"Do you know her face or not?"
"I know her."
"Well, then, look! I'll show them all to you. Maybe this one? ..."
And he took the lid off one of the coffins, not yet fastened down
with nails. A wrinkled old woman, dressed any old way in her
tatters, with a swollen blue face, was lying there. Her left eye
was closed; while the right was staring and gazing immovably and
frightfully, having already lost its sparkle and resembling mica
that had lain for a long time.
"Not this one, you say? Well, look ... Here's more for you!" said
the watchman; and one after the other, opening the lids, exhibited
the decedents--all, probably, the poorest of the poor: picked up
on the streets, intoxicated, crushed, maimed and mutilated,
beginning to decompose. Certain ones had already begun to show on
their hands and faces bluish-green spots, resembling mould--signs
of putrefaction. One man, without a nose, with an upper hare-lip
cloven in two, had worms, like little white dots, swarming upon
his sore-eaten face. A woman who had died from hydropsy, reared
like a whole mountain from her board couch, bulging out the lid.
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