Akím had everything established on the old-fashioned footing,--warm but not quite clean; and it sometimes happened that his oats turned out to be light, or damp, and the food also was prepared in rather indifferent fashion; such victuals were sometimes served on his table as had been better left in the oven for good, and that not because he was stingy with material, but just because it happened so--his wife had not looked after things. On the other hand, he was ready to deduct from the price, and he would even not refuse to give credit. In a word, he was a good man and an amiable landlord. He was liberal also with his conversation and standing treat; over the samovár he would sometimes get to babbling so that you would prick up your ears, especially when he began to talk about Peter,[34] about the Tcherkessian steppes, or about foreign parts; well, and as a matter of course, he was fond of drinking with a nice man, only not to excess, and more for the sake of sociability--so travellers said of him. Merchants bore great good-will toward him, as, in general, did all those people who call themselves old-fashioned--those people who do not set out on a journey without having girded themselves and who do not enter a room without crossing themselves,[35] and who will not enter into conversation with a man without having preliminarily bidden him "good morning." Akím's mere personal appearance disposed one in his favour; he was tall, rather gaunt, but very well built, even in his mature years; he had a long, comely and regular face, a high, open brow, a thin, straight nose, and small lips. The glance of his prominent brown eyes fairly beamed with gentle cordiality, his thin, soft hair curled in rings about his neck: very little of it remained on the crown of his head. The sound of Akím's voice was very agreeable, although weak; in his youth he had been a capital singer, but his long journeys in the open air, in winter, had impaired his lungs. On the other hand, he spoke very fluently and sweetly. When he laughed, ray-like wrinkles, very pleasant to behold, spread themselves out around his eyes;--such wrinkles are to be seen only in kind people. Akím's movements were generally slow and not devoid of a certain self-confidence and sedate courtesy, as was befitting a man of experience who had seen much in his day. In fact, Akím would have been all right,--or, as they called him even in the manor-house, whither he was wont to go frequently, as well as unfailingly on Sundays after the morning service in church, Akím Semyónovitch,[36]--would have been all right in every respect had he not had one failing, which has ruined many men on this earth, and in the end ruined him also--a weakness for the female sex. Akím's amorousness went to extremes: his heart was utterly unable to resist a feminine glance; he melted in it, as the first autumnal snow melts in the sun .... and he had to pay dearly for his superfluous sensibility.