These were alike devout and impersonal,
and subordinate to Antonina Ivanovna, the mistress of the house.
She was a tall, thin woman, with a dark face and with stern gray
eyes, which had an imperious and intelligent expression. Mayakin
also had a son Taras, but his name was never mentioned in the
house; acquaintances knew that since the nineteen-year-old Taras
had gone to study in Moscow--he married there three years later,
against his father's will--Yakov disowned him. Taras disappeared
without leaving any trace. It was rumoured that he had been sent
to Siberia for something.
Yakov Mayakin was very queerly built. Short, thin, lively, with a
little red beard, sly greenish eyes, he looked as though he said
to each and every one:
"Never mind, sir, don't be uneasy. Even though I know you for
what you are, if you don't annoy me I will not give you away."
His beard resembled an egg in shape and was monstrously big. His
high forehead, covered with wrinkles, joined his bald crown, and
it seemed as though he really had two faces--one an open,
penetrating and intellectual face, with a long gristle nose, and
above this face another one, eyeless and mouthless, covered with
wrinkles, behind which Mayakin seemed to hide his eyes and his
lips until a certain time; and when that time had arrived, he
would look at the world with different eyes and smile a different
smile.
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