narrated the leader, in a bold recitative. The company joined in unison:
“Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!”
And then the bassos smote the air with deep sounds:
“It goes, it goes.”
And the tenors repeated:
“It goes, it goes.”
Foma listened to the song and directed his footsteps toward it, on the wharf. There he noticed that the carriers, formed in two rows, were rolling out of the steamer’s hold huge barrels of salted fish. Dirty, clad in red blouses, unfastened at the collar, with mittens on their hands, with arms bare to the elbow, they stood over the hold, and, merrily jesting, with faces animated by toil, they pulled the ropes, all together, keeping time to their song. And from the hold rang out the high, laughing voice of the invisible leader:
“But for our peasant throats
There is not enough vodka.”
And the company, like one huge pair of lungs, heaved forth loudly and in unison:
“Oh, dubinushka, heave-ho!”