looked extremely independent and, as is always the case on such occasions, behaved with extraordinary decorum all that evening, as though to say, “There’s nothing you can find fault with.” The authorities, of course, wondered whether the fugitives had not left accomplices in prison and gave orders that the convicts should be watched and spied upon. But the convicts only laughed. “As though one would leave accomplices behind one in a job of that sort!” “A thing of that sort is done on the quiet and nohow else!” “And as though a man like Kulikov, a man like A. would leave traces in an affair like that! They’ve managed in a masterly way, every sign hidden; they’re men who’ve seen a thing or two; they’d get through locked doors!”
In fact the glory of Kulikov and A. was vastly increased; every one was proud of them. The convicts felt that their exploit would be handed down to the remotest generation of convicts, would outlive the prison.
“They’re master-hands!” some would say.
“You see, it was thought there was no escaping from here. They’ve escaped, though,” others added.
“Escaped!” a third would pronounce, looking round with an air of some authority. “But who is it has escaped? The likes of you, do you suppose?”
Another time the convict to whom this question referred would certainly have taken up the challenge and defended his honour, but now he was modestly silent, reflecting: “Yes, really, we are not all like Kulikov and A.; we must show what we can do before we talk.”
“And why do we go on living here, after all, brother?” said a fourth, breaking the silence. He was sitting modestly at the kitchen window with his cheek propped on his hand. He spoke in a rather sing-song voice, full of sentimental but secretly complacent feeling. “What are we here for? We are not alive though we are living and we are not in our graves though we are dead. E-e-ch!”.
“It’s not a shoe, you can’t cast it off. What’s the use of saying ‘e-e-ch’?”
“But you see, Kulikov . . .” a green youth, one of the impulsive sort, tried to interpose.
“Kulikov!” Another cut him short at once, cocking his eye contemptuously at the green youth. “Kulikov!”
This was as much as to say, Are there many Kulikovs here?”
