Following the Thin Tartar across the frozen prison compound, Ivan discovers that he is being taken to the Commandant's office. He is led to the guardroom, where he is told that he does not have to serve his three-day sentence, and he is given orders to mop the guardroom floor instead, which makes him forget about his aches and pains immediately. On his way to get a bucket of water from the well, Ivan observes some of the gang bosses trying to read the camp thermometer: if it reads lower than 41 degrees below zero, the prisoners don't have to march to work, but it is commonly assumed that the then mometer does not work properly.
The fear of getting his boots wet reminds Ivan of a pair of new boots which he lost because of a petty bureaucrat's whim to change prison regulations, an event which he describes as the most devastating blow in his eight years in the camps.
Meanwhile, he does a very superficial job of mopping the floor, and the guards treat him with contempt and — worse — as if he were sub-human. When his task is completed, Ivan begins to ache again, and he decides to go to the hospital after joining his work gang for breakfast in the mess barracks.
Note that in this section, when Ivan discovers that the real purpose of his punishment is to clean the guardroom floor, he is relieved; significantly, his body stops aching as soon as he is assigned work, even though his attitude to the mopping of the guardroom floor is not on the same level as his attitude to his bricklaying is, later on in the story.
