A tallow candle in a candlestick gave a gentle light.
There had once been peace and now peace was dead.
Those years could not be brought back.
Behind him were two small, low windows and another at his side.
What was this funny little house?
She lived alone.
Who was she?
She had saved him ... no peace . . . shooting out on the streets . . . #
She came in, laden with a pile of firewood and dropped it noisily in the corner by the stove.
'What are you doing?
Why bother?' he asked irritably.
'I had to light the stove anyway', she answered with a hint of a smile in her eyes. 'I can manage . . .'
'Come here', Alexei asked her quietly. 'Look, I haven't thanked you for everything you've . . . done . . .
And I don't know how to . . .' He stretched out his hand and took her fingers. As she obediently drew nearer he kissed her thin wrist twice.
Her face softened as though a shadow of anxiety had been lifted from it and in that moment her eyes looked extraordinarily beautiful.
'If it hadn't been for you,' Alexei went on, 'I would certainly have been killed.'
'Of course,' she replied, 'of course you would . . .
After all you did kill one of them.'
'I killed one of them?' he asked, feeling a new weakness as his head began to spin.
'M'hm.' She nodded approvingly and looked at Alexei with a mixture of fear and curiosity. 'Oh, it was terrible . . . they almost shot me too.' She shuddered.
'How did I kill him?'
'Well, they leaped round the corner, you began shooting and the man in front fell down . . .
Perhaps you just wounded him.
Anyway you were brave ...
I thought I was going to faint.
You were running, turned round and shot at them, then ran on again . . .
What are you - a captain?'
'What made you think I was an officer?
Why did you shout "officer" at me?'
Her eyes shone.
'I decided you must be an officer when I saw your badge in your fur cap.
Why did you have to take such a risk by wearing your badge?'
'Badge?
Oh my God, of course ... I see now ...' He remembered the shop bell ringing . . . the dusty mirror ... 'I ripped off everything else - but had to go and forget my badge!
I'm not an officer,' he said, 'I'm just an army doctor.
My name is Alexei Vasilievich Turbin . . .
Please tell me - what is your name?'
'I am Julia Alexandrovna Reiss.'
'Why are you alone?'
Her answer was somehow strained and she looked away as she said:
'My husband's not here at the moment.
He went away.
And his mother too.
I'm alone . . .' After a pause she added: 'It's cold in here.
Brrr . . .
I'll light the stove.' #
As the logs burned up in the stove his head ached with growing violence.
His wound had stopped hurting him, all the pain was concentrated in his head.
It began in his left temple, then spread to the crown of his head and the back of his neck.
Some little vein under his left eyebrow tautened and radiated waves of desperate pain in all directions.