Twenty-six and One | Page 3

iron that we might not give his bread to the poor or to
those of our companions who, being out of work, were starving; our
proprietor called us cheats and gave us for our dinner tainted garbage
instead of meat.
It was stifling and narrow in our box of stone under the low, heavy
ceiling, covered with smoke-black and spider-webs. It was close and
disgusting within the thick walls, which were spattered with stains of
mud and mustiness. . . . We rose at five o'clock in the morning, without
having had enough sleep, and, dull and indifferent, we seated ourselves
by the table at six to make biscuits out of the dough, which had been
prepared for us by our companions while we were asleep. And all day
long, from morning till ten o'clock at night, some of us sat by the table
rolling out the elastic dough with our hands, and shaking ourselves that
we might not grow stiff, while the others kneaded the dough with water.
And the boiling water in the kettle, where the cracknels were being
boiled, was purring sadly and thoughtfully all day long; the baker's
shovel was scraping quickly and angrily against the oven, throwing off
on the hot bricks the slippery pieces of dough. On one side of the oven,
wood was burning from morning till night, and the red reflection of the

flame was trembling on the wall of the workshop as though it were
silently mocking us. The huge oven looked like the deformed head of a
fairy-tale monster. It looked as though it thrust itself out from
underneath the floor, opened its wide mouth full of fire, and breathed
on us with heat and stared at our endless work through the two black
air-holes above the forehead. These two cavities were like eyes--pitiless
and impassible eyes of a monster: they stared at us with the same dark
gaze, as though they had grown tired of looking at slaves, and
expecting nothing human from them, despised them with the cold
contempt of wisdom. Day in and day out, amid flour-dust and mud and
thick, bad-odored suffocating heat, we rolled out the dough and made
biscuits, wetting them with our sweat, and we hated our work with keen
hatred; we never ate the biscuit that came out of our hands, preferring
black bread to the cracknels. Sitting by a long table, one opposite the
other--nine opposite nine--we mechanically moved our hands, and
fingers during the long hours, and became so accustomed to our work
that we no longer ever followed the motions of our hands. And we had
grown so tired of looking at one another that each of us knew all the
wrinkles on the faces of the others. We had nothing to talk about, we
were used to this and were silent all the time, unless abusing one
another--for there is always something for which to abuse a man,
especially a companion. But we even abused one another very seldom.
Of what can a man be guilty when he is half dead, when he is like a
statue, when all his feelings are crushed under the weight of toil? But
silence is terrible and painful only to those who have said all and have
nothing more to speak of; but to those who never had anything to
say--to them silence is simple and easy. . . . Sometimes we sang, and
our song began thus: During work some one would suddenly heave a
sigh, like that of a tired horse, and would softly start one of those
drawling songs, whose touchingly caressing tune always gives ease to
the troubled soul of the singer. One of us sang, and at first we listened
in silence to his lonely song, which was drowned and deafened
underneath the heavy ceiling of the cellar, like the small fire of a
wood-pile in the steppe on a damp autumn night, when the gray sky is
hanging over the earth like a leaden roof. Then another joined the
singer, and now, two voices soar softly and mournfully over the
suffocating heat of our narrow ditch. And suddenly a few more voices

take up the song--and the song bubbles up like a wave, growing
stronger, louder, as though moving asunder the damp, heavy walls of
our stony prison.
All the twenty-six sing; loud voices, singing in unison, fill the
workshop; the song has no room there; it strikes against the stones of
the walls, it moans and weeps and reanimates the heart by a soft
tickling pain, irritating old wounds and rousing sorrow.
The singers breathe deeply and heavily; some one unexpectedly leaves
off his song and listens for a long time to the singing of his companions,
and again his voice joins the general wave. Another mournfully