Ilya answered decidedly and with conviction: "I'm fifteen years old. I can read and write. I'm not stupid, and if I'm insolent they'll only send me away from any other place I get. Who can do with an insolent man?"
"But then, what shall we do?" asked Terenti, anxiously, sitting on his bed and supporting himself on it with his hands.
"I'll tell you. Let me have a big box and buy me some goods—soap and scent, needles and books, all sorts of small things, and I'll go round about with them and do business for myself."
"What?—What do you mean, Ilusha? I don't quite understand. In the bar room here, in the noise, it always goes tchk!—tchk! tchk! So that my head's got weak, and then there's something never lets me alone, always the same thing, I can't think of anything else!"
A strange tortured expression showed in the hunchback's eyes, as though he wanted to reckon up something and could not get it right.
"Try it, uncle; let me go once any way."
Ilya entreated, excited by his idea which promised him freedom.
"Well, God help us! we might try."
"Ah! splendid! you'll see how it'll go," cried Ilya delighted.
"Oh dear!" Terenti sighed deeply, and went on sorrowfully: "If only you were quite grown up! Ah! then I could go away, but now you're just an anchor to hold me, it's only for your sake I stay in this beastly hole, and go down, down. I might go to some holy men and say: 'Servants of God! doers of good! interceders! I have sinned, accursed that I am, my heart is heavy, save me, pray for pardon for me to my Father!'"