Chap­ter VII opens with Grig­o­ry Petro­vitch Tsy­bukin sit­ting in qui­et con­tem­pla­tion, no longer buoyed by the pride of his wealth. What once brought him respect and admi­ra­tion now fills him with sus­pi­cion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the mon­ey he counts each day, which he now fears may be coun­ter­feit. This shift is not root­ed in finance alone; it mir­rors a grow­ing sense that his life’s work, built through cun­ning and con­trol, might have been hol­low at its core. His grip on author­i­ty, once firm, now trem­bles beneath the weight of unre­solved guilt and the qui­et real­iza­tion that lega­cy can­not be mea­sured in rubles alone. Watch­ing his grand­son Niki­for play in the sun­light, Grig­o­ry sees not just a child, but a sym­bol of some­thing untaint­ed, some­thing deserv­ing of bet­ter. For the first time, the idea of ensur­ing the boy’s future brings him comfort—perhaps more than the shop ever did.

Moved by Varvara’s steady rea­son­ing and the gnaw­ing anx­i­ety that his death could spark greed and chaos, Grig­o­ry choos­es to take action. He decides to secure the estate of Butyoki­no in Nikifor’s name, legal­ly and irrev­o­ca­bly. This deci­sion, how­ev­er, is not greet­ed with qui­et gratitude—it ignites Aksinya’s fury. To her, it is not mere­ly a mat­ter of prop­er­ty, but a final insult in a long string of indig­ni­ties endured in silence. She lash­es out, her voice thick with rage and accu­sa­tion, not just against Grig­o­ry, but against the very struc­ture of the fam­i­ly. Her words pierce deep­er than expect­ed, draw­ing blood from truths long buried beneath rep­u­ta­tion and rou­tine. Her out­cry, while emo­tion­al, car­ries a bru­tal clarity—she will no longer live as some­one else’s shad­ow.

Aksinya’s accu­sa­tions are sharp and cal­cu­lat­ed, reveal­ing the hid­den cracks in the Tsy­bukin family’s foun­da­tion. She speaks of fraud, cru­el­ty, and manip­u­la­tion not as if they are sins, but as nor­mal business—acts wrapped in polite silence and buried under social stand­ing. For the onlook­ers, includ­ing Var­vara, the moment is a rude awak­en­ing. The house, long seen as a sym­bol of pow­er and pros­per­i­ty, feels small­er now—its walls echo­ing with truths no one want­ed to face. Grig­o­ry, shak­en, retreats inward. He no longer sees him­self as a patri­arch but as a man who has lost con­trol of what he once believed he owned: his family’s respect. Even Var­vara, often his anchor, stands still, her silence more telling than any defense.

In the after­math, Grig­o­ry wan­ders through the house in silence, avoid­ing mir­rors and shad­ows. His lega­cy, once wrapped in sil­ver coin and nod­ding heads, has been stained by one moment of con­fronta­tion. But beneath the humil­i­a­tion lies a qui­et resolve. For the first time, Grig­o­ry con­sid­ers that pro­tect­ing Niki­for might be less about mon­ey and more about free­ing him from the cor­rupt sys­tem that raised his own sons. He dreams of a clean­er path for the boy—an inher­i­tance of con­science, not just land. There is a heav­i­ness to his move­ments now, but also a strange sense of peace. Aksinya’s words may have cut him deeply, but they forced him to face the truth.

Through­out the vil­lage, whis­pers of the argu­ment begin to spread. Peo­ple talk not only of the deci­sion about the land but of Aksinya’s brav­ery in speak­ing aloud what many sus­pect­ed. In a com­mu­ni­ty where silence often masks cor­rup­tion, her defi­ance becomes a kind of leg­end. Some view her as ungrate­ful, oth­ers as coura­geous. What is clear, though, is that Grig­o­ry’s rep­u­ta­tion will nev­er be the same. The qui­et unrav­el­ing of his author­i­ty reflects the broad­er decay of a moral code built on fear and favoritism. He must now decide whether to rebuild or with­draw entire­ly from a world that no longer responds to his com­mands.

The chap­ter ends not with res­o­lu­tion, but with reflec­tion. Grig­o­ry looks out the win­dow as the evening sets in, watch­ing Niki­for chase shad­ows in the court­yard. The child laughs, unaware of the storms his future has stirred. Behind him, the house is no longer qui­et but hol­low, its silence speak­ing loud­er than before. Grig­o­ry knows now that true lega­cy is not mea­sured by what you leave behind, but by how you are remembered—and who remem­bers you with kind­ness.