He smiled in embarrassment: the excitement within him had not yet calmed down and this hindered him from understanding what had happened and why all those who surrounded him were so merry and contented.
"We've raised a hundred and seventy thousand puds as if we plucked a radish from a garden-bed!" said some one.
"We ought to get a vedro of whisky from our master." Foma, standing on a heap of cable, looked over the heads of the workers and saw; between the barges, side by side with them, stood a third barge, black, slippery, damaged, wrapped in chains.

It was warped all over, it seemed as though it swelled from some terrible disease and, impotent, clumsy, it was suspended between its companions, leaning against them.

Its broken mast stood out mournfully in the centre; reddish streams of water, like blood, were running across the deck, which was covered with stains of rust.

Everywhere on the deck lay heaps of iron, of black, wet stumps of wood, and of ropes.
"Raised ?" asked Foma, not knowing what to say at the sight of this ugly, heavy mass, and again feeling offended at the thought that merely for the sake of raising this dirty, bruised monster from the water, his soul had foamed up with such joy.
"How's the barge ?" asked Foma, indefinitely, addressing the contractor.
"It's pretty good! We must unload right away, and put a company of about twenty carpenters to work on it--they'll bring it quickly into shape," said the contractor in a consoling tone.
And the light-haired fellow, gaily and broadly smiling into Foma's face, asked: "Are we going to have any vodka ?" "Can't you wait?
You have time!" said the contractor, sternly.

"Don't you see--the man is tired." Then the peasants began to speak: "Of course, he is tired! "That wasn't easy work!" "Of course, one gets tired if he isn't used to work." "It is even hard to eat gruel if you are not used to it." "I am not tired," said Foma, gloomily, and again were heard the respectful exclamations of the peasants, as they surrounded him more closely.
"Work, if one likes it, is a pleasant thing." "It's just like play." "It's like playing with a woman." But the light-haired fellow persisted in his request: "Your Honour! You ought to treat us to a vedro of vodka, eh ?" he said, smiling and sighing.
Foma looked at the bearded faces before him and felt like saying something offensive to them.