Strange, her eyes are a faded blue, girlish, even childish, but
the mouth is that of an old person, with a moist lower lip of a
raspberry colour, impotently hanging down. Her husband--Isaiah
Savvich--is also small, a grayish, quiet, silent little old man.
He is under his wife's thumb; he was doorkeeper in this very house
even at the time when Anna Markovna served here as housekeeper. In
order to be useful in some way, he has learned, through self-
instruction, to play the fiddle, and now at night plays dance
tunes, as well as a funeral march for shopmen far gone on a spree
and craving some maudlin tears.

Then, there are the two housekeepers--senior and junior. The
senior is Emma Edwardovna. She is a tall, full woman of forty-six,
with chestnut hair, and a fat goitre of three chins. Her eyes are
encircled with black rings of hemorrhoidal origin. The face
broadens out like a pear from the forehead down to the cheeks, and
is of an earthen colour; the eyes are small, black; the nose
humped, the lips sternly pursed; the expression of the face calmly
authoritative. It is no mystery to anyone in the house that in a
year or two Anna Markovna will go into retirement, and sell her
the establishment with all its rights and furnishings, when she
will receive part in cash, and part on terms--by promissory note.
Because of this the girls honour her equally with the proprietress
and fear her somewhat. Those who fall into error she beats with
her own hands, beats cruelly, coolly, and calculatingly, without
changing the calm expression of her face. Among the girls there is
always a favourite of hers, whom she tortures with her exacting
love and fantastic jealousy. And this is far harder than her
beatings.