'No, of course not my dear, in the chapel, in the chapel . . .'
'He may still be lying at that crossroads, with the dogs gnawing at him.'
'What nonsense, Maria Frantsevna . . . you lie down quietly my dear, I beg of you . . .'
'Mama simply hasn't been normal these last three days . . .' whispered Nai's sister, pushing back the same unruly curl and staring past Nikolka. 'But then, nothing is normal any longer . . .'
'I'm going with them', rang out the voice from the next room.
The sister turned round with a start and ran.
'Mama, mama, you're not coming.
You're not coming.
The cadet will refuse to help us if you come.
He may be arrested.
Lie there, I beg you, mama . . .'
'Ah Irina, Irina, Irina,' came the voice, 'he's dead, they've killed him and what can you do now?
What's to become of you, Irina?
And what am I to do now that Felix is dead?
Dead . . . lying in the snow . . .
Do you think . . .' There was the sound of sobbing, the bed creaked and Lydia Pavlovna's voice said:
'Calm yourself and be brave, Maria Frantsevna . . .'
'Oh God, oh God', said the young woman as she ran through the drawing-room.
In horror and despair Nikolka thought dimly:
'Whatever will happen if we can't find him?'
By that terrible doorway, where despite the frost they could already smell the dreadful, suffocating stench, Nikolka stopped and said:
'Perhaps you'd better sit down here.
There's such a smell in there that it may make you sick.'
Irina looked at the green door, then at Nikolka and said:
'No, I'm coming with you.'
Nikolka pulled at the handle of the heavy door and they went in.
At first it was dark.
Then they began to make out endless rows of empty coat-hooks.
A dim lamp hung overhead.
Nikolka turned round anxiously to his companion, but she was walking beside him apparently unperturbed; only her face was pale and her brows were drawn together in a frown.
She frowned in a way that reminded Nikolka of Nai-Turs, although the resemblance was fleeting - Nai-Turs had iron features, a plain and manly face, whilst his sister was a beautiful girl, with a beauty that was not so much Russian as somehow foreign.
An astounding, remarkable girl.
The smell, which Nikolka feared so much, was everywhere.
The floors, the wall, the wooden coat-hooks all smelled of it.
The stench was so awful that it was almost visible.
It seemed as if the walls were greasy and sticky, and the coat-hooks sticky, the floors greasy and the air thick and saturated, reeking of decaying flesh.
He very soon got used to the smell itself, but he felt it safer not to look too hard at the surroundings and not to think too much.
The chief thing was to stop oneself from thinking, or nausea would quickly follow.
A student in an overcoat hurried past and disappeared.
Over to the left, behind the row of coat-hooks, a door creaked open and a man came out, wearing boots.
Nikolka looked at him and quickly looked away again to avoid seeing the man's jacket.
Like the coat-hooks his jacket glistened, and the man's hands were glistening too.
'What do you want?' asked the man sternly.
'We have come,' said Nikolka, 'to see the man in charge . . .
We have to find the body of a man who has been killed.
Would he be here?'
'What man?' the man asked, staring suspiciously.
'He was killed here in the City, three days ago.'
'Aha, I suppose he was a cadet or an officer ... and the haidamaks caught him.
Who is he?'