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.'
'Oh, God ., .' sighed Wanda.
With lifeless hands Vasilisa slid open the bolt and then lifted the heavy latch, after fumbling with the chain for what seemed like hours.
'Hurry up . . .' said the keyhole harshly.
Vasilisa looked outside to see a patch of gray sky, an acacia branch, snowflakes.
Three men entered, although to Vasilisa they seemed to be many more.
'Kindly tell me why . . .'
'Search', said the first man in a wolfish voice, marching straight up to Vasilisa. The corridor revolved and Wanda's face in the lighted doorway seemed to have been powdered with chalk.