e, abominable, abject fear. The
half-naked body of Verka was still quivering on the bed. The legs of
Dilectorsky gave in from horror; but the reason of a hypocrite, coward
and blackguard kept vigil: he did still have spirit sufficient to
stretch away at his side the skin over his ribs, and to shoot through
it. And when he was falling, frantically crying out from pain, from
fright, and from the thunder of the shot, the last convulsion was
running through the body of Verka.

While two weeks after the death of Verka, the naive, sportful, meek,
brawling Little White Manka perished as well. During one of the
general, clamourous brawls, usual in the Yamkas, in an enormous affray,
some one killed her, hitting her with a heavy empty bottle over the
head. And the murderer remained undiscovered to the last.

So rapidly did events take place in the Yamkas, in the house of Emma
Edwardovna; and well nigh not a one of its inmates escaped a bloody,
foul or disgraceful doom.

The final, most grandiose, and at the same time most bloody calamity
was the devastation committed on the Yamkas by soldiers.

Two dragoons had been short-changed in a rouble establishment, beaten
up, and thrown out at night into the street. Tom to pieces, in blood,
they returned to the barracks, where their comrades, having begun in
the morning, were still finishing up their regimental holiday. And so,
not half an hour passed, when a hundred soldiers burst into the Yamkas
and began to wreck house after house. They were joined by an
innumerable mob that gathered on the run--men of the golden squad[31],
ragamuffins, tramps, crooks, souteneurs. The panes were broken in all
the houses, and the grand pianos smashed to smithereens. The feather
beds were ripped open and the down thrown out into the street; and yet
for a long while after--for some two days--the countless bits of down
flew and whirled over the Yamkas, like flakes of snow. The wenches,
bare-headed, perfectly naked, were driven out into the street. Three
porters were beaten to death. The rabble shattered, befouled, and rent
into pieces all the silk and plush furniture of Treppel. They also
smashed up all the neighbouring taverns and drink-shops, while they
were at it.

[31] Zolotorotzi--a subtle euphemism for cleaners of cesspools and
carters of the wealth contained therein.--trans.

The drunken, bloody, hideous slaughter continued for some three hours;
until the arrayed military authorities, tog