A sudden change came over the column. It began to sway, to break out of its regular stride. The prisoners heaved forward with a buzz of excitement. And now the last five, which included Shukhov, were no longer treading on the heels of the five in front; they had to run to keep up. A few more paces, and again they were running.

When the rear of the column spilled over a rise Shukhov saw to the right, far away across the steppe, another dark column on the move, marching diagonally across their course. They, too, seemed to be forcing their pace.

It must be from the machine works, that column: there were about three hundred men in it. Another bunch with bad luck! Must have been held up–Shukhov wondered why. To finish assembling some piece of machinery? They could be kept after work hours for that. But what did it matter to them? They worked all day in the warmth.

Who’d get in first? The men ran, just ran. Even the escort broke into a jog trot: only the head guard remembered to shout, “Don’t fall back. Keep up there, you in the rear. Keep up.”

Oh, shut your trap. . . . What are you yapping about? As if we wouldn’t keep up!

They forgot to talk; they forgot to think; everyone in the column was obsessed by one idea: to get back first.

Things were so lumped together, the sweet and the sour, that the prisoners saw the escort itself, now, as friend rather than foe. Now the enemy was the other column.

Their spirits rose, their anger passed.

“Get a move on, get a move on!” the rear shouted to the front.

Now our column bad reached the street, while the other had passed out of sight behind the blocks of houses. They’d been racing blindly.

It was easier for us now, we were running down the middle of the street. And our escort had less to stumble over at the sides. This was where we ought to gain ground.

There was another reason why we simpiy had to reach the camp gates first: the guards there were unusually slow in searching the column from the machine works. Ever since zeks had begun cutting one another’s throats in the camp the authorities had arrived at one conclusion: that knives were being made at the machine works and smuggled in.

So the zeks who worked there were gone over with special thoroughness on return to the camp. In late autumn, when the earth was already cold, the guards would shout at them:

“Off with your boots, machine-works squad! Hold your boots in your hands.”

And would frisk them barefoot

Or, despite the frost, they’d pick men out at random, shouting: “You there, take off your right boot. And you, take off your left!”

A zek would pull off his boot and, hopping on one foot, turn it upside down and shake out the foot-rag. No knife, damn you!

Shukhov had heard–he didn’t know whether it was true or not–that back in the summer the zeks from the machine works had brought back two poles for a volleyball net and that there the knives were, there inside them. Ten long knives in each pole. And now knives would turn up occasionally, here and there.

So it was at a jog trot that they passed the new club and the residential block and the wood-processing plant, and reached the turning that led straight on to the gates.

“Hoooooo-ooo,” shouted the whole column, in unison.

That was the turning we’d aimed at reaching before the others. The rival column was a hundred and fifty paces behind, on our right.

Now we could take things easy. Everyone was elated. As elated as a rabbit when it finds it can still terrify a frog.

There lay the camp, just as we’d left it in the morning: lights were on in the zone over the thick fence, specially powerful ones in front of the gatehouse. The entire area was flooded with light; it was as bright as day. They had to have it like that when they frisked us.

But we hadn’t reached the gates yet.

“Halt!” shouted a guard and, handing his machine gun to a soldier, ran up close to the column (they weren’t allowed to do that with their guns). “All those on the right carrying firewood dump it to their right.”

He didn’t have to guess about the firewood–the zeks were carrying it quite openly. A bundle fell, a second, a third. Some would have liked to conceal a stick or two inside the column, but their neighbors objected: “Throw it down as you’re told! Do you want others to lose theirs because of you?”

Who’s the zek’s main enemy? Another zek. If only they weren’t at odds with one another–ah, what a difference that’d make!

“Double time,” shouted the head guard.

They advanced toward the gates.

Here five roads converged. An hour earlier all the other columns had met here. If they were paved, these roads, this would be just the place for the main square of a future city; and then processions would meet here, just as columns of zeks did now as they poured in from every direction, with sentries and guards all about.

The guards were already warming themselves indoors. They came out and formed a cordon across the road.

“Unbutton your coats. Unbutton your jackets.”

They pulled the zeks’ arms apart, the better to hug them and slap their sides. Same as in the morning, more or less.

It isn’t so terrible to unbutton your coat now. We’re going home.

That’s what everyone used to say: “Going home.”

We never had time to think of any other home.

While the head of the column was being frisked, Shukhov went over to Tsezar.

“Tsezar Markovich, I’ll run straight to the parcels office and keep a place in line for you.”

Tsezar turned. The fringe of his dark mustache was tipped with frost.

“Why should you do that, Ivan Denisovich? Perhaps there won’t be a parcel.”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter if there isn’t. I’ll wait ten minutes, anyway. If you don’t turn up I’ll go to the barracks.”

(Shukhov reckoned like this: if Tsezar didn’t come, maybe someone else would, then he could sell him his place in line.)

