Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/97

 and a considerable moral influence over their companions. These clever fellows were often at daggers drawn with one another, and every one of them had many enemies. They looked down upon other convicts with dignity and condescension, they picked no unnecessary quarrels, were in favour with the authorities, and took the lead at work. Not one of them would have found fault with anyone for a song, for instance; they would not have stooped to such trifles. These men were very polite to me all the time I was in prison, but they were not very talkative, also apparently from a sense of dignity. I shall have to speak more in detail of them also.

We reached the river-bank. The old barge which we had to break up was frozen into the ice below us. On the further side of the river the steppes stretched blue into the distance, it was a gloomy and desert view. I expected that every one would rush at the work, but they had no idea of doing so. Some sat down on the logs that lay about on the bank; almost all of them brought out of their boots bags of local tobacco which was sold at three farthings a pound in the market, and short willow pipes of home manufacture. They lighted their pipes; the soldiers formed a cordon round us and proceeded to guard us with a bored expression.

“Whose notion was it to break up this barge?” one observed as it were to himself, not addressing anyone. “Are they in want of chips?”

“He wasn’t afraid of our anger, whoever it was,” observed another.

“Where are those peasants trudging to?” the first asked after a pause, not noticing of course the answer to his first question, and pointing to a group of peasants who were making their way in Indian file over untrodden snow in the distance. Every one turned lazily in that direction and to while away the time began mocking at them. One of the peasants, the last of the file, walked very absurdly, stretching out his arms and swinging his head on one side with a long peasant’s cap on it. His whole figure stood out clearly and distinctly against the white snow.

“Look how brother Peter has rigged himself out!” observed one mimicking the peasant accent.

It is remarkable that the convicts rather looked down on peasants, though half of them were of the peasant class.

“The last one, mates, walks as though he was sowing radishes.”