Dorosh Tarasovitch Pukhivotchka, when he leaves Khorola, always goes to his house.

And when Father Peter, the Protopope who lives at Koliberdas, invites a few guests, he always says that he knows of no one who so well fulfils all his Christian duties and understands so well how to live as Ivan Ivanovitch.
How time flies! More than ten years have already passed since he became a widower.

He never had any children.

Gapka has children and they run about the court-yard.

Ivan Ivanovitch always gives each of them a cake, or a slice of melon, or a pear.
Gapka carries the keys of the storerooms and cellars; but the key of the large chest which stands in his bedroom, and that of the centre storeroom, Ivan Ivanovitch keeps himself; Gapka is a healthy girl, with ruddy cheeks and calves, and goes about in coarse cloth garments.
And what a pious man is Ivan Ivanovitch! Every Sunday he dons his pelisse and goes to church.