had a great deal of business--he was a horse-dealer, he rented land,
had a market garden, bought up orchards and traded in various ways--but
his absences never lasted long; like a kite, to which he had
considerable resemblance, especially in the expression of his eyes, he
used to return to his nest. He knew how to keep that nest in order. He
was everywhere, he listened to everything and gave orders, served out
stores, sent things out and made up his accounts himself, and never
knocked off a farthing from anyone's account, but never asked more
than his due.

The visitors did not talk to him, and, indeed, he did not care to
waste words. "I want your money and you want my victuals," he used to
say, as it were, jerking out each word: "We have not met for a
christening; the traveller has eaten, has fed his beasts, no need to
sit on. If he is tired, let him sleep without chattering." The
labourers he kept were healthy grown-up men, but docile and well
broken in; they were very much afraid of him. He never touched
intoxicating liquor and he used to give his men ten kopecks for vodka
on the great holidays; they did not dare to drink on other days.
People like Naum quickly get rich ... but to the magnificent position
in which he found himself--and he was believed to be worth forty or
fifty thousand roubles--Naum Ivanov had not arrived by the strait
path....

The inn had existed on the same spot on the high road twenty years
before the time from which we date the beginning of our story. It is
true that it had not then the dark red shingle roof which made Naum
Ivanov's inn look like a gentleman's house; it was inferior in
construction and had thatched roofs in the courtyard, and a humble
fence instead of a wall of logs; nor had it been distinguished by the