All of them had been hastily sewn up after autopsy, repaired, and
washed by the moss-covered watchman and his mates. What affair was
it of theirs if, at times, the brain got into the stomach; while
the skull was stuffed with the liver and rudely joined with the
help of sticking plaster to the head? The watchmen had grown used
to everything during their night-marish, unlikely, drunken life;
and, by the bye, almost never did their voiceless clients prove to
have either relatives or acquaintances...
A heavy odour of carrion--thick, cloying, and so viscid that to
Tamara it seemed as though it was covering all the living pores of
her body just like glue--stood in the chapel.
"Listen, watchman," asked Tamara, "what's this crackling under my
feet all the time?"
"Crack-ling?" the watchman questioned her over again, and
scratched himself, "why, lice, it must be," he said indifferently.
"It's fierce how these beasties do multiply on the corpseses! ...
But who you lookin' for--man or woman?"
"A woman," answered Tamara.
"And that means that all these ain't yours?"
"No, they're all strangers.
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