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He ate without haste, sedately, and Dyudya, who had seen a good many travellers in his time, knew him from his manners for a businesslike man, serious and aware of his own value. Dyudya was sitting on the step in his waistcoat without a cap on, waiting for the visitor to speak first.
"When they were taking her away to the chief town of our province, I walked by the escort as far as the station and slipped a rouble into her bundle for my soul's salvation. But she did not get as far as Siberia.... She fell sick of fever and died in prison." "Live like a dog and you must die a dog's death," said Dyudya. "Kuzka was sent back home.... I thought it over and took him to bring up.
Sofya began to laugh; she thought it sinful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she felt envious and sorry that she, too, had not been a sinner when she was young and pretty. In the churchyard they heard twelve strokes beaten on the watchman's board. "It's time we were asleep," said Sofya, getting up, "or, maybe, we shall catch it from Dyudya." They both went softly into the yard.
When Sofya was just dropping asleep, Varvara, coming close, whispered in her ear: "Let us get rid of Dyudya and Alyoshka!" Sofya started and said nothing. Then she opened her eyes and gazed a long while steadily at the sky. "People would find out," she said. "No, they wouldn't. Dyudya's an old man, it's time he did die; and they'd say Alyoshka died of drink."
But no sooner had Vasya gone out of the yard, when in came Mashenka. Ah! What I had to suffer! She hung on my neck, weeping and praying: 'For God's sake, don't cast me off; I can't live without you!" "The vile hussy!" sighed Dyudya. "I swore at her, stamped my foot, and dragging her into the passage, I fastened the door with the hook. 'Go to your husband, I cried. 'Don't shame me before folks.
Dyudya asked the traveller. "No; adopted. An orphan. I took him for my soul's salvation." They got into conversation.
The hunchback Alyoshka came into the yard from the street and ran out of breath into the house, not looking at any one. A minute later he ran out of the house with a concertina. Jingling some coppers in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, he went out at the gate. "And who's that, pray?" asked Matvey Savitch. "My son Alexey," answered Dyudya. "He's off on a spree, the rascal.
Dyudya came out of the house with his accounts in his hands, sat down on the step, and began reckoning how much the traveller owed him for the night's lodging, oats, and watering his horses. "You charge pretty heavily for the oats, my good man," said Matvey Savitch. "If it's too much, don't take them. There's no compulsion, merchant."
Dyudya rents some bits of land, keeps a tavern on the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey, cattle, and jackdaws, and has already something like eight thousand roubles put by in the bank in the town. His elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the factory, and, as the peasants say of him, he has risen so high in the world that he is quite out of reach now.
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