“It’s not important, not important,” Artiom said. “How is… Fiodor Ivanovich... Eichmanis… did he… say anything about me?”
“Eichmanis!” Schelkachov repeated contentedly. “There’s been no more Eichmanis at all. After he sent you off, he hasn’t come back. They say he’s gone to Kemi.”
“And what have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” Schelkachov laughed. “We’ve been listening to Gorshkov’s swearing. They swear so curiously here that I decided to put together a dictionary…”
Taking up his parcel and looking at Mitya — as though his face would hold the confirmation of everything that he had just said — Artiom felt as though he were a child who woke up at dawn on new year’s morning, running with bare feet to the tree, and there, a wooden piebald horse — huge, half the size of a real horse and a whole
