Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/207

 assistant had at some remote period lost, or spoilt, the instrument with which the skin was pierced, or perhaps it was worn out, so that he was obliged to make the necessary incisions with a lancet. About twelve such incisions are made for every cupping; with the proper instrument it does not hurt. Twelve little pricks are made instantaneously and the pain is scarcely felt. But when the incisions are made by the lancet it is a very different matter: the lancet cuts comparatively slowly, the pain is felt, and as for ten cuppings, for example, a hundred and twenty of such cuts had to be made, the whole operation was rather unpleasant. I have tried it; but though it was painful and annoying, still it was not so bad that one couldn’t help moaning over it. It was positively absurd sometimes to see a tall sturdy fellow wriggling and beginning to whine. Perhaps one may compare it with the way a man, who is firm and even self-possessed in a matter of importance, will sometimes be moody and fanciful at home when he has nothing to do, will refuse to eat what is given to him, scold and find fault, so that nothing is to his taste, every one annoys him, every one is rude to him, every one worries him—will, in short, “wax fat and wanton,” as is sometimes said of such gentlemen, though they are met even among the peasantry, and, living altogether as we did, we saw too many of them in our prison. Such a weakling would often be chaffed by the other convicts in the ward, and sometimes even abused by them. Then he would subside, as though he had only been waiting for a scolding to be quiet. Ustyantsev particularly disliked this complaining and never lost an opportunity for abusing the grumbler. He seized every chance of finding fault with anyone, indeed. It was an enjoyment, a necessity for him, due partly to his illness no doubt, but partly also to the dullness of his mind. He would first stare at the offender intently and earnestly and then begin to lecture him in a voice of calm conviction. He meddled in everything, as though he had been appointed to watch over the discipline and the general morality of the ward.

“He has a finger in every pie,” the convicts would say, laughing. But they were not hard on him and avoided quarrelling with him, they only laughed at him sometimes.

“What a lot of talk!” they would say. “More than three wagon loads.”

“A lot of talk? We don’t take off our caps to a fool, we all know. Why does he cry out over a lancet prick? You must take the crust with the crumb, put up with it.”