CHAPTER II

MAYAKIN lived in an enormous two-story house near a big palisade,
where sturdy, old spreading linden trees were growing
magnificently. The rank branches covered the windows with a
dense, dark embroidery, and the 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.