They were dressed in black, wore soft slippers on their feet, and always had a penitent look on their faces.
The family of Yakov Tarazovich Mayakin consisted of himself, his wife, a daughter and five kinswomen, the youngest of whom was thirty-four years old.

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.