Obviously Tsezar was longing for his parcel.

“All right, Ivan Denisovich, run ahead and keep a place for me. Wait ten minutes, no longer.”

And now Shukhov was on the point of being frisked. Today he had nothing to conceal. He would step forward fearlessly. He slowly unbuttoned his coat and undid the rope belt around his wadded jacket, and although he couldn’t remember having anything forbidden, eight years in camp had given him the habit of caution: he thrust a hand into his pants pocket to make sure it was empty.

And there lay a small piece of broken hacksaw blade, the tiny length of steel that he’d picked up in his thriftiness at the building site without any intention of bringing it to camp.

He hadn’t meant to bring it, but now, what a pity to throw it away! Why, he could make a little knife out of it, very handy for shoe repairing or tailoring!

If he’d intended to bring it with him he’d have thought hard of where to conceal it.

But now the guards were only two rows ahead and the first of these rows was already stepping forward to be searched.

His choice had to be swift as the wind. Should he take cover behind the row in front of him and toss the bit of metal in the snow (it’d be noticed but they wouldn’t know who the culprit was) or keep it on him?

For that strip of hacksaw he could get ten days in the cells, if they classed it as a knife.

But a cobbler’s knife was money, it was bread.

A pity to throw it away.

He slipped it into his left mitten.

At that moment the next row was ordered to step forward and be searched.

Now the last three men stood in full view–Senka, Shukhov, and the man from the 32nd squad who had gone to look for the Moldavian.

Because they were three and the guards facing them were five, Shukhov could try a ruse. He could choose which of the two guards on the right to present himself to. He decided against a young pink-faced one and plumped for an older man with a gray mustache. The older one, of course, was experienced and could find the blade easily if he wanted to, but because of his age he would be fed up with the job. It must stink in his nose now like burning sulfur.

Meanwhile Shukhov had removed both mittens, the empty one and the one with the hacksaw, and held them in one hand (the empty one in front) together with the untied rope belt. He fully unbuttoned his jacket, lifted high the edges of his coat and jacket (never had he been so servile at the search but now he wanted to show he was innocent–Come on, frisk me!), and at the word of command stepped forward.

The guard slapped Shukhov’s sides and back, and the outside of his pants pocket.

Nothing there. He kneaded the edges of coat and jacket. Nothing there either. He was about to pass him through when, for safety’s sake, he crushed the mitten that Shukhov held out to him–the empty one.

The guard crushed it in his band, and Shukhov felt as though pincers of iron were crushing everything inside him. One such squeeze on the other mitten and he’d be sunk–the cells on nine ounces of bread a day and hot stew one day in three. He imagined how weak he’d grow, how difficult he’d find it to get back to his present condition, neither fed nor starving.

And an urgent prayer rose in his heart: “Oh Lord, save me! Don’t let them send me to the cells.”

And while all this raced through his mind, the guard, after finishing with the right-hand mitten, stretched a hand out to deal with the other (he would have squeezed them at the same moment if Shukhov had held them in separate hands). Just then the guard heard his chief, who was in a hurry to get on, shout to the escort: “Come on, bring up the machine-works column.”

And instead of examining the other mitten the old guard waved Shukhov on. He was through.

He ran off to catch up with the others. They had already formed fives in a sort of corridor between long beams, like horse stalls in a market, a sort of paddock for prisoners. He ran lightly; hardly feeling the ground. He didn’t say a prayer of thanksgiving because he hadn’t time, and anyway it would have been out of place.

The escort now drew aside. They were only waiting for their chief. They had gathered for their own use all the firewood the 104th had dumped before being frisked; what the guards had removed during the frisking itself was heaped near the gatehouse.

The moon had risen still higher; the cold grew keener in the pale bright night.

The head guard walked to the sentry house–he had to get a receipt for the four hundred and sixty-three prisoners. He spoke briefly to Priakhov, Volkovoi’s deputy.

“K 460,” shouted Priakhov.

The Moldavian, who had buried himself deep in the column, drew in his breath and went over to the right of the corridor. He was still hanging his head and his shoulders were hunched.

“Come here,” Priakhov ordered, gesturing for him to walk around the column.

The Moldavian did so. He was ordered to stand there, his arms behind his back.

That meant they were going to charge him with attempting to escape. They’d put him in the cells.

Just in front of the gates, right and left of the “paddock,” stood two guards. The gates, three times the height of a man, opened slowly. The command rang out:

“Form fives!” (No need here to order the zeks back from the gates; all the gates opened inwards, into the zone. Let the zeks mass as they wished and push against the gates from within, they wouldn’t be able to break out.) “First. Second. Third . . .”

