there was a guest present, then it
reads, "Such and such a person assisted."

The late judge of Mirgorod always gazed at Ivan Ivanovitch's house with
pleasure. The little house is very pretty. It pleases me because sheds
and other little additions are built on to it on all sides; so that,
looking at it from a distance, only roofs are visible, rising one above
another, and greatly resembling a plate full of pancakes, or, better
still, fungi growing on the trunk of a tree. Moreover, the roof is all
overgrown with weeds: a willow, an oak, and two apple-trees lean their
spreading branches against it. Through the trees peep little windows
with carved and white-washed shutters, which project even into the
street.

A very fine man, Ivan Ivanovitch! The commissioner of Poltava knows him
too. Dorosh Tarasovitch Pukhivotchka, when he leaves Khorola, always
goes to his house. And when Father Peter, the Protopope who lives at
Koliberdas, invites a few guests, he always says that he knows of no one
who so well fulfils all his Christian duties and understands so well how
to live as Ivan Ivanovitch.

How time flies! More than ten years have already passed since he became
a widower. He never had any children. Gapka has children and they run
about the court-yard. Ivan Ivanovitch always gives each of them a cake,
or a slice of melon, or a pear.

Gapka carries the keys of the storerooms and cellars; but the key of
the large chest which stands in his bedroom, and that of the centre
storeroom, Ivan Ivanovitch keeps himself; Gapka is a healthy girl, with
ruddy cheeks and calves, and goes about in coarse cloth garments.

And what a pious man is Ivan Ivanovitch! Every Sunday he dons his
pelisse and goes to church. On entering, he bows on all sides, generally
stations himself in the choir, and sings a very good bass. When the
service is over, Ivan Ivanovitch cannot refrain from passing the poor
people in review. He probably would not have cared to undertake
this tiresome work if his natural goodness had not urged him to it.
"Good-day, beggar!" he generally said, selecting the most crippled old
woman, in the most patched and threadbare garments. "Whence come you, my
poor woman?"

"I come from the farm, sir. 'Tis two days since I have eaten or drunk:
my own children drove me out."

"Poor soul! why did you come hither?"

"To beg alms, sir, to see whether some one will not give me at least
enough for bread."

"Hm! so you want bread?" I