The House of the Dead

should treat the other. Evidently they had been wrangling for a long time and this was not their first quarrel. One in particular seemed to have an old grudge against the other. He was complaining and speaking thickly, was struggling to prove that the other had been unfair to him: some sheepskin coat had been sold, a sum of money had been made away with somehow, a year before at carnival. There was something else besides.⁠ ⁠… He was a tall muscular fellow of peaceable disposition and by no means a fool. When he was drunk he was disposed to make friends with anyone and to open his heart to him. He even swore at his opponent and got up a grievance against him in order to be reconciled and more friendly afterwards. The other, a short, thickset, stubby man, with a round face, was a sharp and wily fellow. He had drunk more than his companion, perhaps, but was only slightly drunk. He was a man of character and was reputed to be well off, but it was for some reason to his interest just now not to irritate his expansive friend, and he led him up to the vodka dealer; while the friend kept repeating that he should and must treat him “if only you are an honest man.”

The “publican” with a shade of respect for the short man, and a shade of contempt for his expansive companion, because the latter was being treated and not drinking at his own expense, brought out some vodka and poured out a cupful.

“No, Styopka, you owe it me,” said the expansive friend, seeing he had gained his point, “for it’s what you owe me.”

“I am not going to waste my breath on you!” answered Styopka.

“No, Styopka, that’s a lie,” protested the other, taking the cup from the “publican,” “for you owe me money, you’ve no conscience! Why, your very eyes are not your own but borrowed. You are a scoundrel, Styopka, that’s what you are; that’s the only word for you!”

“What are you whining about, you’ve spilt your vodka. One stands you treat, so you might as well drink,” cried the publican to the expansive friend. “You can’t keep us standing here till tomorrow!”

“But I am going to drink it, what are you shouting about! A merry Christmas to you, Stepan Dorofeitch!” cup in hand he turned politely, and made a slight bow to Styopka whom half a minute before he had called a scoundrel. “Good health to you for a hundred years, not reckoning what you’ve lived already!” He emptied his cup, cleared his throat and wiped his mouth. “I could carry a lot of vodka in my day, lads,” he observed with grave dignity, addressing the world in general and no one in particular, “but now it seems age is coming upon me. Thank you, Stepan Dorofeitch.”

“Not at all.”

“But I shall always tell you of it, Styopka, and besides your behaving like a regular scoundrel to me, I tell you⁠ ⁠…”

“And I’ve something to tell you, you drunken lout,” Styopka broke in, losing all patience. “Listen and mark my words. Look here: we’ll halve the world between us⁠—you take one half, and I’ll take the other. You go your way and don’t let me meet you again. I am sick of you.”

“Then you won’t pay me the money?”

“What money, you drunken fool?”

“Ah, in the next world you’ll be wanting to pay it, but I won’t take it. We work hard for our money, with sweat on our brows and blisters on our hands. You’ll suffer for my five kopecks in the other world.”

“Oh, go to the devil!”

“Don’t drive me, I am not in harness yet.”

“Go on, go on!”

“Scoundrel!”

“You jailbird!”

And abuse followed again, more violent than before.

Here two friends were sitting apart on the bed. One of them, a tall, thickset, fleshy fellow, with a red face, who looked like a regular butcher was almost crying, for he was very much touched. The other was a frail-looking, thin, skinny little man with a long nose which always looked moist, and little piggy eyes which were fixed on the ground. He was a polished and cultivated individual, he had been a clerk and treated his friend a little superciliously, which the other secretly resented. They had been drinking together all day.

“He’s taken a liberty!” cried the fleshy friend, shaking the clerk’s head violently with his left arm which he had round him. By “taking a liberty” he meant that he had hit him. The stout one, who had been a sergeant, was secretly envious of his emaciated friend and so they were trying to outdo one another in the choiceness of their language.

“And I tell you that you are wrong too⁠ ⁠…” the clerk began dogmatically, resolutely refusing to look at his opponent and staring at the floor with a dignified air.

“He’s taken a liberty, do you hear!” the first man broke in, shaking his friend more violently than ever. “You are the only friend I have in the world, do you hear? And that’s why I tell you and no one else, he’s taken a liberty!”

“And I tell you again, such a feeble justification, my friend, is only a discredit to you,” said the clerk in a high-pitched, bland voice. “You’d better admit, my friend, that all this drunken business is due to your own incontinence.”

The stout convict staggered back a little, looked blankly with his drunken eyes at the self-satisfied clerk and suddenly and quite unexpectedly drove his huge fist with all his might into his friend’s little face. That was the end of a whole day’s friendship. His dear friend was sent flying senseless under the bed.⁠ ⁠…

A friend of mine from the special division, a clever good-humoured fellow of boundless good-nature and extraordinarily simple appearance, who was fond of a joke but quite without malice, came into our ward. This was the man who on my first day in prison had been at dinner in the kitchen, asking where the rich