It was at the evening recount on their return through the gates that the prisoners, freezing and famished, found the icy wind hardest to bear. A bowl of thin cabbage soup, half burned, was as welcome to them as rain to parched earth. They’d swallowed it in one gulp. That bowl of soup–it was dearer than freedom, dearer than life itself, past, present, and future.

They passed through the gates, those zeks, like soldiers back from a campaign, brisk, taut, eager– clear the road for ’em.

For a trusty with a soft job at staff quarters, those prisoners on the march must have been something to think about.

After the recount a prisoner became a free man again–for the first time in the day since the guards had given them the morning signal for roll call. They passed through the big gates (of the zone), through the small gates (of the intermediate zone), through two more gates (on the parade ground)–and then they could scatter where they liked.

But not the squad leaders. They were caught by the officer who assigned them their work: “All squad leaders to the planning office.”

Shukhov rushed past the prison, between the barracks, to the parcels office.

Tsezar, meanwhile, went at a dignified, even pace in the opposite direction, to where people were swarming around a pole with a board nailed to it. On it was the name of anyone for whom a parcel was waiting, written in indelible pencil.

Most writing in the camp was done on plywood, not on paper. It was surer, somehow, more reliable. The guards and turnkeys used wood, too, for keeping tally of the zeks. You can scrape it clean for next day, and use it again. Economical.

Zeks who stay in camp all day can, among other odd jobs, read the names on the board, meet people who’ve got a parcel as they come in from work, and give them the number. Not much of a job, but it can earn you a cigarette.

Shukhov ran to the parcels office–a little annex to a barracks, to which in turn a small porch had been added. The porch had no door and was open to the weather. All the same, it was cozier that way; it had a roof, after all.

A line had formed along the walls of the porch. Shukhov joined it. There were some fifteen ahead of him. That meant over an hour’s wait, to just before locking-up time.

And there were others who’d be behind him in the line–the zeks of the powerhouse column who’d gone to look for their names on the board, and the machine-works column too. Looked as though they would have to come again. Tomorrow morning.

People stood in the line with little bags and sacks. On the other side of the door (Shukhov himself hadn’t ever received a parcel at this camp but he knew from gossip) guards opened the parcels, which came packed in wooden boxes, with hatchets. They took everything out and examined the contents, They cut, they broke, they fingered. They tipped things out from one container into another. If there was anything liquid, in glass jars or tins, they opened them and poured it out, though you had nothing but your hands or a cloth bag to hold it in. They didn’t give you the jars; they were scared of something.

If there was anything homebaked, or some tasty. sweetmeats or sausage or smoked fish, the guard would take a bite at it himself. (And just you try to get high and mighty and complain, and they’ll immediately say that this and that are forbidden and won’t issue them to you at all.) Every zek who got a parcel had to give and give, starting with the guard who opened it. And when they’d finished their search they didn’t give you the stuff in the box it had come in; they just swept everything into your bag, even into the skirt of your coat and. . . off you go. Sometimes they’d whisk you out so fast you’d be sure to leave something behind. No good going back for it. It wouldn’t be there.

When he was in Ust-Izhma Shukhov had got parcels a couple of times. But he wrote to his wife that it was a waste–don’t send them. Don’t take the food out of the kids’

mouths.

Although when he had been at liberty Shukhov bad found it easier to feed his whole family than it ever was to feed himself now, he knew what those parcels cost. He knew too that his family wouldn’t be able to keep it up for ten years. Better do without them.

But though he’d decided that way, every time someone in the squad, or close by in the barracks, received a parcel (which was almost every day) his heart ached because there wasn’t one for him. And though he’d strictly forbidden his wife to send him anything even for Easter, and though he never thought of reading the list except for some rich squad member, every now and then he felt himself longing for someone to run up and say: “Shukhov! Why don’t you go for your parcel? There’s one for you.”

But no one ran up.

He had less and less cause to remember Temgenovo and his home there. Life in camp wore him out from reveille to bedtime, with not a second for idle reflections.

Now as he stood among men who were buoying themselves up with the hope of soon digging their teeth into bits of salt pork, or spreading butter on their bread, or sweetening their mugs of tea with lumps of sugar, Shukhov had one wish only–to reach the mess hall in time and to eat his stew hot. It was only half as good when it was cold.

He figured that if Tsezar’s name hadn’t turned up on the list he would have gone back to the barracks long ago to wash. But if he’d found it there he would now be collecting bags, plastic mugs, and a basin. That would take him ten minutes. And Shukhov had promised to wait.

There in line Shukhov learned some news. Again there wasn’t going to be a Sunday this week; again they were going to steal one of their Sundays. He, like everyone else, had expected it, for if there happened to be five Sundays in a month, they gave them three and made them work the other two. Shukhov had expected it, but when he heard it a spasm of pain caught his heart: who wouldn’t begrudge the loss of that sweet day?

