You are given an English sentence with a blank, and you need to predict the missing word. After completing, the whole sentence should be gramatically correct and non-ambiguous.

Example input: The kid on the street is ____ soccer
Example output: playing
Example explanation: This is the original sentence 'The kid on the street is playing soccer' So, we have correctly predicted the missing word to be 'soccer'
Q: for the last month this wretched house had presented the gloomy appearance of a lazaretto infected with the plague some of the apartments were closed within and without ____ shutters were only opened to admit a minute's air showing the scared face of a footman
A:
the