What would he speak to her about?
What would she tell him?
He thought and pictured to himself young ladies of his acquaintance, daughters of merchants.

Some of them were very pretty, and he knew that any one of them would marry him willingly.

But he did not care to have any of them as his wife.

How awkward and shameful it must be when a girl becomes a wife.

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.