Though what they were saying in the line was right: they knew how to keep them jumping even on Sundays. They’d invent something–fixing up the baths, or building a wall somewhere, or cleaning up the yard. There were mattresses to be changed and shaken, bedbugs in the bunk frames to be exterminated. Or they’d have the idea of checking you with your photo. Or of carrying out an inventory–turning you with all your things into the yard and keeping you there half the day.

Nothing seems to make the authorities madder than zeks napping quietly after breakfast.

The line was moving, though slowly. People were coming in and shoving into the head of the line without even a pardon-me, just elbowing through to the front–a camp barber, a bookkeeper, a man who worked in the C.E.D. But they weren’t rank-and-file, they were respectable trusties, pigs of the first order with soft jobs in the camp. The zeks who worked outside thought them lower than shit (a rating the trusties returned). But it was futile to protest–the trusties were a gang all their own, and were also in solid with the guards.

Now there were only ten ahead of Shukhov. Another seven had hurried in to line up behind him, when Tsezar, stooping, appearing in the doorway, wearing the new fur hat that had been sent him from outside.

Now take that hat. Tsezar must have tickled someone’s palm to get permission for wearing a town hat so clean and new. They even robbed others of their bedraggled service hats. Here, wear the camp pig-fur model!

A strange-looking fellow with glasses was standing in line, his head buried in a newspaper. Tsezar at once made for him.

“Aha, Pyotr Mikhailych.”

They bloomed like a couple of poppies. The strange-looking fellow said: “Look what I’ve got! A fresh Vechorka. [Vecheruyaya Moskva–an evening newspaper]

They sent it by airmail.”

“Really,” said Tsezar, sticking his nose into the newspaper. How on earth could they make out such tiny print in the glimmer of that miserable lamp?

“There’s a most fascinating review of a Zavadsky premiere.”

Those Muscovites can smell one another at a distance, like dogs: they sniff and sniff when they meet in a way of their own. They talk so fast too, each trying to outtalk the other. When they’re jabbering away like that you hear practically no Russian; they might be talking Latvian or Rumanian.

However, Tsezar had all his bags with him–everything in order.

“So I can . . . er . . . Tsezar Markovich,” lisped Shukhov, “I’ll take off now.”

“Of course, of course,” said Tsezar, raising his dark mustache above the top of the newspaper. “Tell me though, who’s in front of me? And who’s behind me?”

Shukhov told him his place in the line and then, with a gentle hint, asked: “Do you want me to bring you your supper?”

(That meant from the mess hall to the barracks, in a mess tin. This was strictly against the rules–there’d been many made about it. When they caught you they poured your food out of the mess tin onto the ground and put you in the guardhouse. All the same, food was carried and would go on being carried, because if a zek has anything to do he’ll never find time to go to the mess hall with his squad.) Shukhov asked: “Do you want me to bring you your supper?’ but murmured to himself: “Surely he won’t be stingy. Won’t he give me his supper? After all, there’s no kasha for supper, only thin stew.”

“No, no,” said Tsezar with a smile. “Eat it yourself, Ivan Denisovich.”

That was just what Shukhov was expecting, And now, like a bird on the wing, he darted from the porch and ran from one zone to the other.

The prisoners were scurrying in all directions. There was a time when the camp commandant had issued yet another order: on no account were prisoners to walk about the camp on their own. Wherever possible, a squad was to go intact. But when there could be no business for a whole squad to do at once–at the dispensary, say, or at the latrines–then groups of four or five were to be formed and a senior appointed to head them and take them there and back in a body.

The camp commandant took a very firm stand on that order. No one dared contradict him. The guards picked up solitary prisoners, took down their numbers, yanked them off to the cells–yet the order was a flop. It flopped quietly, like many much-touted orders. Someone, say, is sent for by the security boys–must you take another four or five with you? Or you have to get your food from the warehouse. Why the hell should I go with you? Someone has the strange idea of going to the C.E.D. to read newspapers. Who wants to go with him? And this fellow goes to have his boots mended, another to the drying shed, a third merely from one barracks to another (that’s forbidden more strictly than anything else)–how can you hold them all back?

With that rule of his the commandant would have robbed them of their last shred of freedom, but it didn’t work out, much as he tried, the fat pig.

Hurrying along the path, meeting a guard on the way and, to be on the safe side, taking off his hat to him, Shukhov ran into the barracks. The place was in an uproar: someone’s bread ration had been swiped during the day and the poor fellow was shouting at the orderlies and the orderlies were shouting back. But the 104th’s corner was empty.

Shukhov was always thankful if, on returning to camp, he found that his mattress hadn’t been turned over and that the guards hadn’t been snooping around. So that’s all right.

He hurried to his bunk, taking off his coat as he ran. Up with the coat, up with the mittens and the nice bit of blade. He probed the depths of his mattress–the bread was there. Good that he’d sewn it in.

And out he ran. To the mess hall.

He reached it without meeting a guard–only a couple of zeks arguing over their bread ration.

Outside the moon shone brighter than ever. The lamps seemed to be paler now.

The barracks cast deep shadows. The door to the mess hall lay beyond a broad porch with four steps. Now the porch too lay in shadow. But above it a small lamp was swaying, and creaking dismally in the cold. The light it cast was rainbow-hued, from the frost maybe, or the dirt on the glass.

The camp commandant had issued yet another strict order: the squads were to enter the mess hall in double file. To this he added: on reaching the steps they were to stay, there and not climb onto the porch; they were to form up in fives and remain standing until the mess orderly gave them the go-ahead.

The post of mess orderly was firmly held by “the Limper.” Because of his lameness he’d managed to get classed as disabled, but he was a hefty son-of-a-bitch. He’d got himself a birch club, and standing on the porch would hit anyone who came up the steps without his say-so. No, not anyone. He was smart, and could tell, even in the dark, when it was better to let a man alone–anyone who might give him as good as he got. He hit the down-and-outs. Once he hit Shukhov.

He was called an orderly. But, looking closer into it, he was a real prince–he palled around with the cooks.

Today all the squads may have turned up together or there may have been delay in getting things in order, but there was quite a crowd on the porch. Among them was the Limper, with his assistant. The mess chief himself was there too. They were handling the crowd without guards–the bruisers.

The mess chief was a fat pig with a head like a pumpkin and a broad pair of shoulders. He was bursting with energy and when he walked he seemed nothing but a lot of jerks, with springs for arms and legs. He wore a white lambskin hat without a number on it, finer than any civilian’s. And his waistcoat was lambskin to match, with a number on it, true, but hardly bigger than a postage stamp–thanks to Volkovoi. He bore no number at all on his back. He respected no one and all the zeks were afraid of him. He held the lives of thousands in his hands. Once they’d tried to beat him up but all the cooks–a prize bunch of thugs they were–had leaped to his defense.

Shukhov would be in hot water if the 104th had already gone in. The Limper knew everyone by sight and, with his chief present, wouldn’t think of letting a man in with the wrong squad; he’d make a point of putting the finger on him.

Prisoners had been known to slip in behind the Limper’s back by climbing over the porch railings. Shukhov had done it too. But tonight, under the chief’s very nose, that was out of the question–he’d bust you so bad that you’d only just manage to drag yourself off to the doctor.

Get along to the porch and see whether, among all those identical black coats, the 104th was still there.

He got there just as the men began shoving (what could they do? it would soon be time to turn in) as though they were storming a stronghold–the first step, the second, the third, the fourth. Got there! They poured onto the porch.

“Stop, you fuckers,” the Limper shouted and raised his stick at the men in front

“Get back or I’ll bash your heads in.”

“What can we do about it?” they yelled back at him. “The men at the back are pushing us.”

That was true, but those up in front were offering little resistance. They hoped to dash through into the mess hall.

The Limper put his club across his chest–it might have been a barricade in a street battle–and rushed headlong at the men in front. His assistant, the trusty, shared the stick with him, and so did the mess chief– who had apparently decided to soil his hands with it.

They pushed hard–they had plenty of strength, with all that meat in them. The zeks reeled back. The men in front toppled down onto the men behind them, bowled them over like wheat stalks.

“You fucking Limper, we’ll fix you,” cried a man in the crowd, hiding behind the others. As for the rest, they fell without a word, they got up without a word– as quick as they could, before being stepped on.

The steps were clear. The mess chief went back to the porch but the Limper stayed on the top.

“Form fives, blockheads,” he shouted. “How many times have I told you I’ll let you in when I’m ready?”

Shukhov imagined that he saw Senka’s head right in front of the porch. He felt wildly elated, and using his elbows made an effort to push through to him. But, looking at those backs, he knew that it was beyond his strength. He wouldn’t get through.

“Twenty-seventh,”

the

Limper called, “go ahead.”

The 27th bounded up and made a dash for the door, and the rest surged after them.

Shukhov, among them, was shoving with all his might. The porch quivered, and the lamp overhead protested shrilly.

“What again, you shits?” the Limper shouted in rage. Down came his stick, on a shoulder, on a back, pushing the men off, toppling one after another.

Again he cleared the steps.

From below Shukhov saw Pavlo at the Limper’s side. It was he who led the squad to the mess hall–Tiurin wouldn’t lower himself by joining in the hullabaloo.

“Form fives, hundred and fourth,” Pavlo called from the porch. “Make way for them, friends.”

Friends–just see them making way, fuck ’em.

“Let me through, you in front. That’s my squad,” Shukhov grunted, shoving against a back.

The man would gladly have done so but others were squeezing him from every side.

