auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who
was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds,
"where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"

The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.

"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried.
"Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave
up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there
now."

And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing
like that, you fools?"

"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.

"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise.
"She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her
house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"

She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:

"Where does she live now?"

The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare
arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:

"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little
red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down
that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."

Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned
to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on
the right. On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a
grey fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the fence was
tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the
gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. The gate itself stood
upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best
--to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened the little
gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown
with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with
her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the
middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:

"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"

Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers,
he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs
have a tenor bark).

"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade
her eyes from the sun.

"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivani