It was difficult for me to doubt the truth of his statement. I saw that Ephimushka, Petr, and Gregory regarded the handsome old man as more clever and more learned in worldly wisdom than themselves. They took counsel with him about everything, listened attentively to his advice, and showed him every sign of respect. "Will you be so good as to give us your advice," they would ask him. But after one of these questions, when Osip had gone away, the bricklayer said softly to Grigori: "Heretic!" And Grigori burst out laughing and added: "Clown!" The plasterer warned me in a friendly way: "You look out for yourself with the old man, Maximich. You must be careful, or he will twist you round his finger in an hour; he is a bitter old man. God save you from the harm he can do." "What harm?" "That I can't say!" answered the handsome workman, blinking. I did not understand him in the least. I thought that the most honest and pious man of them all was the bricklayer, Petr; He spoke of everything briefly, suggestively; his thoughts rested mostly upon God, hell, and death. "Ekh! my children, my brothers, how can you not be afraid? How can you not look forward, when the grave and the churchyard let no one pass them?" He always had the stomachache, and there were some days when he could not eat anything at all. Even a morsel of bread brought on the pain to such an extent as to cause convulsions and a dreadful sickness. Humpbacked Ephimushka also seemed a very good and honest, but always queer fellow. Sometimes he was happy and foolish, like a harmless lunatic. He was everlastingly falling in love with different women, about whom he always used the same words: "I tell you straight, she is not a woman, but a flower in cream--ei, bo--o!" When the lively women of Kunavin Street came to wash the floors in the shops, Ephimushka let himself down from the roof, and standing in a corner somewhere, mumbled, blinking his gray, bright eyes, stretching his mouth from ear to ear: "Such a butterfly as the Lord has sent to me; such a joy has descended upon me! Well, what is she but a flower in cream, and grateful I ought to be for the chance which has brought me such a gift! Such beauty makes me full of life, afire!" At first the women used to laugh at him, calling out to each other: "Listen to the humpback running on! Oh Lord!" The slater caused no little laughter. His high cheek-boned face wore a sleepy expression, and he used to talk as if he were raving, his honeyed phrases flowing in an intoxicating stream which obviously went to the women's heads. At length one of the elder ones said to her friend in a tone of amazement: "Just listen to how that man is going on! A clean young fellow he is!" "He sings like a bird." "Or like a beggar in the church porch," said an obstinate girl, refusing to give way.