The crowd heaved, pushing away so that no one could breathe. To get its stew. Its lawful stew.

Shukhov tried something else. He grasped the porch rail on his left, got his arms around a pillar, and heaved himself up. He kicked someone’s knee and caught a blow in the ribs; a few curses, but he was through. He planted a foot on the edge of the porch floor, close to the top step, and waited. Some of his pals who were already there gave him a hand.

The mess chief walked to the door and looked back.

“Come on, Limper, send in two more squads.”

“One hundred and fourth,” shouted the Limper. “Where d’you think you’re crawling, shit?”

He slammed a man from another squad on the back of the neck with his stick.

“One hundred and fourth,” shouted Pavlo, leading in his men.

“Whew!” gasped Shukhov in the mess hall. And, without waiting for Pavlo’s instructions, he started looking for free trays.

The mess hall seemed as usual, with clouds of steam curling in through the door and the men sitting shoulder to shoulder–like seeds in a sunflower. Others pushed their way through the tables, and others were carrying loaded trays. Shukhov had grown used to it all over the years and his sharp eyes had noticed that S 208 had only five bowls on the tray he was carrying. This meant that it was the last tray-load for his squad. Otherwise the tray would have been full.

He went up to the man and whispered in his ear: “After you with that tray.”

“Someone’s waiting for it at the counter. I promised. . . .”

“Let him wait, the lazy bastard.”

They came to an understanding.

S 280 carried his tray to the table and unloaded the bowls. Shukhov immediately grabbed it. At that moment the man it had been promised to ran up and tried to grab it.

But he was punier than Shukhov. Shukhov shoved him off with the tray–what the hell are you pulling for?–and threw him against a post Then putting the tray under his arm, he trotted off to the serving window.

Pavlo was standing in the line there, worried because there was no empty tray. He was delighted to see Shukhov. He pushed the man ahead of him out of the way: “Why are you standing here? Can’t you see I’ve got a tray?”

Look, there was Gopchik–with another tray.

“They were arguing,” he said with a laugh, “and I grabbed it.”

Gopchik will do well. Give him another three years–he has still to grow up–and he’ll become nothing less than a bread cutter. He’s fated for it.

Pavlo told him to hand over the second of the trays to Yermolayev, a hefty Siberian who was serving a ten-year stretch, like Shukhov, for being caught by the Germans; then sent him to keep an eye on any table where the men might be finishing. Shukhov put his tray down and waited.

“One hundred and fourth,” announced Pavlo at the counter.

In all there were five of these counters: three for serving regular food, one for zeks on special diets (ulcer victims, and bookkeeping personnel, as a favor), and one for the return of dirty dishes (that’s where the dish-lickers gathered, sparring with one another). The counters were low–about waist level. The cooks themselves were out of sight; only their hands, and the ladles, could be seen.

The cook’s hands were white and well cared for, but huge and hairy: a boxer’s hands, not a cook’s. He took a pencil and made a note on the wall–he kept his list there.

“One hundred and fourth–twenty-four portions.”

Pantaleyev slopped into the mess hall. Nothing wrong with him, the son-of-a-bitch.

The cook took an enormous ladle and stirred, stirred, stirred. The soup kettle had just been refilled, almost up to the brim, and steam poured from it. Replacing the huge ladle with a smaller one he began serving the stew in twenty-ounce portions. He didn’t go deep.

“One, two, three, four . . . .”

Some of the bowls had been filled while the stuff from the bottom of the kettle hadn’t yet settled after the stirring, and some were duds–nothing but soup. Shukhov made a mental note of which was which. He put ten bowls on his tray and carried them off.

Gopchik waved from the second row of posts.

“Over here, Ivan Denisovich, over here.”

No horsing around with bowls ‘of stew. Shukhov was careful not to stumble. He kept his throat busy too.

“Hey you, H 920. Gently, uncle. Out of the way, my boy”

It was hard enough, in a crowd like this, to carry a single bowl without slopping it. He was carrying ten. Just the same, he put the tray down safely, on the end of the table that Gopchik had cleared. No splashes. He managed, too, to maneuver the tray so that the two bowls with the thickest stew were just opposite the place he was about to sit down in.

Yermolayev brought another ten bowls. Gopchik ran off and came back with Pavlo, the last four in their hands.

Kilgas brought the bread tray. Tonight they were being fed in accordance with the work they had done. Some got six ounces, some nine, and Shukhov twelve. He took a piece with a crust for himself, and six ounces from the middle of the loaf for Tsezar.

