midday
Probably in no other place is life so monotonous as in this ward . In the morning the patients , except the paralytic and the fat peasant , wash in the entry at a big tab and wipe themselves with the skirts of their dressing-gowns ; after that they drink tea out of tin mugs which Nikita brings them out of the main building . Everyone is allowed one mugful . At midday they have soup made out of sour cabbage and boiled grain , in the evening their supper consists of grain left from dinner . In the intervals they lie down , sleep , look out of window , and walk from one corner to the other . And so every day . Even the former sorter always talks of the same orders .