And the hunchback began to weep quietly.
Ilya knew well what sin oppressed his uncle and remembered it clearly. His heart was uplifted; he pitied, but could find no words of consolation and was silent, till he saw the tears flow from the sunken, introspective eyes of his uncle, then he said: "There—there, don't cry any more! See! Wait till I get on a bit in business, then you can get away from here." After a moment's silence he resumed consolingly, "There—you'll see, you'll be forgiven."
"Do you think so really?" asked Terenti softly, and the lad repeated in a tone of conviction:
"Of course you'll be forgiven, worse things than that have been pardoned, I'm sure of it."
So it came about that Ilya took to the pedlar's trade. From morning to night he traversed the streets, with his box at his breast, while his black eyebrows contracted, and he looked out on the world full of self-confidence with his nose in the air. With his cap drawn down on his forehead, he held up his head and cried with his boyish voice beginning to break:
"Soap! blacking! pomade! hairpins! needles and thread, pins! books—beautiful books!"
Life flowed round him in a gay and tumultuous stream, and he swam with it, free and light-hearted, and felt himself to be a man even as all the others were. He drove a trade round the bazaars, went to the inns, and would order his tea importantly, drink it slowly, and eat a piece of white bread like a man who knows his worth. Life seemed to him simple, easy and pleasant.
His dreams took on clear and simple forms. He imagined how in two or three years he would sit in a clean little shop of his own, somewhere in a good street, not too noisy, and in this shop he would deal in all sorts of clean and pretty wares, that were clean to handle and did not spoil the clothes. He himself would look clean and healthy and handsome. Every one in the street would respect him and the girls would look at him with friendly glances. When his shop was shut he would sit in a clean bright little room near it and drink his tea, and read books. Cleanliness in everything seemed to him the essential determining factor of a well-ordered life. So he dreamed when trade was good and no one hurt him by rough behaviour. But if he had sold nothing and was sitting tired in the bar or somewhere in the street, then all the harshness and hustling of the police, the insulting remarks of customers, the abuse and mockery of his fellows the other pedlars, weighed on his soul and he felt within him a painful sense of unrest. His eyes opened wide and looked deeper into the web of life, and his memory, so rich in impressions, pushed into the wheels of his thought one impression after another. He saw clearly how all men strove for the same goal as he, how all longed for the same quiet, full and clean life on which his desire was set. Yet no one scrupled to thrust aside whomsoever was in his way; all were so greedy, so pitiless, and harmed one another, with no necessity, with no advantage to themselves, out of sheer pleasure in another's pain. They often laughed when they could hurt most deeply and seldom had pity on those whom they made to suffer.
Such images made his work seem hateful. The dream of a clean little shop vanished away, and he felt in his heart an enervating weariness. It seemed to him that he would never save enough money out of his trading to open the shop, and that right on into his old age he must wander about the hot, dusty streets, his box on his breast, and the straps galling his shoulders. But every success in his undertaking awakened new courage and gave new life to his dreams.
One day in a busy street Ilya quite unexpectedly met Pashka Gratschev. The smith's son tramped along the pavement with the assured stride of one free of all care, his hands in the pockets of his torn trousers, wearing a blue blouse, also torn and dirty, which was much too big for him. The heels of his big, well-worn boots clumped on the pavement at every step. His cap with a broken peak rested jauntily over his left ear, leaving half of his close-cropped head exposed to the rays of the summer sun. Face and neck alike were covered with thick greasy black dirt. He recognised Ilya from a distance, and nodded to him in a friendly way, without hastening his easy pace.