"Hunger cannot be considered where necessity impels. By the way, what use are our damned icebreakers? For the protection of barges and such? Why, the ice hasn't the sense to care. It just goes sliding over a barge, and farewell is the word to THAT bit of property!" "Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we? "You had better go and talk to a fool." "The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken in hand sooner." Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated: "Blockhead!" From a barge a knot of sailors shouted something, and at the same moment the river sent forth a sort of whiff of cruel chilliness and brooding calm. The disposition of the pine boughs now had changed. Nay, everything in sight was beginning to assume a different air, as though everything were charged with tense expectancy. One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath: "Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?" "What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly. "I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?" To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone: "Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you from participating in His most holy festival." And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipe towards the river, and muttered with a grin: "You want to cross to the town, do you? Well, be off with you, and though the ice may give way beneath your feet and drown you, at least you'll be taken to the police station, and so get to your festival. For that's what you want, I suppose?" "True enough," Mokei re-echoed. Then the sun went in, and the river grew darker, while the town stood out more clearly. Ceaselessly, the younger men gazed towards the town with wistful, gloomy eyes, though silently they remained where they were. Similarly, I myself was beginning to find things irksome and uncomfortable, as always happens when a number of companions are thinking different thoughts, and contain in themselves none of that unity of will which alone can join men into a direct, uniform force. Rather, I felt as though I could gladly leave my companions and start out upon the ice alone. Suddenly Ossip recovered his faculties. Rising, then doffing his cap and making the sign of the cross in the direction of the town, he said with a quiet, simple, yet somehow authoritative, air: "Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go with you!" "But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To the town?" "Whither else?" The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and with conviction he remarked: "It will result but in our getting drowned." "Then stay where you are." Ossip glanced around the party. Then he continued: "Bestir yourselves! Look alive!" Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the tools into a hole in the bank, groaned: