Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/48

38 really were such a place. To his child’s mind they had brought the image of some horrible monster crawling stealthily over a marsh.

No one could sleep because of over-work. Even after midnight, suddenly, from somewhere in the darkness, the sound would arise of someone grinding his teeth—a creepy sound like glass being scratched—or of someone talking in his sleep, or a startled cry as if someone were being beaten.

While they were lying sleepless they would whisper to their own throbbing bodies, “I’m lucky to be still alive!”

“Lucky—to be still alive”—such words to their own bodies!

The students felt it the worst.

“Take Dostoievsky’s ‘The House of the Dead.’ When you think of it now it doesn’t seem much.” The speaker had been constipated for days and could not sleep unless he tied a towel tightly round his head.

“I dare say you’re right,” answered his friend, lapping with the tip of his tongue at the whisky he had brought from Hakodate as if it were medicine. “But then you must remember, after all, it’s a great undertaking. I tell you, it’s a big thing, this developing the natural resources of virgin territories. Take these crab boats, anyhow; they say they’re better than they used to be. They say that in the pioneering days, when there were no reports about weather, or tides, and the topography was not properly mastered, countless wrecks occurred. Sunk by Russian ships, captured, killed—but even then those men did not give in, but battled on.