‘Hey you! And you two! Where do you think you’re going?’ he shouted to three unarmed infantrymen who were sneaking past into the bazaar, holding up the skirts of their greatcoats. ‘Stop, you swine!’
‘Well, you try rounding them up,’ answered another officer. ‘It can’t be done. All we can do is push on faster so the last ones don’t scarper!’
‘Push on? They’re stuck there up on the bridge. Nobody’s moving. Could we cordon them in? Might stop them running away.’
‘Well go on in there! Get them out!’ shouted the senior officer.
The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer and went with him into the arcade. There was surge of running soldiers. A shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near his nose, and something on his well-fed face that spoke of steady determination in the pursuit of profit, came bustling up to the officer waving his arms in a great display of anxiety.
‘Your Honour!’ said he. ‘We need your protection. We can be quite generous . . . any little thing that catches your eye . . . our pleasure! Hang on, I’ll fetch you a nice piece of cloth – a couple of nice pieces for a gentleman like you, sir. Our pleasure! We do understand, you know, but this is daylight robbery! Please, your Honour! Put somebody on guard . . . Give us a chance to lock up, at least . . .’
More shopkeepers crowded round.
‘No good moaning about it,’ said one of them, a thin man with a stern face. ‘When your head’s chopped off you don’t worry about your hairstyle. Let ’em have what they want!’ And he turned away with a great sweep of his arm.
‘It’s all right for you, Ivan Sidorych!’ The first shopkeeper turned on him angrily. ‘Your Honour,
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ shouted the thin man. ‘I’ve got three shops – goods worth a hundred thousand. How can you guard that lot when the army’s gone? Listen everybody. God’s will is with us still!’
‘
The officer was taken aback; it was obvious from his face that he didn’t know what to do. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’ he cried suddenly, and strode off rapidly down one of the aisles. In one open shop he heard people fighting and swearing, and as the officer got near a man in a grey overcoat with a shaven head was bundled out of the door.
This man squeezed down and slipped past the shopkeepers and the officer. The officer pounced on the soldiers who were still in the shop. But then the most awful shouting and screaming came from a huge crowd down near the Moskva bridge, and the officer ran out into the square.
‘What is it? What’s happening?’ he asked, but his comrade was already riding off in the direction the screams were coming from, beyond St Basil’s. He got on his horse and followed. When he reached the bridge he saw two cannons ready for firing, the infantry marching across, one or two broken-down wagons, some frightened faces and some soldiers roaring with laughter. Near the cannons stood a wagon with a pair of horses in harness. At the back behind the wheels huddled four borzois in collars. The wagon was piled high with goods and right on top, next to a little child’s chair stowed upside down, sat a peasant woman at her wits’ end, screaming. The officer learnt from his comrades that the roaring of the crowd and the woman’s shrieks were due to the fact that General Yermolov had come across this crowd, and when he found out the soldiers were wandering off into the shops and crowds of citizens were blocking the bridge, he had ordered the cannons down from their carriages so they could go through the motions of firing at the bridge. The crowd had surged forward, overturning wagons, trampling one another and yelling desperately in the crush, but the bridge had been cleared and the troops had moved on.
CHAPTER 22
Meanwhile the city itself was deserted. There was virtually no one out on the streets. All the gates and shops were closed; only the odd drinking-house rang with solitary shouts or drunken singing. No one was out driving and there was hardly a footstep to be heard. Povarsky Street stood silent and deserted. The vast courtyard of the Rostovs’ house was littered with a few bits of straw and some dung left behind by horses; not a soul was to be seen. Inside the Rostovs’ house, now abandoned with all its contents, there were two people in the great drawing-room: the porter, Ignat, and the page-boy, Mishka, Vasilich’s grandson, who had stayed on with his grandfather. Mishka had opened the clavichord and was picking out notes with one finger. The porter was standing hands on hips in front a huge mirror with a huge grin on his face.
‘Listen to me play, Uncle Ignat! Isn’t that good?’ said the little boy, thumping down on the keys with both hands.
‘Get away with you!’ answered Ignat, watching his own face with amazement as the grin on it stretched wider and wider.
