Rostopchin, a hot-headed and impulsive man, had always moved in the highest spheres of the administration, and although he was a patriot at heart he didn’t have the slightest knowledge of the people he thought he was governing. From the moment the enemy first entered Smolensk Rostopchin had formed a mental picture of himself as the leader of popular feeling – the very heart of Russia. Not only did he imagine (as do all administrators) that he was directing the actual behaviour of all Muscovites, he really believed he was shaping their mental attitude by means of his appeals and posters, which were written in the kind of vulgar slang that is despised by the people in everyday situations and incomprehensible when it comes at them from on high. This rather grand role as the leader of popular feeling was so agreeable that Rostopchin simply grew into it, and was therefore caught unawares by the sudden need to drop the role and surrender Moscow without any heroic posturing. The ground was cut from under him, and he had no idea what to do. He could see it coming, but he refused to believe in the surrender of Moscow until the very last minute, and he made no preparations. The inhabitants who were leaving were going against his wishes. If government offices were being evacuated it was only at the insistence of the officials and with Rostopchin’s reluctant approval. He was himself entirely absorbed in his self-appointed role. As often happens with over-imaginative people, he had known for ages that Moscow was going be surrendered, but his knowledge was of the intellectual kind; deep down he refused to believe it, and couldn’t make the mental adjustment to a new situation.
All his efforts and energy (whether or not these were successful or had any effect on the people is another question) had gone into inspiring the people with his own feelings – a hatred of the French and self-confidence.
But when the catastrophe began to assume its truly historic proportions; when it was no longer enough to express hatred of the French in words alone; when it became impossible to express that hatred even by fighting; when self-confidence became irrelevant to the one issue facing Moscow; when the population rose as one man, abandoned their property, and streamed out of Moscow in a negative demonstration of their positive patriotic feeling – then the part picked out for himself by Rostopchin suddenly lost its meaning. All at once he felt forsaken, feeble and foolish, with no ground to stand on.
When they woke him up to read Kutuzov’s curt missive with its peremptory tone, Rostopchin felt annoyed largely because he knew it was all his fault. Moscow was still full of things entrusted to him, government property that should have been removed. There was no chance now of getting it all away. ‘Who’s responsible for this? Who has let all this come about?’ he wondered. ‘Not me, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow, like this, in the palm of my hand! Now look what’s happened! Villains, traitors!’ he thought, without defining too precisely who these villains and traitors were, but feeling a deep need to hate some treacherous people who must be to blame for the false and ludicrous position he now found himself in.
Rostopchin spent the whole night issuing instructions, and he had men coming in from all over Moscow. Those close to him had never seen the count so depressed and touchy.
‘Your Excellency, there’s someone here from the Provincial Registrar’s Department – the director is waiting for instructions . . . From the Consistory . . . the Senate . . . the University . . . the Foundling Hospital . . . The Suffragan has sent someone . . . he wants to know . . . Oh, the Fire Brigade – any orders for them? The prison governor . . . the superintendent of the lunatic asylum . . .’ All night long the count was faced with a relentless stream of visitors reporting in.
His responses to all these inquiries were curt and tetchy, as if to say that instructions from him were now no longer necessary because all his careful preparations had been ruined by somebody, and that
‘Oh, tell that idiot,’ he replied to the inquiry from the Registrar’s Department, ‘to stay on and guard his own archives. And what’s all this nonsense about the Fire Brigade? If they have any horses, let them go off to Vladimir. Don’t leave them behind for the French to get hold of.’
‘Sir, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum is here. What are your orders for him?’
‘Orders? Tell them all to go, that’s all . . . And let the lunatics out into the town. We’ve got madmen in charge of our armies, so God must want this lot out as well.’
When asked about the convicts in the gaol, the count roared furiously at the overseer:
‘What, do you want me to give you two non-existent battalions to escort them? Just let them go, and have done with it!’
‘Sir, there are some political prisoners – Meshkov, Vereshchagin . . .’
