Ivan's gang arrives at the worksite and begins to settle into the daily routine. Meanwhile, Ivan ponders about Alyosha's faith, which allows him to survive without extra food rations. He also thinks about the importance of a good gang boss for the survival of the gang members. Tyurin, his assistant Pavlo, and Caesar Markovich, who has a privileged position in the gang because his two packages per month furnish material for bribing the camp officials, go to the office to get the work assignments for the day, while the rest of the gang seeks shelter around a stove in a repair shop. Ivan, still feeling a little ill, begins to nibble the bread ration which he saved from breakfast, thinking about his wasteful eating habits before he was sent to the camp.
While he eats, Ivan observes some of his fellow gang members: the two Estonians who are inseparable and whom he likes, and Senka Klevshin, a deaf prisoner who was sentenced to jail after having survived the concentration camp at Buchenwald.
When Tyurin returns, he hurriedly hands out work orders to the gang members; they will finish a power plant which they worked on in the fall. Ivan and Kilgas, a Latvian, will lay bricks in the afternoon, but they are first ordered to find some material to cover the three big windows in the generator room, where the gang will mix the mortar. Ivan enjoys the prospect of working with Kilgas; they respect each other as skilled workers.
Soon, they manage to retrieve some roofing-felt which Kilgas had hidden illegally, and they plan to use it now to cover the windows. This pleases the gang boss, and so he assigns them the important tasks of fixing the stove and the cement mixer.
