Twenty sazheni below the icebreaker was a gang of barefooted
sailors, engaged in hacking out the floes from under their
barges; and as they shattered the brittle, greyish-blue crust on
the river, the mattocks rang out, and the sharp blades of the
icecutters gleamed as they thrust the broken fragments under the
surface. Meanwhile, there could be heard a bubbling of water, and
the sound of rivulets trickling down to the sandy margin of the
river. And similarly among our own gang was there audible a
scraping of planes, and a screeching of saws, and a clattering
of iron braces as they were driven into the smooth yellow wood,
while through all the web of these sounds there ran the
ceaseless song of the bells, a song so softened by distance as
to thrill the soul, much as though dingy, burdensome labour were
holding revel in honour of spring, and calling upon the latter
to spread itself over the starved, naked surface of the
gradually thawing ground.

At this point someone shouted hoarsely:

"Go and fetch the German. We have not got hands enough."

And from the bank someone bawled in reply:

"Where IS he?"

"In the tavern. That is where you must go and look for him."

And as they made themselves heard, the voices floated up
turgidly into the sodden air, spread themselves over the river's
mournful void, and died away,