Abarchuk stopped by the place where old Prince Dolgoruky was talking to Stepanov, a young professor at the Economics Institute. Stepanov behaved very arrogantly, refusing to get up when the camp authorities came into the hut and openly expressing anti-Soviet views. He was proud of the fact that, unlike the majority of the political prisoners, he was there for a reason: he had written an article entitled 'The State of Lenin and Stalin' and distributed it to his students. He had been denounced by either the third or fourth person who had read it.

Dolgoruky had returned to the Soviet Union from Sweden. Before that, he had lived for a long time in Paris and felt deeply homesick. He had been arrested a week after his return. In the camp he prayed, made friends with members of the different Christian sects and wrote mystical poems. At this moment he was reading one of them to Stepanov.

Abarchuk listened, leaning his shoulder against the post supporting the two tiers of boards. Dolgoruky's eyes were half-closed and his chapped lips were trembling as he recited.

I feel that I have chosen everything -

The time and place, the day I came into the world;

I chose the strength to suffer fire, to fling

Myself into the water, to be hurled

Into the stench of flesh, smeared and profaned

With blood and pus, dabbed with these wads of filth

And fouled by the ten-horned beast – his belly's stealth

And blasphemies have left my soul unstained!

For I believe in justice from above,

The imponderable source of best and worst

That hears burned Russia speak in flames – and burst

Free in these words! Great lord of truth and love!

You carve in plenitudes of fire the life

Which craves abundance, craves your absolute -

Prune to fruition with your burning knife!

The tree submits! Now make my soul your fruit!

After he had finished, he sat for a moment with his eyes half-closed, his lips still moving.

'That's shit,' said Stepanov. 'Pure decadence!'

Dolgoruky gave a dismissive wave of his pale, anaemic hand.

'Look where all your Chernyshevskys and Herzens have got us! Don't you remember what Chaadayev wrote in his Third Philosophical Letter?'

'I detest you and your mystical obscurantism as much as I detest the organizers of this camp,' replied Stepanov in a schoolmasterly tone. 'Both they and you forget the third and most natural path for Russia: the path of democracy and freedom.'

Abarchuk had often argued with Stepanov, but just then he didn't feel like it; for once he didn't want to brand Stepanov as an enemy, an internal émigré. He went to the corner where the Baptists were praying and began listening to their muttering.

Suddenly the stentorian voice of hut-foreman Zarokov rang out: 'Everyone stand up!'

They all jumped up – someone in authority must have come into the hut. Abarchuk squinted round and saw Dolgoruky's long pale face. Yes, he was a goner. He was standing there at attention, still muttering away. Probably he was repeating the same poem. Stepanov was sitting; like the anarchist he was, he refused to submit to the sensible regulations of the camp.

'A search, there's going to be a search,' whispered the prisoners.

But no search took place. The two young escort-guards in their red and blue service caps just walked down between the bedboards, looking round at the prisoners.

As they passed Stepanov, one of them said: 'Still sitting there, professor? Afraid your arse will catch cold?'

Stepanov looked up – he had a wide snub-nosed face – and answered by rote in a loud parrot-like voice: 'Citizen guard, I request you to address me politely. I'm a political prisoner.'

That night there was an incident in the barrack-hut: Rubin was murdered.

The murderer had placed a large nail against his ear while he was asleep and driven it into his brain with one blow. Five people, Abarchuk among them, were summoned by the operations officer. What seemed to concern him was the provenance of the nail. This particular type of nail had only recently been delivered to the store; as yet there had been no requests for it from the production sections.

While they were washing, Barkhatov came and stood next to Abarchuk at the wooden trough. Licking the drops of water off his lips, his face still wet, he turned to Abarchuk and said very quietly: 'Listen, swine, nothing's going to happen to me if you squeal. But you'll really catch it! Yes, I'll fix you – and in a way that will make the whole camp shit themselves!'

He wiped himself dry, looked calmly into Abarchuk's eyes, saw what he was looking for and shook Abarchuk by the hand.

In the canteen Abarchuk gave Nyeumolimov his bowl of cornmeal soup.

His lips trembling, Nyeumolimov said: 'The swine! Our Abrasha! He was a real man!' and then pulled Abarchuk's bowl of soup towards him.

Abarchuk got up from the table without a word.

The crowd of people by the exit parted as Perekrest came in. He had to bend as he came through the doorway: camp ceilings were not designed for men of his height.

'Today's my birthday,' he said to Abarchuk. 'Come and join us. We've got some vodka.'

It was terrible. Dozens of people must have heard last night's murder, must even have seen the man walking up to Rubin's place. It would have been easy for one of them to jump up and raise the alarm. Together they could have dealt with the murderer in no time. They could have saved their comrade. But no one had looked up; no one had called out. A man had been slaughtered like a lamb. And everyone had just lain there, pretending to be asleep, burying their heads in their jackets, trying not to cough, trying not to hear the dying man writhing in agony.

How vile! What pathetic submissiveness!

But then he too had been awake, he too had kept silent, he too had buried his head in his jacket… Yes, there was a reason for this submissiveness – it was born of experience, of an understanding of the laws of the camp.

They could indeed have got up and stopped the murderer; but a man with a knife will always be stronger than a man without a knife. The strength of a group of prisoners is something ephemeral; but a knife is always a knife.

Abarchuk thought about the coming interrogation. It was all very well for the operations officer to ask for statements. He didn't have to sleep in the hut at night, he didn't have to wash in the hallway, leaving himself open to a blow from behind, he didn't have to walk down mine-shafts, he didn't have to go into the latrine where he might get jumped on and have a sack thrown over his head.

Yes, he had seen someone walk up to Rubin. He had heard Rubin wheezing, thrashing his arms and legs around in his death-agony.

The operations officer, Captain Mishanin, called Abarchuk into his office and closed the door. 'Sit down, prisoner.'

He put the usual initial questions, questions the political prisoners always answered quickly and precisely.

He then looked up with his tired eyes, and knowing very well that an experienced prisoner, afraid of the inevitable reprisals, would never say how the nail had come into the murderer's hands, stared at Abarchuk for a few seconds.

Abarchuk looked back at him. He scrutinized the captain's young face, looking at his hair and his eyebrows, and thought to himself that he could only be two or three years older than his own son.

The captain then asked the question which three prisoners had already refused to answer.

Abarchuk didn't say anything.

'Are you deaf or something?'

Abarchuk remained silent.

How he longed for the man to say to him, even if he weren't sincere, even if it were just a prescribed interrogation technique: 'Listen, comrade Abarchuk, you're a Communist. Today you're in the camp, but tomorrow we'll be paying our membership dues together. I need your help as a comrade, as a fellow Party member.'