They were celebrating something and were eating their own food. They looked askance at us. A Pole came in and sat down beside us.

“I wasn’t at home, but I know everything!” a tall prisoner shouted loudly, coming into the kitchen and glancing around at everyone there.

He was about fifty, muscular and lean. There was something sly and at the same time merry in his face. Especially remarkable was his thick, pendulous lower lip: it gave his face an extremely comical look.

“So you had a good night? Why don’t you say good day? To our Kurskis!” he added, sitting down beside the men eating their own food. “Greetings! Welcome your guest.”

“We’re not from Kursk, brother.”

“Tambov, then?”

“Not from Tambov either. We’ve got nothing for you, brother. Go find a rich muzhik and ask him.”

“I’ve got Ivan-Rumble and Marya-Hiccup in my belly today, brothers—where does he live, this rich muzhik?”

“Gazin’s a rich muzhik: go to him.”

“Gazin’s on a drinking binge today, brothers; he’s drinking up his whole purse.”

“That’s twenty roubles,” another man observed. “It’s profitable, brothers, selling vodka.”

“So you won’t receive a guest? Well, then we’ll gulp from the common bowl.”

“Go and ask for tea. The gentlemen there are having tea.”

“What gentlemen, there are no gentlemen here; they’re just like us now,” one prisoner who was sitting in the corner observed gloomily. Until then he had not uttered a word.

“I’d like some tea, but I’m ashamed to ask: I’ve got my anbishin,” the prisoner with the thick lip said, looking at us good-naturedly.

“I’ll give you tea, if you like,” I said, inviting the prisoner. “Want some?”

“Want some? How could I not!” He came over to the table.

“See, at home he was just a clodhopper, but here he’s learned about tea; wants to drink with gentlemen,” the gloomy prisoner pronounced.

“Does nobody drink tea here?” I asked him, but he did not deign to answer.

“Here come the kalachi. Honor us with a little kalach!”

They brought the kalachi. A young prisoner brought a whole string of them and sold them all over the prison. The kalach girl gave him every tenth one for it; that one kalach was what he counted on.

“Kalachi, kalachi!” he cried, coming into the kitchen. “Hot Moscow kalachi! I’d eat plenty, but my pocket’s empty. Well, lads, here’s the last of them: has anybody got a mother?”

This appeal to maternal love made them all laugh, and they took several kalachi from him.

“You know, brothers,” he went on, “Gazin’s going to carouse himself into trouble today. By God! Found a good time for a binge. Eight-eyes is bound to turn up.”

“They’ll hide him. What, is he badly drunk?”

“Far gone! He’s turning mean.”

“Well, it’ll come to fists then …”

“Who are they talking about?” I asked the Pole who was sitting beside me.

“Gazin, a prisoner. He deals in vodka here. Once he makes enough money, he drinks it away at once. He’s cruel and malicious. He’s quiet enough when he’s sober, but when he’s drunk, it all comes out. He goes for people with a knife. Then they calm him down.”

“How do they do that?”

“Ten or so prisoners fall on him and beat him terribly, till he’s lost all consciousness, that is, till he’s half-dead. Then they put him on a bunk and cover him with a coat.”

“But mightn’t they kill him?”

“It would kill another man, but not him. He’s terribly strong, stronger than anybody here in prison, and of the sturdiest constitution. The next morning he gets up feeling perfectly fine.”

“Tell me, please,” I went on questioning the Pole, “I see them eating their own food, while I’m drinking tea. And yet they look at me as if they envy this tea.