One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

about up there, shouting down to the men.

    The sun had risen higher, dispersing the haze. The two bright columns had gone.
    It was reddish inside the room. And now someone had got the stove going with the stolen wood. Made you feel a bit more cheerful

    "In January the sun warmed the flanks of the cow," Shukhov chanted.

    Kilgas finished nailing the mortar trough together and, giving it an extra smash with his ax, shouted: "Listen, Pavlo, I won't take less than a hundred rubles from Tiurin for this job."

    "You get three ounces," said Pavlo with a laugh.

    "The prosecutor will make up the difference," shouted Gopchik from above.

    "Stop that," Shukhov shouted, "stop." That wasn't the way to cut the roofing felt.

    He showed them how to do it.

    The men crept up to the stove, only to be chased away by Pavlo. He gave Kilgas some wood to make hods, for carrying the mortar up to the second story. He put on a couple more men to bring up the sand, others to sweep the snow off the scaffolding where the blocks were to be put, and another to take the hot sand off the top of the stove and throw it into the mortar trough.

    A truck engine snorted outside. They were beginning to deliver the blocks. The first truck had got through. Pavlo hurried out and waved on the driver to where the blocks were to be dumped.

    They put up one thickness of roofing felt, then a second. What protection could you expect from it? It was paper, just paper. All the same, it looked like a kind of solid wall. The room became darker, and this brightened the stove up.

    Alyosha brought in some coal. Some of them shouted to tip it onto the stove, others not to. They wanted to warm up with the flames. Alyosha hesitated, not knowing whom to obey.

    Fetiukov had found himself a cozy corner near the stove and, the fool, was holding his boots right up to the flames. The captain took him by the scruff of the neck and lugged him off to the barrow.

    "You haul sand, you bastard."

    The captain might still have been on board ship--if you were told to do something you did it. He had grown haggard during the past month, but he kept his bearing.

    In the end, all three windows were covered. Now the only light came through the door. And with it came the cold. So Pavlo had the upper half of the doorway boarded up but the lower left free, so that the men, by stooping, could get through it.

    Meanwhile three trucks had driven up and dumped their loads of blocks. Now the problem was how to get the blocks up without the mechanical lift.

    "Masons, let's go and look around," Pavlo called.

    It was a job to be respected. Shukhov and Kilgas went up with Pavlo. The ramp was narrow enough anyhow, but now that Senka had robbed it of its rails you had to make sure you pressed close to the wall if you weren't going to fall off it. And still worse-
    -the snow had frozen to the treads and rounded them; they offered no grip to your feet.
    How would they bring up the mortar?

    They looked all around to find where the blocks should be laid. The men Pavlo had sent up were shoveling the snow from the top of the wails. Here was the place. You had to take an ax to the ice on the old workings, and then sweep them clean.

    They figured out how best to bring up the blocks. They looked down. They decided that, rather than carry them up the ramp, four men would be posted down below to heave the blocks up to that platform over there, that another couple would move them on, and that two more would hand them up to the second story. That would be quicker than carrying them up the ramp.

    The wind wasn't strong but you felt it. It would pierce them all right when they started laying. They'd have to keep behind the bit of wall that the old crew had begun on; it would give them some shelter. Not too bad--it'd be warmer that way.

    Shukhov looked up at the sky and gasped--the sun had climbed almost to the dinner hour. Wonder of wonders! How time flew when you were working! That was something he'd often noticed.