Two women and a man were standing
on the bridge talking together. A few stars clustered above the bend of
the Canal seemed to shift and waver ever so slightly through a gathering
mist, like the smoke of blowing candles.
"It seems all right," said the merchant, sniffing the air suspiciously
as though he expected to smell blood. We turned towards the Morskaia.
One of the women detached herself from the group and came to us.
"Don't go down the Morskaia," she said, whispering, as though some
hostile figure were leaning over her shoulder. "They're firing round the
Telephone Exchange." Even as she spoke I heard the sharp clatter of the
machine-gun break out again, but now very close, and with an intimate
note as though it were the same gun that I had heard before, which had
been tracking me down round the town.
"Do you hear that?" said the merchant.
"Come on," said Bohun. "We'll go down the Moika. That seems safe
enough!"
How strangely in the flick of a bullet the town had changed! Yesterday
every street had been friendly, obvious, and open; they were now no
longer streets, but secret blind avenues with strange trees, fantastic
doors, shuttered windows, a grinning moon, malicious stars, and snow
that lay there simply to prevent every sound.
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