"There are strange reports going about you; people say evil things of you." The hunchback sighed, and closed his eyes. "For instance?" said Ilya, drawing on his boots. "Some say one thing, some another; some say you were mixed up in that affair when the old merchant was strangled; others say you pass false money." "They're envious, eh?" "Different people have been here, secret police it seems--detectives--they questioned Petrusha about you." "Let them till they're tired," said Ilya, indifferently. "Certainly, what have they to do with us if we have no sins on our conscience?" Ilya laughed and stretched himself on the bed. "They don't come now, but Petrusha is always on about it," said Terenti shyly, in an embarrassed way. "He's always taunting one, Petrusha. You ought to take a little room for yourself somewhere, Ilusha, a room of your own to live in. Yes. 'I can't have these worthy dark gentlemen in my house,' says Petrusha. 'I'm a town councillor,' he says." Ilya turned, his face red with anger, on his uncle, and said loudly: "Listen! If he values his ugly face, let him hold his tongue! Tell him that! If I hear one word I don't like, I'll smash his skull for him. Whatever I am, he, at any rate, has no call to judge me, the scoundrel! And I'll go away when I want to. Meantime I shall stay and enjoy this honourable and distinguished company." The hunchback was terrified at Ilya's wrath; he sat silent a while, rubbing his back, and looking at his nephew with big eyes full of anxious expectation. Ilya compressed his lips and stared at the ceiling. Terenti looked at him, the curly head, serious handsome face, with the small moustache and strong chin, the broad chest and all the vigorous, well-knit body, and then said slowly, with a sigh: "What a fine lad you've grown! the girls in the village would crowd after you. We'll go to the village." Ilya was silent. "H'm, yes--you'll have a real life there! I'll give you money, and set you up in business, and then you'll marry a rich girl, he! he! And your life will glide along like a sleigh on the snow downhill." "Perhaps I prefer to go uphill," said Ilya, peevishly. "Of course, uphill," Terenti caught up his words. "That's what I meant; it's an easy life--that's what I meant; why, uphill, of course, to the very top." "And when I'm there, what then?" The hunchback looked at him and chuckled. Then he spoke again, but Ilya did not listen. He was thinking of all his experiences of this later time, and figuring to himself how evenly all life hangs together, like the strings in a net. Circumstances surround men and lead them where they will, as the police do the rogues. He had always had it in his mind to leave this house and live by himself, and now here chance comes to his aid! He was still thinking how he would plan out his life alone, when there came a sudden knock at the door. "Open it!" cried Ilya crossly to his uncle, who was shaking with fear.