Reports came to him that among the relatives who had hoped to inherit everything not only after his late wife, but after him, there was as much movement as there is in a beehive; but this pleased him, since he hated them all from his innermost spirit, and was planning at all times to harm them. Those tidings of meetings, whispered conferences, and counsels shortened his visit to Radom. And when at last his stay there was ended, and the horses together with new harness were purchased, he returned on Easter eve to his mansion. Guests began to arrive almost at the same time, for the betrothal was to take place on the third day after Easter.
First came the Krepetskis who were both the nearest relatives and nearest neighbors. The father was almost eighty years old, with the visage of a vulture, and renowned as a miser. He had three daughters: Tekla, the youngest, was pretty and pleasant; Agneshka and Johanna were not youthful, they were testy old maids with pimples on their cheeks at all seasons. He had a son, Martsian, nicknamed Pniak (stump) in the neighborhood. He bore the name justly, for at the first glance he seemed a great stump; he had a mighty chest, and broad shoulders. His bow-legs were so short that he was almost dwarflike, and his arms reached his kneepans. Some thought him a hunchback; he was not, however, but his head without a neck was fixed so closely to his body that his high shoulders reached his ears, very nearly. Out of that head peered prominent, lustful eyes, and his face was like that of a he-goat. A small beard which he wore as if in defiance of general custom, increased the resemblance.
He did not serve as a warrior, for he had been ridiculed from service, for which reason he had had in his time many duels. There was uncommon strength in his stumpy body, and people feared him in all places, since he was a quarreller and a road-blocker, who, in every affair, was glad to seek pretexts; he was as irritable as a vicious beast, and wounded savagely in Radom one Krepetski, his cousin, a handsome and worthy young man who almost died of the injuries then inflicted. He felt respect only for Yatsek, whose skill at the sabre was known to him, and before the Bukoyemskis, one of whom, Lukash, threw him over a fence like a bundle of straw once in Yedlina. He had the deserved reputation of being a great profligate. Pan Gideon had driven him out of the mansion a few years before that, because he had looked too much in goat fashion at Panna Anulka, a little girl at that period. But since then some years had passed, and, as they had met later in Radom, and in neighboring houses, Pan Gideon invited him now with the family.