The days in Tsybukin’s house were spent in business cares.  Before the sun had risen in the morning Aksinya was panting and puffing as she washed in the outer room, and the samovar was boiling in the kitchen with a hum that boded no good.  Old Grigory Petrovitch, dressed in a long black coat, cotton breeches and shiny top boots, looking a dapper little figure, walked about the rooms, tapping with his little heels like the father-in-law in a well-known song.  The shop was opened.  When it was daylight a racing droshky was brought up to the front door and the old man got jauntily on to it, pulling his big cap down to his ears; and, looking at him, no one would have said he was fifty-six.  His wife and daughter-in-law saw him off, and at such times when he had on a good, clean coat, and had in the droshky a huge black horse that had cost three hundred roubles, the old man did not like the peasants to come up to him with their complaints and petitions; he hated the peasants and disdained them, and if he saw some peasants waiting at the gate, he would shout angrily: 

“Why are you standing there?  Go further off.”

Or if it were a beggar, he would say: 

“God will provide!”

He used to drive off on business; his wife, in a dark dress and a black apron, tidied the rooms or helped in the kitchen.  Aksinya attended to the shop, and from the yard could be heard the clink of bottles and of money, her laughter and loud talk, and the anger of customers whom she had offended; and at the same time it could be seen that the secret sale of vodka was already going on in the shop.  The deaf man sat in the shop, too, or walked about the street bare-headed, with his hands in his pockets looking absent-mindedly now at the huts, now at the sky overhead.  Six times a day they had tea; four times a day they sat down to meals; and in the evening they counted over their takings, put them down, went to bed, and slept soundly.

All the three cotton factories in Ukleevo and the houses of the factory owners—­Hrymin Seniors, Hrymin Juniors, and Kostukov—­were on a telephone.  The telephone was laid on in the local court, too, but it soon ceased to work as bugs and beetles bred there.  The elder of the rural district had had little education and wrote every word in the official documents in capitals.  But when the telephone was spoiled he said: 

“Yes, now we shall be badly off without a telephone.”

The Hrymin Seniors were continually at law with the Juniors, and sometimes the Juniors quarrelled among themselves and began going to law, and their factory did not work for a month or two till they were reconciled again, and this was an entertainment for the people of Ukleevo, as there was a great deal of talk and gossip on the occasion of each quarrel.  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.