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Updated: May 8, 2025
"Save up and buy your own house, then turn people out of it! She is a nice one, to be sure! A pla-ague!" Tsybukin listened and did not stir. "Whether it is your own house or others' it makes no difference so long as it is warm and the women don't scold..." said Crutch, and he laughed. "When I was young I was very fond of my Nastasya. She was a quiet woman.
"Good-evening, Lipinka," cried Crutch delighted. "Dear girls and women, love the rich carpenter! Ho-ho! My little children, my little children. Crutch and Yakov went on further and could still be heard talking. Then after them the crowd was met by old Tsybukin and there was a sudden hush.
When the dressmakers had finished their work Tsybukin paid them not in money but in goods from the shop, and they went away depressed, carrying parcels of tallow candles and tins of sardines which they did not in the least need, and when they got out of the village into the open country they sat down on a hillock and cried.
"You ought to stay at home in the business, Anisim," he said; "you would be worth any price to me! I would shower gold on you from head to foot, my son." "It can't be done, papa." The sherry was sour and smelt of sealing-wax, but they had another glass. When old Tsybukin returned home from the station, for the first moment he did not recognize his younger daughter-in-law.
Then she would walk away to the door, bow again, and say: 'Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch! And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with laughter like the carpenter Elizarov's. At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin went away five days before.
A tall, sleek white stallion was already standing at the front door, harnessed to the chaise. Old Tsybukin jumped in jauntily with a run and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. On the steps Lipa, too, was standing; she was standing motionless, looking away, and it seemed as though she had not come to see him off but just by chance for some unknown reason.
On holidays Kostukov and the Juniors used to get up races, used to dash about Ukleevo and run over calves. Aksinya, rustling her starched petticoats, used to promenade in a low-necked dress up and down the street near her shop; the Juniors used to snatch her up and carry her off as though by force. Then old Tsybukin would drive out to show his new horse and take Varvara with him.
The mowers were singing softly, scarcely audibly, or loudly demanding their wages for the previous day, but they were not paid for fear they should go away before to-morrow. Old Tsybukin, with his coat off, was sitting in his waistcoat with Aksinya under the birch-tree, drinking tea; a lamp was burning on the table.
Towards evening it was a fine autumn day old Tsybukin was sitting near the church gates, with the collar of his fur coat turned up and nothing of him could be seen but his nose and the peak of his cap. At the other end of the long seat was sitting Elizarov the contractor, and beside him Yakov the school watchman, a toothless old man of seventy. Crutch and the watchman were talking.
"Well, thank you for the tea, for the sugar, little children. It is time to sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber nowadays, my beams are crumbling under me. Ho-ho-ho! I suppose it's time I was dead." And he gave a gulp. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea but sat on a little, pondering; and his face looked as though he were listening to the footsteps of Crutch, who was far away down the street.
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