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 . . .'
Fifteen
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.'