Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/147

 dogmatically, resolutely refusing to look at his opponent and staring at the floor with a dignified air.

“He’s taken a liberty, do you hear!” the first man broke in, shaking his friend more violently than ever. “You are the only friend I have in the world, do you hear? And that’s why I tell you and no one else, he’s taken a liberty!”

“And I tell you again, such a feeble justification, my friend, is only a discredit to you,” said the clerk in a high-pitched, bland voice. “You’d better admit, my friend, that all this drunken business is due to your own incontinence.”

The stout convict staggered back a little, looked blankly with his drunken eyes at the self-satisfied clerk and suddenly and quite unexpectedly drove his huge fist with all his might into his friend’s little face. That was the end of a whole day’s friendship. His dear friend was sent flying senseless under the bed

A friend of mine from the special division, a clever good-humoured fellow of boundless good-nature and extraordinarily simple appearance, who was fond of a joke but quite without malice, came into our ward. This was the man who on my first day in prison had been at dinner in the kitchen, asking where the rich peasant lived and declaring that he had pride, and who had drunk tea with me. He was a man of forty, with an extraordinary thick lower lip and a large fleshy nose covered with pimples. He was holding a balalaika and carelessly twanging the strings. A diminutive convict with a very large head was following him about as though he were on a string. I had scarcely seen him before, and indeed no one ever noticed him. He was a queer fellow, mistrustful, always silent and serious; he used to work in the sewing-room and evidently tried to live a life apart, and to avoid having anything to do with the rest. Now, being drunk, he followed Varlamov about like a shadow. He followed him about in great excitement, waving his arms in the air, bringing his fist down on the wall and on the bed, and almost shedding tears. Varlamov seemed to be paying no attention to him, as though he were not beside him. It is worth remarking that these men had had scarcely anything to do with one another before; they had nothing in common in their pursuits or their characters. They belonged to different divisions and lived in different wards. The little convict’s name was Bulkin.

Varlamov grinned on seeing me. I was sitting on my bed by the stove. He stood at a little distance facing me, pondered