One Day In The Life

"All out to the other half."
Some were already asleep. They began to grumble and move about, they put their boots on (no one ever took his wadded trousers off at night--you'd grow numb with cold unless you wore them under your blanket).
"Damn them," said Shukhov. Mildly, because he hadn't gone to sleep yet.
Tsezar raised a hand and gave him two biscuits, two lumps of sugar, and a slice of sausage.
"Thank you, Tsezar Markovich," said Shukhov, leaning over the edge of his bunk. "Come on now, hand up that sack of yours. I'll put it under my mattress." (It's not so easy to swipe things from the top bunks as you go by. Anyway, who'd look for anything in Shukhov's bunk?)
Tsezar handed up his sack and Shukhov hid it under the mattress. Then be waited a little till more men had been sent out--he wouldn't have to stand barefoot so long in the corridor. But the guard scowled at him and shouted: "Come on, you there in the corner."
Shukhov sprang lightly to the floor (his boots and footrags were so well placed on the stove it would be a pity to move them). Though he'd made so many slippers for others he hadn't a pair of his own. But he was used to this--and the count didn't take long.
They confiscate slippers too if they find them in daytime.
As for the squads who'd sent their boots to be dried, it wasn't so bad for them, now the recount was held indoors. Some wore slippers, some just their footrags, some went barefoot.
"Come on, come on," growled the guard.
"Do you want to be carried out, you shits?" the barracks commander shouted.
They shoved them all into the other half of the barracks, and loiterers into the corridor. Shukhov stood against the wall near the bucket. The floor was moist underfoot. An icy draft crept in from the porch.
They had them all out now and once again the guard and the orderly did their round, looking for any who might be dozing in dark corners. There'd be trouble if they counted short. It would mean still another recount. Round they went, round they went, and came back to the door.
"One, two, three, four. . . ." Now they released you faster, for they were counting one by one. Shukhov managed to squeeze in eighteenth. He ran back to his bunk, put his foot on the support--a heave, and he was up.
All right. Feet back into the sleeve of his jacket. Blanket on top. Then the coat. And to sleep. Now they'd be letting everybody from the other half of the barracks into our half. But that's not our worry.
Tsezar returned. Shukhov lowered his sack to him.
Alyosha returned. Impractical, that's his trouble. Makes himself nice to everyone but doesn't know how to do favors that get paid back.
"Here you are, Alyosha," said Shukhov, and handed him a biscuit.
Alyosha smiled. "Thank you. But you've got nothing yourself."
"Eat it."
(We've nothing but we always find a way to make something extra.)
Now for that slice of sausage. Into the mouth. Getting your teeth into it. Your teeth. The meaty taste. And the meaty juice, the real stuff. Down it goes, into your belly.
Gone.
The rest, Shukhov decided, for the morning. Before the roil call.
And he buried his head in the thin, unwashed blanket, deaf now to the crowd of zeks from the other half as they jostled between the bunk frames, waiting to be counted.



Shukhov went to sleep fully content. He'd had many strokes of luck that day: they hadn't put him in the cells; they hadn't sent his squad to the settlement; he'd swiped a bowl of kasha at dinner; the squad leader had fixed the rates well; he'd built a wall and enjoyed doing it; he'd smuggled that bit of hacksaw blade through; he'd earned a favor from Tsezar that evening; he'd bought that tobacco. And he hadn't fallen ill. He'd got over it.
A day without a dark cloud. Almost a happy day.
There were three thousand six hundred and fiftythree days like that in his stretch. From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail.
Three thousand six hundred and fifty-three days.
The three extra days were for leap years.