We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured kerchief on her head. ‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired. ‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice. ‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’ The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I’m a smart one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was my thought. At the same time she smelt of spirits. I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, as though she were making ready to peck. ‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we can’t be sure, my dear sir....’ ‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’ ‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; the foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands. It’s from on high, my dear; so it is.’ ‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’