________________________________________________
_ From an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of
which was a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches
round the tables in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands.
Tipsy and perspiring, with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were
all laboriously singing some song or other. They were singing
discordantly, arduously, and with great effort, evidently not
because they wished to sing, but because they wanted to show they were
drunk and on a spree. One, a tall, fair-haired lad in a clean blue
coat, was standing over the others. His face with its fine straight
nose would have been handsome had it not been for his thin,
compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes. Evidently
possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were singing, and
solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white arm with
the sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread out
his dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he
always carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it
were most important that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing
should be bare. In the midst of the song cries were heard, and
fighting and blows in the passage and porch. The tall lad waved his
arm.
"Stop it!" he exclaimed peremptorily. "There's a fight, lads!"
And, still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.
The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the
leadership of the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning,
had brought the publican some skins from the factory and for this
had had drink served them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring
smithy, hearing the sounds of revelry in the tavern and supposing it
to have been broken into, wished to force their way in too and a fight
in the porch had resulted.
The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when
the workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern
keeper, fell face downward on the pavement.
Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the
publican with his chest.
The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the
face and cried wildly: "They're fighting us, lads!"
At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised
face to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: "Police! Murder!...
They've killed a man, lads!"
"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death- killed!..." screamed a
woman coming out of a gate close by.
A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.
"Haven't you robbed people enough- taking their last shirts?" said a
voice addressing the publican. "What have you killed a man for, you
thief?"
The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from
the publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he
ought to fight now.
"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!"
"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing
away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head
he flung it on the ground.
As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the
workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.
"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the
captain of police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not
permitted to anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his
cap.
"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall
young fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the
street together.
The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and
others followed behind, talking and shouting.
At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed
shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,
worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long
tattered coats.
"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 ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!" 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 ukase 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 that morning by Count
Rostopchin'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 Lubyanka 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. _
Read next: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 24
Read previous: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 22
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