This landlord was a petty burgher, Naúm Ivánoff by name. He was of medium stature, thick-set, stooping and broad-shouldered; he had a large, round head, hair which was wavy and already grizzled, although in appearance he was not over forty years of age; a plump and rosy face, a low, but white and smooth brow, and small, bright blue eyes, with which he gazed forth very strangely--askance, and, at the same time, insolently, which is a combination rarely encountered. He always held his head in a drooping position, and turned it with difficulty, perhaps because his neck was very short; he walked briskly and did not swing his arms, but opened his clenched fists as he walked. When he smiled,--and he smiled frequently, but without laughter, as though to himself,--his large lips moved apart in an unpleasant way, and displayed a row of compact and dazzling teeth. He spoke abruptly, and with a certain surly sound in his voice. He shaved off his beard, but did not adopt the foreign dress. His garments consisted of a long, extremely-threadbare kaftan, ample bag-trousers, and shoes worn on the bare feet. He often absented himself from home on business,--and he had a great deal of business: he was a jobber of horses, he hired land, he raised vegetables for the market, he purchased gardens, and in general occupied himself with various commercial speculations,--but his absences never lasted long; like the hawk, to whom in particular, especially as to the expression of his eyes, he bore a strong resemblance, he kept returning to his nest. He understood how to keep that nest in order; he kept track of everything, he heard everything, and gave orders about everything; he dealt out, he served out, and calculated everything himself, and while he did not reduce his price a kopék to any one, yet he did not overcharge. The lodgers did not enter into conversation with him, and he himself was not fond of wasting words without cause. "I need your money, and you need my victuals," he was wont to explain, as though he were tearing off each separate word: "you and I have n't got to stand godparents to a child and become cronies; the traveller has eaten, I have fed him his fill, let him not outstay his welcome. And if he is sleepy, then let him sleep, not chatter." He kept sturdy and healthy, but tame and submissive labourers; they were extremely afraid of him. He never took a drop of intoxicating liquor into his mouth, but he gave each of them ten kopéks for vodka on festival days; on other days they did not dare to drink. People like Naúm speedily grow rich;.... but Naúm Ivánoff had not reached the brilliant condition in which he found himself--and he was reckoned to be worth forty or fifty thousand rubles--by straightforward ways....