n two, had worms,
like little white dots, swarming upon his sore-eaten face. A woman who
had died from hydropsy, reared like a whole mountain from her board
couch, bulging out the lid.

All of them had been hastily sewn up after autopsy, repaired, and
washed by the moss-covered watchman and his mates. What affair was it
of theirs if, at times, the brain got into the stomach; while the skull
was stuffed with the liver and rudely joined with the help of sticking
plaster to the head? The watchmen had grown used to everything during
their night-marish, unlikely, drunken life; and, by the bye, almost
never did their voiceless clients prove to have either relatives or
acquaintances...

A heavy odour of carrion--thick, cloying, and so viscid that to Tamara
it seemed as though it was covering all the living pores of her body
just like glue--stood in the chapel.

"Listen, watchman," asked Tamara, "what's this crackling under my feet
all the time?"

"Crack-ling?" the watchman questioned her over again, and scratched
himself, "why, lice, it must be," he said indifferently. "It's fierce
how these beasties do multiply on the corpseses! ... But who you
lookin' for--man or woman?"

"A woman," answered Tamara.

"And that means that all these ain't yours?"

"No, they're all strangers."

"There, now! ... That means I have to go to the morgue. When did they
bring her, now?"

"On Saturday, grandpa," and Tamara at this got out her purse.
"Saturday, in the daytime. There's something for tobacco for you, my
dear sir!"

"That's the way! Saturday, you say in the daytime? And what did she
have on?"

"Well, almost nothing; a little night blouse, an underskirt ... both
the one and the other white."

"So-o! That must be number two hundred and seventeen ... How is she
called, now? ..."

"Susannah Raitzina."

"I'll go and see--maybe she's there. Well, now, mam'selles," he turned
to the young ladies, who were dully huddling in the doorway,
obstructing the light. "Which of you are the braver? If your friend
came the day before yesterday, then that means that she's now lying in
the manner that the Lord God has created all mankind--that is, without
anything ... Well, who of you will be the bolder? Which two of you will
come? She's got to be dressed..."

"Well, now, you go, Manka," Tamara ordered her mate, who, grown chill
and pale from horror and aversion, was staring at the dead with widely
open, limpid eyes. "Don't be afraid, you