Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/95

 rich in Moscow, mates, not worth talking about. And I did so, so, so want to get rich. I’d a yearning I cannot describe.”

Many of his listeners laughed. Skuratov was evidently one of those volunteer entertainers or rather buffoons, who seemed to make it their duty to amuse their gloomy companions, and who got nothing but abuse for their trouble. He belonged to a peculiar and noteworthy type, of which I may have more to say hereafter.

“Why, you might be hunted like sable now,” observed Luka Kuzmitch. “Your clothes alone would be worth a hundred roubles.”

Skuratov had on the most ancient threadbare sheepskin, on which patches were conspicuous everywhere. He looked it up and down attentively, though unconcernedly.

“It’s my head that’s priceless, mates, my brain,” he answered. “When I said good-bye to Moscow it was my one comfort that I took my head with me. Farewell, Moscow, thanks for your bastings, thanks for your warmings, you gave me some fine dressings! And my sheepskin is not worth looking at, my good soul”

“I suppose your head is then?”

“Even his head is not his own but a charity gift,” Luka put in again. “It was given him at Tyumen for Christ’s sake, as he marched by with a gang.”

“I say, Skuratov, had you any trade?”

“Trade, indeed! he used to lead puppydogs about and steal their tit-bits, that was all his trade,” observed one of the gloomy convicts.

“I really did try my hand at cobbling boots,” answered Skuratov, not observing this biting criticism. “I only cobbled one pair.”

“Well, were they bought?”

“Yes, a fellow did turn up; I suppose he had not feared God or honoured his father and mother, and so the Lord punished him and he bought them.”

All Skuratov’s audience went off into peals of laughter.

“And I did once work here,” Skuratov went on with extreme nonchalance. “I put new uppers on to Lieutenant Pomortzev’s boots.”

“Well, was he satisfied?"

“No, mates, he wasn’t. He gave me oaths enough to last me a lifetime, and a dig in the back with his knee too. He