War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [576]
By the wall of Kitai-gorod, another small bunch of people surrounded a man in a frieze overcoat who was holding a paper in his hand.
“A ukase, they’re reading a ukase! They’re reading a ukase!” voices said in the crowd, and the people streamed towards the reader.
The man in the frieze overcoat was reading a poster from the thirty-first of August. When the crowd surrounded him, he seemed embarrassed, but at the demand of the tall fellow, who pushed his way through to him, he began, with a slight tremor in his voice, to read the poster from the beginning.
“Early tomorrow morning I’ll be going to see his serenity the prince,” he read (“His serentity,” the tall fellow repeated solemnly, smiling with his mouth and frowning with his eyebrows), “to talk things over with him, to act, and to help the troops exterminate the villains; we’ll eradicate…” the reader went on and then paused (“See?” the fellow cried victoriously. “He’ll undo the whole distance for you…”)…“the spirit in them, and send these guests to the devil. I’ll come back by dinnertime, and we’ll get down to business, do it, finish doing it, and have done with the villains.”
The last words were read by the reader amidst total silence. The tall fellow hung his head sadly. It was obvious that no one understood those last words. In particular, the words “I shall come by dinnertime tomorrow” clearly even upset both the reader and the listeners. People’s understanding was tuned to a higher pitch, and this was too simple, needlessly simple; it was something any of them could have said, and that a ukase issuing from the highest authority therefore could not say.
They all stood in dejected silence. The tall fellow moved his lips and swayed slightly.
“Let’s ask him!…Is it him himself? Sure, try asking him!…Why not…He’ll show…” suddenly came from the back rows of the crowd, and general attention turned to the police chief’s droshky, which was driving out to the square accompanied by two mounted dragoons.
The police chief, who had gone that morning at the count’s order to burn the barges, and who, on the occasion of this errand, had made a large sum of money, which at that moment was in his pocket, saw the crowd of people moving towards him and ordered his coachman to stop.
“Who are these people?” he cried to the men, who were approaching the droshky singly and timidly. “Who are these people, I ask you?” the police chief repeated, without getting an answer.
“Your Honor,” said the clerk in the frieze overcoat, “Your Honor, in accordance with the proclamation of his excellency the count, they wished to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not some sort of mutiny, but, as his excellency the count said…”
“The count hasn’t left, he’s here, and there will be an order concerning you,” said the police chief. “Drive on!” he said to the coachman. The crowd stopped, clustering around those who had heard what the official said, and gazing at the departing droshky.
The police chief glanced back fearfully at that moment, said something to the coachman, and his horses picked up speed.
“It’s a trick, boys! Take us to the man himself!” cried the voice of the tall fellow. “Don’t let him go, boys! Let him give an accounting! Hold him!” voices shouted, and the people went running after the droshky.
The crowd, talking noisily, followed the police chief in the direction of the Lubyanka.
“What, the gentry and the merchants have all gone, and we’re to perish for that? What, are we dogs or something?” was frequently heard in the crowd.
XXIV
On the evening of the first of September, after his meeting with Kutuzov, Count Rastopchin, upset and offended that he had not been invited to the council of war, that Kutuzov had paid no attention to his suggestion of taking