulders. "That is, she said different things; but what's the use?" He waved his hand and became silent. Luba, playing with her braid, was also silent. The samovar had already become cold.
From behind his shoulder Foma saw the pale, frightened and joyous face of Luba she looked at her father with beseeching eyes and it seemed she was on the point of crying out. For a few moments all were silent and motionless, crushed as they were by the immensity of their emotions. The silence was broken by the low, but dull and quivering voice of Yakov Tarasovich: "You have grown old, Taras."
No promise of reward would induce any of our Zulu bearers even to wet their feet in the waters of this River Luba, which for some reason that I could not extract from them they declared to be tagati, that is, bewitched, to people of their blood.
Sweetly smiling, and rubbing his hands, he sat down near Foma and asked, playfully jostling him in the side: "What have you been cooing about?" "So about different trifles," answered Luba. "I haven't asked you, have I?" said her father to her, with a grimace. "You just sit there, hold your tongue, and mind your woman's affairs."
"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." "Those are not men!" announced Luba, categorically.
"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!
"By the way, Luba, turn your attention to the fact," began Taras, standing with his back toward the table and scrutinizing the clock, "that pessimism is perfectly foreign to the Anglo-Saxon race. That which they call pessimism in Swift and in Byron is only a burning, sharp protest against the imperfection of life and man.
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