'What's it all about?' asked Myshlaevsky.

'His wife's left him', Nikolka whispered in his ear. 'Terrible scandal . . .'

The apartment was suddenly invaded by a deafening noise of hammering on the glass door as if it had been hit by a landslide. Anyuta screamed. Elena turned pale, and started to collapse against the wall. The noise was so monstrous, so horrifying and

absurd that even Myshlaevsky's expression changed. Shervinsky, pale himself, caught Elena ... A groan came from Alexei's bedroom.

'The door', shrieked Elena.

Completely forgetting their strategic plan Myshlaevsky ran down the staircase, followed by Karas, Shervinsky and the mortally frightened Lariosik.

'Sounds bad', muttered Myshlaevsky.

A single black silhouette could be seen beyond the frosted-glass door. The noise stopped.

'Who's there?' roared Myshlaevsky in his parade-ground voice.

'For God's sake, open up. It's me, Lisovich . . . Lisovich!' screamed the black silhouette. 'It's me - Lisovich . . .'

Vasilisa was a terrible sight. His hair, with pink bald patches showing through, was wildly dishevelled. His necktie was pulled sideways and the tails of his jacket flapped like the doors of a broken closet. His eyes had the blurred, unfocused look of someone who has been poisoned. He reached the first step, then suddenly swayed and collapsed into Myshlaevsky's arms. Myshlaevsky caught him, but he was off-balance. He sat back heavily on to the stairs and shouted hoarsely:

'Karas! Water . . .'

It was evening, almost eleven o'clock. Because of events the street, never very busy, was empty and deserted rather earlier than usual.

There was a thin fall of snow, the flakes floating evenly and steadily past the window, and the branches of the acacia tree, which in summer gave shade to the Turbins' window, bent lower and lower under their coating of snow.

The snowfall had begun at lunchtime and from then on the day

had turned into a dull, lowering evening full of ill-omen. The electric current was reduced to half strength, and Wanda served brains for supper. Brains are a horrible form of food anyway, and when cooked by Wanda they were disgusting. Before the brains there was soup, which Wanda had cooked with vegetable oil, and Vasilisa had risen from table in a bad temper with the unpleasant feeling of having eaten nothing at all. That evening he had innumerable things to do, all of them difficult and unpleasant. The dining-room table had been turned upside down and a bundle of Lebid-Yurchik's money was lying on the floor.

'You're a fool', Vasilisa said to his wife.

Wanda turned on him and she answered:

'I've always known you were a despicable beast, but lately you've been outdoing yourself.'

Vasilisa felt an agonising desire to fetch her a swinging blow across the face that would knock her over and make her hit her head on the edge of the sideboard. And then again and again until that damned, bony creature shut up and admitted she was beaten. He, Vasilisa, was worn out, he worked like a slave, and he felt he had a right to demand that she obey him at home. Vasilisa gritted his teeth and restrained himself. Attacking Wanda was a rather more dangerous undertaking than one might think.

'Just do as I say', said Vasilisa through clenched teeth. 'Don't you see - they may move the sideboard and what then? But they'd never think of looking under the table. Everybody in town does it.'

Wanda gave in to him and they set to work together, pinning banknotes to the underside of the table with thumb-tacks. Soon the whole underside of the table was covered with a multicolored pattern like a well-designed silk carpet.

Grunting, his face covered in sweat, Vasilisa stood up and glanced over the expanse of paper money.

'It's going to be so inconvenient', said Wanda. 'Every time I want some money I shall have to turn the dining-room table over.'

'So what, it won't kill you', replied Vasilisa hoarsely. 'Better to have to turn the table over than lose everything. Have you heard what's going on in the City? They're worse than the Bolsheviks.

They're searching houses indiscriminately, looking for officers who fought against them.'

At eleven o'clock Wanda carried the samovar from the kitchen into the dining-room and put out the lights everywhere else in the apartment. She produced a bag of stale bread and a lump of green cheese from the sideboard. The single lamp hanging over the table from one socket of a triple chandelier shed a dim reddish light from its semi-incandescent filament.

Vasilisa chewed a piece of bread roll and green cheese, which was so unpleasant that it made his eyes water as if he had a raging toothache. At every bite fine crumbs of the sickening stuff spattered his jacket and his tie. Uneasy, though not knowing quite why, Vasilisa glared at Wanda as she chewed.

'I'm amazed how easily they get away with it', said Wanda, glancing upwards towards the Turbins. 'I was certain that one of them had been killed. But no, they're all back, and now the apartment is full of officers again . . .'

At any other time Wanda's remarks would not have made the slightest impression on Vasilisa, but now, when he was tortured by fear and unease, he found them intolerably spiteful.

'I'm surprised at you', he replied, glancing away to avoid the irritation of looking at her, 'you know perfectly well that really they were doing the right thing. Somebody had to defend the City against those (Vasilisa lowered his voice) swine . . . Besides you're wrong if you think they got off lightly ... I think he's been . . .'

Wanda looked thoughtful and nodded.

'Yes, I thought so too when I went up there . . . You're right, he's been wounded . . .'

'Well, then, it's nothing to be pleased about - got away with it, indeed . . .'

Wanda licked her lips.

'I'm not pleased, I only say they seem to have "got away with it" because what I want to know is, when Petlyura's men come to you - which God forbid - and ask you, as chairman of the house committee, who are the people upstairs - what are you going to say? Were they in the Hetman's army, or what?'

Vasilisa scowled.

'I can say with absolute truth that he's a doctor. After all, there's no reason why I should know anything else about him. How could I?'

'That's the point. In your position you're supposed to know.'

At that moment the door-bell rang. Vasilisa turned pale, and Wanda turned her scrawny neck.

His nose twitching, Vasilisa stood up and said:

'D'you know what? Maybe I'd better run straight up to the Turbins and call them.'

Before Wanda had time to reply the bell rang again.

'Oh my God', said Vasilisa anxiously. 'Nothing for it - I shall have to go.'

Terrified, Wanda followed him. They opened their front door into the communal hallway, which smelled of the cold. Wanda's angular face, eyes wide with fear, peeped out. Above her head the electric bell gave another importunate ring.

For a moment the idea crossed Vasilisa's mind of knocking on the Turbins' glass door - someone would be bound to come down and things might not be so terrible. But he was afraid to do it. Suppose the intruders were to ask him: 'Why did you knock? Afraid of something? Guilty conscience?' Then came the hopeful thought, though a faint one, that it might not be a search-party but perhaps someone else . . .

'Who's there?' Vasilisa asked weakly at the door.

Immediately a hoarse voice barked through the keyhole at the level of Vasilisa's stomach and the bell over Wanda's head rang again.

'Open up', rasped the keyhole in Ukrainian. 'We're from headquarters. And don't try running away, or we'll shoot through the door.'