he sun
in broken rays peeped into the small rooms, which were closely crowded
with miscellaneous furniture and big trunks, wherefore a stern and
melancholy semi-darkness always reigned there supreme. The family was
devout--the odour of wax, of rock-rose and of image-lamp oil filled the
house, and penitent sighs and prayers soared about in the air. Religious
ceremonials were performed infallibly, with pleasure, absorbing all the
free power of the souls of the dwellers of the house. Feminine figures
almost noiselessly moved about the rooms in the half-dark, stifling,
heavy atmosphere. They were dressed in black, wore soft slippers on
their feet, and always had a penitent look on their faces.

The family of Yakov Tarazovich Mayakin consisted of himself, his wife, a
daughter and five kinswomen, the youngest of whom was thirty-four years
old. These were alike devout and impersonal, and subordinate to Antonina
Ivanovna, the mistress of the house. She was a tall, thin woman, with
a dark face and with stern gray eyes, which had an imperious and
intelligent expression. Mayakin also had a son Taras, but his name
was never mentioned in the house; acquaintances knew that since the
nineteen-year-old Taras had gone to study in Moscow--he married there
three years later, against his father's will--Yakov disowned him. Taras
disappeared without leaving any trace. It was rumoured that he had been
sent to Siberia for something.

Yakov Mayakin was very queerly built. Short, thin, lively, with a little
red beard, sly greenish eyes, he looked as though he said to each and
every one:

"Never mind, sir, don't be uneasy. Even though I know you for what you
are, if you don't annoy me I will not give you away."

His beard resembled an egg in shape and was monstrously big. His high
forehead, covered with wrinkles, joined his bald crown, and it seemed
as though he really had two faces--one an open, penetrating and
intellectual face, with a long gristle nose, and above this face another
one, eyeless and mouthless, covered with wrinkles, behind which Mayakin
seemed to hide his eyes and his lips until a certain time; and when that
time had arrived, he would look at the world with different eyes and
smile a different smile.

He was the owner of a rope-yard and kept a store in town near the
harbour. In this store, filled up to the ceiling with rope, twine, hemp
and tow, he had a small room with a creaking glass door. In this room
stood a big, old,