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Meanwhile Ossip's eyes had remained fixed upon the river, for evidently his thoughts were far away, and it was in absentminded fashion that he replied: "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.
At the same moment, there came from the bank behind us a startled cry of: "Where are you off to, you fools?" "Never mind," said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you, and don't stand staring." "You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far better return." "No, no! come on!" was Ossip's counter-command.
Darkness had fallen, but at a certain spot some red and yellow lamps, lamps the beams of which seemed to be saying, "Come up hither!" were shining through the obscurity. Meanwhile, as we proceeded in the direction of the bells that were ringing on the hill, rivulets of water flowed with a murmur under our feet, and Ossip's kindly voice kept mingling with their sound.
I leapt up from where I was, and rushed blindly in Ossip's direction. "Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as he brandished the spirit-level. "Stand still where you are!" Indeed, Ossip seemed no longer to be Ossip at all, but a person curiously younger, a person in whom all that had been familiar in Ossip had become effaced.
Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler, and a sufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge against life in general, croaked out: "How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was a fish?" "Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip's good-humoured retort.
Meanwhile in the tones of Ossip's voice there was a soft, musical ring that struck agreeably upon the ear, and harmonised to admiration with the song of the bells just when we were approaching the middle of the river's breadth of four hundred sazheni. There resounded over the surface of the ice a vicious rustle while a piece of ice slid from under my feet.
Now notice will have been given to the police on the further bank, and, if we're not drowned, we shall find ourselves clapped in gaol when we get there. However, I'm not responsible." In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew his companions after him as though they had been tied to a rope. "Watch your feet carefully," once more he cried.
"What do you say, you ?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words.
He had been walking next ahead of the Morduine, and, as a man habitually silent and absorbed, proceeding on his way more quietly than the rest. Suddenly something had seemed to catch at his legs, and he had disappeared until only his head and his hands, as the latter clutched at his plank, had been left above-level. "Run and help him, somebody!" was Ossip's instant cry.
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