living must live on. You are
not so very old as yet. Have you been a widower long?"

"This is the third year."

"So? And how did you chance upon the soda factory?"

"That belongs to my father-in-law."

"Aha! What is your salary?"

"About five thousand."

"Mm. That's not a stale crust. Yes, that's a galley slave for you!"

Taras glanced at his father with a firm look and asked him drily:

"By the way, what makes you think that I was a convict?"

The old man glanced at his son with astonishment, which was quickly
changed into joy:

"Ah! What then? You were not? The devil take them! Then--how was it?
Don't take offence! How could I know? They said you were in Siberia!
Well, and there are the galleys!"

"To make an end of this once for all," said Taras, seriously and
impressively, clapping his hand on his knee, "I'll tell you right now
how it all happened. I was banished to Siberia to settle there for
six years, and, during all the time of my exile, I lived in the mining
region of the Lena. In Moscow I was imprisoned for about nine months.
That's all!"

"So-o! But what does it mean?" muttered Yakov Tarasovich, with confusion
and joy.

"And here they circulated that absurd rumour."

"That's right--it is absurd indeed!" said the old man, distressed.

"And it did a pretty great deal of harm on a certain occasion."

"Really? Is that possible?"

"Yes. I was about to go into business for myself, and my credit was
ruined on account of--"

"Pshaw!" said Yakov Tarasovich, as he spat angrily. "Oh, devil! Come,
come, is that possible?"

Foma sat all this time in his corner, listening to the conversation
between the Mayakins, and, blinking perplexedly, he fixedly examined the
newcomer. Recalling Lubov's bearing toward her brother, and influenced,
to a certain degree, by her stories about Taras, he expected to see
in him something unusual, something unlike the ordinary people. He had
thought that Taras would speak in some peculiar way, would dress in
a manner peculiar to himself; and in general he would be unlike other
people. While before him sat a sedate, stout man, faultlessly dressed,
with stern eyes, very much like his father in face, and the only
difference between them was that the son had a cigar in his mouth and
a black beard. He spoke briefly in a business-like way of everyday
things--where was, then, that peculiar something about him? Now he began
to tell his father of the profits in the manufacture