War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [552]
“To send them away and bring them back again wouldn’t do any harm; but in this situation one can’t answer for anything.”
“But look at what he writes,” said another, pointing to a printed sheet he was holding in his hand.
“That’s another matter. The people need it,” said the first.
“What is it?” asked Pierre.
“A new poster.”
Pierre took it and began to read:
The most serene prince, in order to join quickly with the troops coming to him, has passed through Mozhaisk and stopped at a fortified place where the enemy will not suddenly fall upon him. Forty-eight cannon with ammunition have been sent to him from here, and his serenity says he will defend Moscow to the last drop of his blood and is even ready to fight in the streets. Don’t worry, brothers, about the closing of the government offices: we have to keep things in order, but we’ll deal summarily with the villain! When it comes to that, I’ll need stout fellows from the city and the country. I’ll send out a call two days ahead, but there’s no need yet, and so I’m silent. An ax would be a good thing, a spear wouldn’t be bad, but a pitch-fork would be best: a Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I’ll have the Iverskaya icon taken up and brought to the wounded in the Ekaterininsky Hospital. We’ll bless the water there: they’ll recover the sooner. And I’ve now recovered: there was something wrong with my eye, but now I’m keeping them both open.
“But military men told me,” said Pierre, “that it was impossible to fight in the city, and that the position…”
“Why, yes, that’s what we’re talking about,” said the first official.
“But what does it mean: ‘there was something wrong with my eye, but now I’m keeping them both open’?” asked Pierre.
“The count had a sty,” the adjutant said, smiling, “and was very worried when I told him that people were coming to ask how he was. By the way, Count,” the adjutant suddenly added, turning to Pierre with a smile, “we’ve heard you have family troubles? It seems that the countess, your wife…”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Pierre said indifferently. “And what have you heard?”
“No, you know, people often invent things. I’m talking about what I’ve heard.”
“What have you heard?”
“They say,” the adjutant said with the same smile, “that the countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. It’s probably nonsense…”
“Maybe so,” said Pierre, looking around distractedly. “And who is this?” he asked, pointing to a short old man in a clean blue merchant’s kaftan, with a long, snow-white beard, similar eyebrows, and a ruddy face.
“This? This is the merchant, that is, the tavern keeper, Vereshchagin. Maybe you’ve heard that story about the proclamation?”
“Ah, so this is Vereshchagin!” said Pierre, peering into the old merchant’s firm and calm face, and searching for an expression of treachery in it.
“This is not the man himself. This is the father of the one who wrote the proclamation,” said the adjutant. “That one’s young and sitting behind bars, and it looks like things will go badly for him.”
An old man with a star and another, a German official with a cross on his neck, came up to the conversing men.
“You see,” the adjutant was saying, “it’s a tangled story. Back about two months ago this proclamation appeared. The count was informed. He ordered an investigation. Gavrilo Ivanych here found out that the proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-three hands. He comes to one: ‘Who did you get it from?’ ‘From so-and-so.’ He goes to that one: ‘And you?’ And so on. They got to Vereshchagin…a half-educated little merchant, you know, a piddler-diddler,” the adjutant said, smiling. “They ask him: ‘Who did you get it from?’ And the thing is that we