Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/58

 beating for him. And he knew this himself and yet he got drunk. So it went on for several years; at last it was noticed that Gazin was beginning to break up. He began to complain of pains of all sorts, grew noticeably weaker and was more and more often in the hospital. “He is breaking up!” the convicts said among themselves.

He came into the kitchen, followed by the nasty little Polo with the fiddle, who was generally hired by the “festive convicts” to enhance their jollity, and he stood still in the middle of the room, silently and attentively scanning all present. All were silent. At last seeing me and my companion, he looked at us spitefully and derisively, smiled self-complacently, seemed to think of something, and staggering heavily came towards our table.

“Where did you get the money for this little treat may I inquire?” he began (he spoke Russian).

I exchanged silent glances with my companion, realizing that the best thing was to hold our tongues and not to answer him. At the first contradiction he would have flown into a fury.

“So you’ve money, have you?” He went on questioning us. “So you’ve a lot of money, eh? Have you come to prison to drink tea? You’ve come to drink tea, have you? Speak, damn you!”

But seeing that we had made up our minds to be silent and to take no notice of him, he turned crimson and shook with rage. Near him in the corner stood a big tray which was used for the slices of bread cut for the dinner or supper of the convicts. It was large enough to hold the bread for half the prison; at the moment it was empty. He picked it up with both hands and raised it above us. In another moment he would have smashed our heads. A murder, or an attempt at murder, threatened the whole prison with extremely unpleasant consequences: it would be followed by inquiries, searches and greater severity, and so the convicts did their utmost not to let things come to such an extremity. And yet in spite of that, on this occasion all kept quiet and waited. Not one word in our defence! Not one shout at Gazin, so intense was their hatred of us! They were apparently pleased at our dangerous position. But the incident passed off without harm: just as he was about to bring down the tray some one shouted from the passage:

“Gazin! Vodka’s stolen!” He let the tray fall crashing on the floor and rushed like mad out of the kitchen.