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“He should pay folks off properly,” a thin workingman, with frowning brows and a straggly beard, was saying.
“But he’s sucked our blood and now he thinks he’s quit of us. He’s been misleading us all the week and now that he’s brought us to this pass he’s made off.”
On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving crowd.
“Where are all the folks going?”
“Why, to the police, of course!”
“I say, is it true that we have been beaten?” “And what did you think? Look what folks are saying.”
Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.
The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.
“He must keep order, keep the law, that’s what the government is there for. Am I not right, good Christians?” said the tall youth, with a scarcely perceptible smile. “He thinks there’s no government! How can one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who’d rob us.”
“Why talk nonsense?” rejoined voices in the crowd. “Will they give up Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it! Aren’t there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That’s what the government is for. You’d better listen to what people are saying,” said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.
By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.
“An ukse, they are reading an ukse! Reading an ukse!” cried voices in the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.
The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand of the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.
“Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness,” he read (“Sirin Highness,” said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and a frown on his brow), “to consult with him to act, and to aid the army to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part...” the reader went on, and then paused (“Do you see,” shouted the youth victoriously, “he’s going to clear up the whole affair for you....”), “in destroying them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to dinner, and we’ll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these scoundrels.”
The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood the last part. In particular, the words “I will come back to dinner,” evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people’s minds were tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly comprehensible—it was what any one of them might have said and therefore was what an ukse emanating from the highest authority should not say.
They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and swayed from side to side.
“We should ask him... that’s he himself?”... “Yes, ask him indeed!... Why not? He’ll explain”... voices in the rear of the crowd were suddenly heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police superintendent’s trap which drove into the square attended by two mounted dragoons.
The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count Rostopchn’s orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to stop.
“What people are these?” he shouted to the men, who were moving singly and timidly in the direction of his trap.
“What people are these?” he shouted again, receiving no answer.
“Your honor...” replied the shopman in the frieze coat, “your honor, in accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of riot, but as his highest excellence said...”
“The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued concerning you,” said the superintendent of police. “Go on!” he ordered his coachman.
The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.
The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their speed.
“It’s a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!” shouted the tall youth. “Don’t let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!” shouted different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.
Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went in the direction of the Lubynka Street.
“There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to perish. Do they think we’re dogs?” voices in the crowd were heard saying more and more frequently.
On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with Kutzov, Count Rostopchn had returned to Moscow mortified and offended because he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and because Kutzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him at the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this, Rostopchn had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier bringing him a letter from Kutzov. This letter requested the count to send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army was retreating to the Ryazn road beyond Moscow. This was not news to Rostopchn. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since his interview the previous day with Kutzov on the Poklnny Hill but ever since the battle of Borodin, for all the generals who came to Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to fight another battle, and since then the government property had been removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city with Rostopchn’s own permission. Yet all the same this information astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a simple note with an order from Kutzov, and received at night, breaking in on his beauty sleep.
