Then, the mine. That is abomination worse than death and as there is no hope it will make my task to give up life easier. There is no life without hope, cannot be.
«You are crazy!» Work-assignment clerk Belkin threw his hands up to the sky.
«Do you know what the mine is?» The TsBL accountant Luzin was dismayed.
«You will go nowhere close to the mine!» The chief of the TsBL camp Ivanov was smart at repartee.
«To the mine and nowhere else! I will not work at any other place!
«But who will feed you?»
«Until you send me to the mine I will not take the ration!»
From that day on I did not take my ration. It was not a hunger strike in protest, no! It simply meant, «I do not want to work for you and therefore do not consider myself entitled to eat your bread.»