Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/93

 that. They always worked listlessly and apathetically at such tasks, and it was quite different when the work was valuable in itself and worth doing, especially when they could succeed in getting a fixed task. Then they seemed, as it were, inspirited, and although they got no advantage from it, I have seen them exert themselves to the utmost to finish the work as quickly and as well as possible; their vanity indeed was somehow involved in it. But with work such as we had that day, done more as a matter of form than because it was needed, it was difficult to obtain a fixed task and we had to work till the drum sounded the recall home at eleven o’clock in the morning.

The day was warm and misty; the snow was almost thawing. All our group set off to the river-bank beyond the fortress with a faint jingling of chains, which gave a thin, sharp, metallic clank at every step, though they were hidden under our clothes. Two or three men went into the house where the tools were kept to get the implements we needed. I walked with the rest and felt a little more cheerful: I was in haste to see and find out what sort of work it was. What was this hard labour? And how should I work for the first time in my life?

I remember it all to the smallest detail. On the road we met a workman of some sort with a beard; he stopped and put his hand in his pocket. A convict immediately came forward out of our group, took off his cap, took the alms—five kopecks—and quickly rejoined the others. The workman crossed himself and went on his way. The five kopecks were spent that morning on rolls, which were divided equally among the party.

Some of our gang were, as usual, sullen and taciturn, others indifferent and listless, others chattered idly together. One was for some reason extraordinarily pleased and happy, he sang and almost danced on the way, jingling his fetters at every caper. It was the same short, thick-set convict who on my first morning in prison had quarrelled with another while they were washing because the latter had foolishly ventured to declare that he was a “cocky-locky.” This merry fellow was called Skuratov. At last he began singing a jaunty song of which I remember the refrain:

All that was lacking was a balalaika.

His extraordinary cheerfulness of course, at once aroused