I liked carrying bricks not only because it strengthened my muscles but also because the work took me to the bank of the Irtish. I speak of the riverbank so often because it was only from there one had a view of God’s world, of the pure clear distance, of the free solitary steppes, the emptiness of which made a strange impression on me. It was only on the bank of the Irtish that one could stand with one’s back to the fortress and not see it. All our other tasks were done either in the fortress or close by it. From the very first days I hated that fortress, some of the buildings particularly. The major’s house seemed to me a damnable, loathsome place, and I always looked at it with hatred every time I passed by. On the riverbank one might forget oneself: one would look at that boundless solitary vista as a prisoner looks out to freedom from his window. Everything there was sweet and precious in my eyes, the hot brilliant sun in the fathomless blue sky and the faraway song of the Kirghiz floating from the further bank. One gazes into the distance and makes out at last the poor smoke-blackened tent of some Kirghiz. One discerns the smoke rising from the tent, the Kirghiz woman busy with her two sheep. It is all poor and barbarous, but it is free.