Read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for Free Online Page B

bolder.

    Fetiukov, that jackal, had come up closer too and now stood opposite Tsezar, watching his mouth with blazing eyes.

    Shukhov had finished his last pinch of tobacco and saw no prospects of acquiring any more before evening. Every nerve in his body was taut, all his longing was concentrated in that cigarette butt--which meant more to him now, it seemed, than freedom itself--but he would never lower himself like that Fetiukov, he would never look at a man's mouth.

    Tsezar was a hodgepodge of nationalities: Greek, Jew, Gypsy--you couldn't make out which. He was still young. He'd made films. But he hadn't finished his first when they arrested him. He wore a dark, thick, tangled mustache. They hadn't shaved it off in the camp because that was the way he looked in the photograph in his dossier.

    "Tsezar Markovich," slobbered Fetiukov, unable to restrain himself. "Give us a puff."

    His face twitched with greedy desire.

    Tsezar slightly raised the lids that drooped low over his black eyes and looked at Fetiukov. It was because he didn't want to be interrupted while smoking and asked for a puff that he had taken up a pipe. He didn't begrudge the tobacco; he resented the interruption in his chain of thought. He smoked to stimulate his mind and to set his ideas flowing. But the moment he lighted a cigarette he read in several pairs of eyes an unspoken plea for the butt.

    Tsezar turned to Shukhov and said: "Take it, Ivan Denisovich."

    And with his thumb he pushed the smoldering cigarette butt out of the short amber holder.

    Shukhov started (though it was exactly what he had expected of Tsezar) and gratefully hurried to take the butt with one hand, while slipping the other hand under it to prevent it from dropping. He didn't resent the fact that Tsezar felt squeamish about letting him finish the cigarette in the holder (some had clean mouths, some had foul) and he didn't burn his hardened fingers as they touched the glowing end. The main thing was, he had cut out that jackal Fetiukov, and now could go on drawing in smoke until his lips were scorched. Mmm. The smoke crept and flowed through his whole hungry body, making his head and feet respond to it.

    Just at that blissful moment he heard a shout:

    "They're stripping our undershirts off us."

    Such was a prisoner's life. Shukhov had grown accustomed to it. All you could do was to look out they. didn't leap at your throat.

    But why the undershirts? The camp commandant himself had issued them. No, something was wrong.

    There were still squads ahead of them before it was their turn to be frisked.
    Everyone in the 104th looked about. They saw Lieutenant Volkovoi, the security chief, stride out of the staff quarters and shout something to the guards. And the guards who, when Volkovoi wasn't around, carried out the frisking perfunctorily, now flung themselves into their work with savage zeal.

    "Unbutton your shirts," the sergeant shouted.

    Volkovoi was as unpopular with the prisoners as with the guards--even the camp commandant was said to be afraid of him. God had named the bastard appropriately. *[*
    Volk means wolf in Russian.] He was a wolf indeed, and looked it. He was dark, tall, with a scowl, very quick in his movements. He'd turn up from behind a barracks with a
    "What's going on here?" There was no hiding from him. At first, in '49, he'd been in the habit of carrying a whip of plaited leather, as thick as his forearm. He was said to have used it for flogging in the cells. Or when the prisoners would be standing in a group near a barracks at the evening count, he'd slink up from behind and lash out at someone's neck with a "Why aren't you standing in line, slobs?" The men would dash away in a wave.
    Stung by the blow, his victim would put a hand to his neck and wipe away the blood, but he'd hold his tongue, for fear of the cells.

    Now, for some reason, Volkovoi had stopped carrying his whip.

    When the weather was cold the guards were fairly lenient in the