Ilya was just awoke, and sat on his bed saying to himself that another day was here that must be lived through somehow.
"It's a life—like travelling through a swamp in autumn, cold and muddy—and you get more and more tired, and hardly get on at all."
There came a knocking at the door of the yard, repeated, single knocks. Ilya got up, thinking the cook had come for the samovar, opened the door, and found himself face to face with the hunchback.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Terenti, shaking his head playfully: "Close on nine, Mr. Shopman, and your shop still shut up!"
Ilya stood, blocking the entrance, and smiled at his uncle. Terenti's face was sunburnt and looked younger; his eyes were cheerful and happy; his bags and bundles lay at his feet, and amid them he himself looked almost like another bundle.
"How goes it, my dear nephew? Will you let me into your house?"
Ilya stood aside, and began to collect the bundles without speaking. Terenti's eyes sought the eikon, he crossed himself, and said, bending reverently: "Thanks be to thee, oh Lord! I am home again. Well, Ilya!"
As Ilya embraced his uncle he felt that the body of the hunchback had grown stronger and stouter.
"If I could have a wash," said Terenti, standing and looking round the room. He stood less bent than of old. Wandering with a knapsack on his back seemed to have drawn down his hump. He held himself straighter, and his head higher.
"And how are you?" he asked his nephew, as he washed his face.