shoulders.

"Rita! Get up quick! Quick! Come!"

The frightened maid rose, still half asleep, and rubbed her eyes,
understanding nothing. Her mistress' ice-cold hands clutched her,
and dragged her somewhere.

"Ach lieber Gott . . . Gott in Himmel!" she muttered. "What has
happened? What do you want?"

"Hush! Come quick!" And Olga Vseslavovna, with a candle in her
trembling hand, went forward, dragging the trembling Rita with her.
She opened the door of her bedroom, and went out. All the doors
were open en suite, and straight in front of her, in the center of
the fourth, shone the coffin of her husband, covered with cloth of
gold and lit up by the tall tapers standing round the bier.

"What does it mean?" whispered the general's wife. "Why have they
opened all the doors?"

"I do not know . . . they were all closed last night," murmured the
maid in reply, her teeth chattering with fear. She longed to ask
her mistress whither they were going, and what for? She wanted to
stop, and not enter the funeral chamber; but she was afraid to
speak.

They passed quickly through the rooms; at the door of the last the
general's wife set her candle down on a chair, and halted for a
moment. The loud snoring of the reader startled them both.