"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.