house, the
oxen unyoked and lying lazily beside it. All this has for me an
indescribable charm,--perhaps because I no longer see it, and because
anything from which we are separated pleases us.

But more than all else, the owners of this distant nook,--an old man and
old woman,--hastening eagerly out to meet me, gave me pleasure. Afanasy
Ivanovitch Tovstogub and his wife, Pulkheria Ivanovna Tovstogubikha,
according to the neighboring peasants' way of expressing it, were the
old people of whom I began to speak. If I were a painter and wished to
depict Philemon and Baucis on canvas, I could have found no better
models than they. Afanasy Ivanovitch was sixty years old, Pulkheria
Ivanovna was fifty-five. Afanasy Ivanovitch was tall, always wore a
short sheepskin coat covered with camlet, sat all doubled up, and was
almost always smiling, whether he were telling a story or only listening
to one. Pulkheria Ivanovna was rather serious, and hardly ever laughed;
but her face and eyes expressed so much goodness, so much eagerness to
treat you to all the best they owned, that you would probably have found
a smile too repelling on her kind face. The delicate wrinkles were so
agreeably disposed on their countenances that an artist would certainly
have appropriated them. It seemed as though in them you might read their
whole life: the pure, peaceful life led by the old, patriotic,
simple-hearted, and at the same time wealthy families, which always
present a marked contrast to those baser Little-Russians who work up
from tar-burners and peddlers, throng the court-rooms like grasshoppers,
squeeze the last copper from their fellow-countrymen, crowd Petersburg
with scandal-mongers, finally acquire capital, and triumphantly add an
_f_ to their surnames which end in _o_. No, they did not resemble those
despicable and miserable creatures, but all ancient and native
Little-Russian families.

They never had any children, so all their affection was concentrated on
themselves.

The rooms of the little house in which our old couple dwelt were small,
low-ceiled, such as are generally to be seen with old-fashioned people.
In each room stood a huge stove, which occupied nearly one-third of the
space. These little rooms were frightfully hot, because both Afanasy
Ivanovitch and Pulkheria Ivanovna were fond of heat. All their fuel was
stored in the ante-room, which was always filled nearly to the ceiling
with straw, which is generally used in Littl