'No.'
'Where, then?'
'From Riga,' she said reluctantly.
'German?'
'Russian.'
'Been here long?'
'Where?'
'In this house.'
'Two weeks.' She spoke more and more curtly. The candle went out altogether; I could no longer make out her face.
'Do you have a father and mother?'
'Yes… no… I do.'
'Where are they?'
'There… in Riga.'
'What are they?'
'Just…'
'Just what? What are they, socially?'
'Tradespeople.'
'You were living with them?'
'Yes.'
'How old are you?'
'Twenty.'
'Why did you leave them?'
'Just…'
This 'just' meant: let me alone, this is sickening. We fell silent.
God knows why I wouldn't leave. I myself felt more and more sickened and anguished. Images of the whole past day began to pass confusedly through my memory, somehow of themselves, without my will. I suddenly recalled a scene I had witnessed that morning in the street, as I was trotting along, preoccupied, to work.
'They were carrying a coffin out today and almost dropped it,' I suddenly said aloud, not at all wishing to start a conversation, but just so, almost accidentally.
'A coffin?'
'Yes, in the Haymarket; they were carrying it out of a basement.'
'Out of a basement?'
'Not a basement, but the basement floor… you know… down under… from a bad house… There was such filth all around… Eggshells, trash… stink… it was vile.'
Silence.
'A bad day for a burial!' I began again, just not to be silent.
'Why bad?'
'Snow, slush…' (I yawned.)
'Makes no difference,' she said suddenly, after some silence.
'No, it's nasty…' (I yawned again.) 'The gravediggers must have been swearing because the snow was making it wet. And there must have been water in the grave.'
'Why water in the grave?' she asked with a certain curiosity, but speaking even more rudely and curtly than before. Something suddenly began egging me on.
'There'd be water in the bottom for sure, about half a foot. Here in the Volkovo you can never dig a dry grave.'
'Why not?'
'Why not? Such a watery place. It's swamp all around here. They just get put down in the water. I've seen it myself… many times…'
(I had never once seen it, and had never been in the Volkovo cemetery, but had only heard people talk.)
'It makes no difference to you how you die?'
'But why should I die?' she answered, as if defending herself.
'You'll die someday, and just the same way as that one today. She was also… a girl… She died of consumption.'
'A jill would have died in the hospital…' (She already knows about that, I thought, and she said jill, not girl.)