Now from all over the mess hall Shukhov’s squad began streaming up, to collect their supper and eat it where they could. As he handed out the bowls, there were two things he had to take care of: he had to remember whom he’d served, and he had to watch out for the tray–and’ for his own corner of it. (He put his spoon into a bowl–one of the “thick” ones. Reserved, that meant.) Fetiukov was among the first to arrive. But he soon walked off, figuring there was nothing to be scrounged that particular evening; better to wander around the mess,, hunting for leftovers (if someone doesn’t finish his stew and pushes his bowl back, there are always people hustling to pounce on it, like vultures).

Shukhov counted the portions with Pavlo. Correct, apparently. He pushed across a bowl for Tiurin, one of the “thick” ones; and Pavlo poured his stew into a narrow German mess-tin, with a lid–you could carry it under your coat, close to your chest.

The empty trays were handed in. Pavlo sat there with his double helping, Shukhov with his two bowls. And now they had nothing more to say to one another—the sacred moments had come.

Shukhov took off his hat and laid it on his knees. He tasted one bowl, he tasted the other. Not bad–there was some fish in it. Generally, the evening stew was much thinner than at breakfast: if they’re to work, prisoners must be fed in the morning; in the evening they’ll go to sleep anyway.

He dug in. First he only drank the broth, drank and drank. As it went down, filling his whole body with warmth, all his guts began to flutter inside him at their meeting with that stew. Goo-ood! There it comes, that brief moment for which a zek lives.

And now Shukhov complained about nothing: neither about the length of his stretch, nor about the length of the day, nor about their swiping another Sunday. This was all he thought about now: we’ll survive. We’ll stick it out, God willing, till it’s over.

He drained the hot soup from both bowls, and then tipped what was left in the second into the first, scraping it clean with his spoon. That set his mind at ease. Now he didn’t have to think about the second and keep an eye or a hand on it.

Now that he could look freely he glanced at his neighbors’ bowls. The one on his left was little more than water. The dirty snakes. The tricks they play! And on their fellow zeks.

He began to eat the cabbage with what was left of the soup. A potato had found its way into one of the bowls–Tsesar’s. A medium-sized spud, frost-bitten, hard and sweetish. There wasn’t much fish, just a few stray bits of bare backbone. But you must chew every bone, every fin, to suck the juice out of them, for the juice is healthy. It takes time, of course, but he was in no hurry to go anywhere. Today was a red-letter day for him: two helpings for dinner, two helpings for supper. Everything else could wait.

Except, maybe, that visit to the Lett for tobacco. None might be left in the morning.

He ate his supper without bread. A double helping and bread–that was going too far. The bread would do for tomorrow. The belly is a demon. It doesn’t remember how well you treated it yesterday; it’ll cry out for more tomorrow.

He ate up his stew without taking much interest in what was happening around him. No need for that: he wasn’t on the lookout for extras, he was eating his own lawful portions. All the same, he noticed that ‘when the fellow opposite got up a tall old man–U 81–sat down in his place. Shukhov knew he was in the 64th and had heard, while waiting in the parcels line, that the 64th had been sent to the Socialist Way of Life settlement that day instead of the 104th, and had spent the whole time without a chance of getting warm–putting up barbed wire, building their own zone.

He’d been told that this old man had spent years without number in camps and prisons, and that he hadn’t benefited from a single amnesty. Whenever one ten-year stretch had run out they shoved another onto him right away.

Now Shukhov looked closely at the man. He held himself straight–the other zeks sat all hunched up– and looked as if he’d put something extra on the bench to sit on.

There was nothing left to crop on his head: his hair had dropped out long since–the result of high living, no doubt. His eyes didn’t dart after everything going on in the mess hall.

He kept them fixed in an unseeing gaze at some spot over Shukhov’s head. His worn wooden spoon dipped rhythmically into the thin stew, but instead of lowering his head to the bowl like everybody else, he raised the spoon high to his lips. He’d lost all his teeth and chewed his bread with iron gums. All life had drained out of his face but it had been left, not sickly or feeble, but hard and dark like carved stone. And by his hands, big and cracked and blackened, you could see that he’d had little opportunity of doing soft jobs.

But he wasn’t going to give in, oh no! He wasn’t going to put his nine ounces on the dirty, bespattered table–he put it on a well-washed bit of rag.

However, he couldn’t go on watching the old man–he had other things to do. He finished his supper, licked his spoon clean, and put it in his boot. He pulled his hat over his eyes, got up, picked up his bread and Tsezar’s, and went out. Another porch led from the mess ball. Two more orderlies stood there: they had nothing to do except unhook the door, let people through, and slip the hook on again.

Shukhov came out with a full belly. He felt pleased with himself and decided that, although it was close to curfew, he’d run over to the Lett all the same. Instead of taking the bread to his barracks, he strode to Barracks 7.

