“What do you want?” I asked, not without astonishment.
He remained standing before me, still smiling and staring, but without replying to my question.
“Why, it is Christmas Day,” he muttered.
He understood that he had nothing more to say, and now hastened into the kitchen.
I must add that, after this we scarcely ever met, and that we never spoke to one another again.
Round the flaming stoves of the kitchen the convicts were rubbing and pushing against one another. Every one was watching his own property. The cooks were preparing the dinner, which was to take place a little earlier than usual. No one began to eat before the time, though a good many wished to do so; but it was necessary to be well-behaved before the others. We were waiting for the priest, and the fast preceding Christmas would not be at an end until his arrival.
It was not yet perfectly light, when the corporal was already heard shouting out from behind the principal gate of the prison:
“The kitchen; the kitchen.”
These calls were repeated without interruption for about two hours. The cooks were wanted in order to receive gifts brought from all parts of the town in enormous numbers; loaves of white bread, scones, rusks, pancakes, and pastry of various kinds. I do not think there was a shop-keeper in the whole town who did not send something to the “unfortunates.” Amongst these gifts there were some magnificent ones, including a good many cakes of the finest flour. There were also some very poor ones, such as rolls worth two kopecks a piece, and a couple of brown rolls, covered lightly over with sour cream. These were the offerings of the poor to the poor, on which a last kopeck had often been spent.