She went. Almost immediately, Terenti reappeared and asked politely: "Is that your partner?" Ilya sighed with relief and nodded. "A fine lady! isn't she? Small but----" "She's a beast!" said Ilya. "H'm--h'm," growled Terenti suspiciously. Ilya felt the searching look on his face, and asked angrily, "Well what are you looking at?" "I? good Lord! nothing." "I know what I'm saying. I said a beast, and that's all about it. And if I said worse things it'd be just as true!" "A--ha! Is that it? O--Oh!" said the hunchback slowly, with an air of condolence. "What? cried Ilya roughly. "Only that." "Only what?" Terenti stood shifting from one foot to the other, frightened and hurt at being shouted at; his face was sorrowful and he blinked his eyes rapidly. "Only, you know best, of course," he said at last. "And that's enough," cried Ilya. "I know them; these people that are so clean and tidy outside!" "I talked with the boot boy once," said the hunchback gently, as he sat down, "about his brother, the magistrate sentenced him to seven days, think! The lad said he was such a peaceable fellow, never drunk, and yet all at once he broke out as if he were mad. He got drunk and smashed up everything; hit his master on the nose, and the shopman, and before, think! his master had often struck him and he kept quite quiet, never did anything." Lunev listened and thought. "I'll have to drop all this and get away. This beautiful life can go to the devil! There's no life left for me! I'll give it all up and go. I'll get away--here, I'm just going to pieces." "He bore it, bore everything and then at last bang, like a bombshell!" Terenti went on. "Who?" "Why, the boy's brother. He got seven days for assault." "Ah!" "Seven days! I say, the fellow had borne it, stood everything, but it had all piled up in his soul like the soot in the chimney, and then all of a sudden it catches fire, and the flames flare up." "Uncle, look after the shop for a bit! I'm going out," answered Lunev. His uncle's monotonous, well-meant words rang in his ears as mournfully as the sound of bells in Lent, and it was cold in the shop and there seemed no room to move, but it was hardly more cheerful in the street. It had been raining now for several days steadily. The clean, grey pavement stones stared unwinkingly back at the grey sky, and seemed weary like the faces of men. The dirt in the spaces between the stones, showed up clearly against the cold, clean surface. The air was heavy with damp, and the houses seemed oppressed with it. The yellow leaves still left on the trees seemed to shudder with the knowledge of approaching death.