Among the ranks of her menials, the most remarkable person was the yard-porter, Gerásim, a man six feet five inches in height, built like an epic hero, and a deaf-mute from his birth. His mistress had taken him from the village, where he lived alone, in a tiny cottage, apart from his brethren, and was considered the most punctual of the taxable serfs. Endowed with remarkable strength, he did the work of four persons. Matters made progress in his hands, and it was a cheerful sight to watch him when he ploughed and, applying his huge hands to the primitive plough, seemed to be carving open the elastic bosom of the earth alone, without the aid of his little nag; or about St. Peter's Day[24] wielding the scythe so shatteringly that he might even have hewn off a young birch-wood from its roots; or threshing briskly and unremittingly with a chain seven feet in length, while the firm, oblong muscles on his shoulders rose and fell like levers. His uninterrupted muteness imparted to his indefatigable labour a grave solemnity. He was a splendid peasant, and had it not been for his infirmity, any maiden would willingly have married him.... But Gerásim was brought to Moscow, boots were bought for him, a broom and a shovel were put into his hand, and he was appointed to be the yard-porter. At first he felt a violent dislike for his new life. From his childhood he had been accustomed to field-labour, to country life. Set apart by his infirmity from communion with his fellow-men, he had grown up dumb and mighty, as a tree grows on fruitful soil.... Transported to the town, he did not understand what was happening to him;--he felt bored and puzzled, as a healthy young bull is puzzled when he has just been taken from the pasture, where the grass grew up to his belly,--when he has been taken, and placed in a railway-wagon,--and, lo, with his robust body enveloped now with smoke and sparks, again with billows of steam, he is drawn headlong onward, drawn with rumble and squeaking, and whither--God only knows! Gerásim's occupations in his new employment seemed to him a mere farce after his onerous labours as a peasant; in half an hour he had finished everything, and he was again standing in the middle of the courtyard and staring, open-mouthed, at all the passers-by, as though desirous of obtaining from them the solution of his enigmatic situation; or he would suddenly go off to some corner and, flinging his broom or his shovel far from him, would throw himself on the ground face downward, and lie motionless on his breast for whole hours at a time, like a captured wild beast.