One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Read Online Free PDF Page A

better that way.

    After the vegetable stew there was magara , that damned "Chinese" oatmeal. It had grown cold too, and had set into a solid lump. Shukhov broke it up into pieces. It wasn't only that the oatmeal was cold--it was tasteless even when hot, and left you no sense of having filled your belly. Just grass, except that it was yellow, and looked like cereal. They'd got the idea of serving it instead of cereals from the Chinese, it was said.
    When boiled, a bowlful of it weighed nearly a pound. Not much of an oatmeal but that was what it passed for.

    Licking his spoon and tucking it back into his boot, Shukhov put on his hat and went to the dispensary.

    The sky was still quite dark. The camp lights drove away the stars. The broad beams of the two searchlights were still sweeping the zone. When this camp, this
    "special" (forced-labor) camp, had been organized, the security forces had a lot of flares left over from the war, and whenever there was a power failure they shot up flares over the zone--white, green, and red--just like real war. Later they stopped using them. To save money, maybe.

    It seemed just as dark as at reveille but the experienced eye could easily distinguish, by various small signs, that soon the order to go to work would be given.
    Khromoi's assistant (Khromoi, the mess orderly, had an assistant whom he fed) went off to summon Barracks 6 to breakfast This was the building occupied by the infirm, who did not leave the zone. An old, bearded artist shuffled off to the C.E.D, *[* Culture and Education Department.] for the brush and paint he needed to touch up the numbers on the prisoners' uniforms. The Tartar was there again, cutting across the parade ground with long, rapid strides in the direction of the staff quarters. In general there were fewer people about, which meant that everyone had gone off to some corner or other to get warm during those last precious minutes.

    Shukhov was smart enough to hide from The Tartar around a corner of the barracks--the guard would stick to him if he caught him again. Anyway, you should never be conspicuous. The main thing was never to be seen by a camp guard on your own, only in a group. Who knows whether the guy wasn't looking for someone to saddle with a job, or wouldn't jump on a man just for spite? Hadn't they been around the barracks and read them that new regulation? You bad to take off your hat to a guard five paces before passing him, and replace it two paces after. There were guards who slopped past as if blind, not caring a damn, but for others the new rule was a godsend. How many prisoners had been thrown in the guardhouse because of that hat business? Oh no, better to stand around the corner.

    The Tartar passed by, and now Shukhov finally decided to go to the dispensary.
    But suddenly he remembered that the tall Lett in Barracks 7 had told him to come and buy a couple of glasses of home-grown tobacco that morning before they went out to work, something Shukhov bad clean forgotten in all the excitement. The Lett had received a parcel the previous evening, and who knew but that by tomorrow none of the tobacco would be left, and then he'd have to wait a month for another parcel The Lett's tobacco was good stuff, strong and fragrant, grayish-brown.

    Shukhov stamped his feet in vexation. Should he turn back and go to the Lett? But it was such a short distance to the dispensary and he jogged on. The snow creaked audibly underfoot as he approached the door.

    Inside, the corridor was, as usual, so clean that he felt quite scared to step on the floor. And the 'walls were painted with white enamel. And all the furniture was white.

    The surgery doors were all shut. The doctors must still be in bed. The man on duty was a medical assistant--a young man called Kolya Vdovushkin. He was seated at a clean little table, wearing a small white cap and a snow-white smock. Writing something.

    There was no one else in sight.

    Shukhov took off his hat as if in the