"How do you do? There is a hard frost to-day. What a stuffy smell there is here! It is the smell of paint. How do you do?" To look at her, so calm and strong, like a large river at high tide, was pleasant, but her speech had a soporific influence, and was both superfluous and wearisome. Before she uttered a word, she used to puff, making her almost livid cheeks rounder than ever. The young ones giggled, and whispered among themselves: "She is like an engine!" "Like a steeple!" Pursing her lips and folding her hands under her bosom, she sat at the cloth-covered table by the samovar, and looked at us all in turn with a kind expression in her horse-like eyes. Every one treated her with great respect, and the younger ones were even rather afraid of her. The youths looked at that great body with eager eyes, but when they met her all-embracing glance, they lowered their own eyes in confusion. Jikharev was also respectful to his guest, addressed her as "you," called her "little comrade," and pressed hospitality upon her, bowing low the while. "Now don't you put yourself out," she drawled sweetly. "What a fuss you are making of me, really!" As for herself, she lived without hurry; her arms moved only from the elbow to the wrist, while the elbows themselves were pressed against her sides. From her came an ardent smell, as of hot bread. Old Golovev, stammering in his enthusiasm, praised the beauty of the woman, like a deacon chanting the divine praises. She listened, smiling affably, and when he had become involved in his speech, said of herself: "We were not a bit handsome when we were young; this has all come through living as a woman. By the time we were thirty, we had become so remarkable that even the nobility interested themselves in us, and one district commander actually promised a carriage with a pair of horses." Kapendiukhin, tipsy and dishevelled, looked at her with a glance of hatred, and asked coarsely: "What did he promise you that for?" "In return for our love, of course," explained the guest. "Love," muttered Kapendiukhin, "what sort of love?" "Such a handsome young man as you are must know all about love," answered the woman simply. The workshop shook with laughter, and Sitanov growled to Kapendiukhin: "A fool, if no worse, she is! People only love that way through a great passion, as every one knows." He was pale with the wine he had drunk; drops of sweat stood on his temples like pearls; his intelligent eyes burned alarmingly. But old Golovev, twitching his monstrous nose, wiped the tears from his eyes with his fingers, and asked: "How many children did you have?" "Only one."