The silence now was intense. We could not hear
the machine-gun nor any shouting. The world was like a picture smoking
under a moon now red and hard. Against the wall of the street two women
were huddled, one on her knees, her head pressed against the thighs of
the other, who stood stretched as though crucified, her arms out,
staring on to the Canal. Beside a little kiosk, on the space exactly in
front of the side street, lay a man on his face. His bowler-hat had
rolled towards the kiosk; his arms were stretched out so that he looked
oddly like the shadow of the woman against the wall.
Instead of one hand there was a pool of blood. The other hand with all
the fingers stretched was yellow against the snow.
As we came up a bullet from the Morskaia struck the kiosk.
The woman, not moving from the wall, said, "They've shot my husband...
he did nothing."
The other woman, on her knees, only cried without ceasing.
The merchant said, "I'm going back--to the Europe," and he turned and
ran.
"What's down that street?" I said to the woman, as though I expected her
to say "Hobgoblins." Bohun said, "This is rather beastly.
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