The moon was high–clean and white, as if chiseled out of the sky. It was clear up there and there were some stars out–the brightest of them. But he had even less time for stargazing than for watching people in the mess hall. One thing he realized–the frost was no milder. One of the civilians had said, and this had been passed on, that it was likely to drop to -25° in the night, and as low as -40° toward morning, From far away in the settlement he heard the drone of a tractor. From the direction of the main thoroughfare an excavator squealed shrilly. And creak, creak, went every pair of boots in which people walked or ran about the camp.

There was no wind.

He meant to buy the tobacco at the price he’d paid before–one ruble a glassful, though, outside, that amount would cost three times as much, and for some cuts even more. In forced-labor camps all prices were local; it was quite different from anywhere else, because you couldn’t save money and few had any at all, for it was very hard to come by. No one was paid a kopeck for his work (at UstIzhma he’d received at least thirty rubles a month). If anyone’s relatives sent money by mail he didn’t get it in cash anyway; it was credited to his personal account. You could draw on a personal account once a month at the commissary to buy soap, moldy biscuits, and “Prima” cigarettes.

Whether you liked the wares or not, you had to spend the amount the chief had given you a slip for. If you didn’t, the money was lost–simply written off.

Shukhov did private jobs to get money, making slippers out of customers’ rags–two rubles a pair–or patching torn jackets, price by agreement.

Barracks 7, unlike Barracks 9, wasn’t in two big halves. It had a long passage, with ten doors opening off it. Each room housed a squad, packed into seven tiers of bunks. In addition, there was a little cubbyhole for the bucket and another for the senior orderly. The artists had a cubbyhole to themselves, too.

Shukhov headed for the Lett’s room. He found him lying on a lower bunk, his feet propped on a ledge. He was talking to his neighbor in Latvian.

Shukhov sat down beside him. “Evening.” “Evening,” replied the Lett, without lowering his feet. The room was small, everyone was listening. Who was he? What did he want?

Both Shukhov and the Lett realized that people were curious, so Shukhov let the conversation drag on. Well, how are you doing? Oh, not so bad. Cold today. Yes.

Shukhov waited until everyone had started talking again. (They were arguing about the Korean war–now that the Chinese had joined in, would that mean a world war or not?) He leaned closer to the Lett.

“Any t’bacca?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see it.”

The Lett dropped his feet off the ledge, put them on the floor, sat up. He was a mean fellow, that Lett–filled a glass with tobacco as if he was afraid of putting in a single pinch too many.

He showed Shukhov his tobacco pouch and slid open the fastener.

Shukhov took a pinch and laid the leaf on his palm. He examined it. Same as last time, brownish, same rough cut. He held it to his nose and sniffed. That was the stuff. But to the Lett he said: “Not the same, somehow.”

“The same, the same,” the Lett said testily. “I never have any other kind. Always the same.”

“All right,” said Shukhov. “Stuff some into a glass for me. I’ll have a smoke and perhaps take a second glassful.”

He said “stuff” on purpose, because the Lett had the habit of dropping the tobacco in loosely.

The Lett brought out another pouch from under his pillow, fuller than the first. He took his glass out of a locker. It was really a plastic container, but Shukhov figured it held the same as an ordinary glass.

The Lett began fray out the tobacco into the glass.

“Push it down, push it down,” said Shukhov, laying his own thumb on it.

“I know how to do it,” the Lett said sharply, jerking away the glass and pressing the tobacco, though lightly. He dropped in a little more.

Meanwhile, Shukhov had unbuttoned his jacket and was groping inside the cotton lining for a piece of paper that only he knew where to find. Using both hands he squeezed it along under the lining and forced it into a little hole in the cloth somewhere quite different, a small tear that he’d tacked with a couple of loose stitches. When the paper reached the hole he snapped the thread with a fingernail, folded the paper lengthwise (it had already been folded in a longish rectangle), and pulled it through the hole. Two rubles. Worn notes that didn’t rustle.

In the room a prisoner shouted: “D’you mean to say you think Old Whiskers [Stalin] will take pity on you? Why, he wouldn’t trust his own brother. You haven’t a chance, you ass.”

One good thing about these “special” camps–you were free to let off steam. At UstIzhma you need only whisper that there was a shortage of matches outside, and they’d put you in the guardhouse and add another ten years to your stretch. But here you could bawl anything you liked from the top row of bunks–the squealers didn’t pass it on, the security boys had stopped caring.

The trouble was, you didn’t have much time to talk in.

“Ugh, you’re making it lie too loose,” Shukhov complained.

“Oh well, there you are,” said the Left, adding a pinch on top.

Shukhov took his pouch out of an inside pocket and poured in the tobacco from the glass.

“All right,” he said, deciding not to waste the first precious cigarette by smoking it hurriedly. “Stuff it full again.”

Wrangling a bit more, he poured the second glassful into his pouch, handed over the two rubles, and left with a nod.

As soon as he was outside again he doubled back to Barracks 9. He didn’t want to miss Tsezar when he came back with that package.