‘Ah, your count,’ the princess began spitefully, ‘he’s a hypocrite, a miscreant who has himself stirred the mob on to disorder. Didn’t he write in his idiotic placards that they were to take anybody whoever it might be and drag by the hair to the lock-up (and how silly it is!). Honour and glory, says he, to the man who does so. And this is what he has brought us to. Varvara Ivanovna told me the mob almost killed her for speaking French.’
‘Oh, well, well . . . You take everything too much to heart,’ said Pierre, and he began dealing out the patience.
Although he did succeed in the game, Pierre did not set off to join the army, but stayed on in Moscow, now rapidly emptying, and was still in the same agitation, uncertainty and alarm, and, at the same time, joyful expectation of something awful.
Next day the princess set off in the evening, and Pierre’s head-steward came to inform him that it was impossible to raise the money he required for the equipment of his regiment unless he sold one of his estates. The head-steward impressed on Pierre generally that all this regimental craze would infallibly bring him to ruin. Pierre could hardly conceal a smile as he listened to the head-steward.
‘Well, sell it then,’ he said. ‘There’s no help for it, I can’t draw back now! ’
The worse the position of affairs, and especially of his own affairs, the better pleased Pierre felt, and the more obvious it was to him that the catastrophe he expected was near at hand. Scarcely any of Pierre’s acquaintances were left in the town. Julie had gone, Princess Marya had gone. Of his more intimate acquaintances the Rostovs were the only people left; but Pierre did not go to see them.
To divert his mind that day, Pierre drove out to the village of Vorori- tsovo, to look at a great air balloon which was being constructed by Lep- pich to use against the enemy, and the test balloon which was to be sent up the following day. The balloon was not yet ready; but as Pierre learned, it was being constructed by the Tsar’s desire. The Tsar had written to Count Rastoptchin about it in the following terms:
‘As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew for his car consisting of thoroughly trustworthy and intelligent men, and send a courier to General Kutuzov to prepare him for it. I have mentioned it to him. Impress upon Leppich, please, to take careful note where he descends the first time, that he may not go astray and fall into the hands of the enemy.
It is essential that he should regulate his movements in accordance with
the movements of the commander-in-chief. 1
On his way home from Vorontsovo, Pierre drove through Bolotny' Square, and seeing a crowd at Lobnoye Place, stopped and got out of his chaise. The crowd were watching the flogging of a French cook, accused of being a spy. The flogging was just over, and the man who had administered it was untying from the whipping-post a stout, red-whiskered man in blue stockings and a green tunic, who was groaning piteously. Another victim, a thin, pale man, was standing by. Both, to judge by their faces, were Frenchmen. With a face of sick dread like that of the thin Frenchman, Pierre pushed his way in among the crowd.
‘What is it? Who are they? What for?’ he kept asking. But the attention of the crowd—clerks, artisans, shopkeepers, peasants, women in pelisses and jackets—was so intently riveted on what was taking place on the Lobnoye Place that no one answered. The stout man got up, shrugged his shoulders frowning, and evidently trying to show fortitude, began putting on his tunic without looking about him. But all at once his lips quivered and to his own rage he began to cry, as grown-up men of sanguine temperament do cry. The crowd began talking loudly, to drown a feeling of pity in themselves, as it seemed to Pierre.
‘Some prince’s cook. . . .’
‘Eh, monsieur, Russian sauce is a bit strong for a French stomach . . . sets the teeth on edge,’ said a wrinkled clerk standing near Pierre, just when the Frenchman burst into tears. The clerk looked about him for signs of appreciation of his jest. Several persons laughed, but some were still gazing in dismay at the man who was undressing the second Frenchman and about to flog him.
Pierre choked, scowled, and turning quickly, went back to his chaise, still muttering something to himself as he went, and took his seat in it. During the rest of the way he several times started, and cried out so loudly that the coachman at last asked him what he desired.
‘Where are you driving?’ Pierre shouted to the coachman as he drove to Lubyanka.
‘You told me to drive to the governor’s,’ answered the coachman.
‘Fool! dolt!’ shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman, a thing he very rarely did. ‘I told you home; and make haste, blockhead! This very day I must set off,’ Pierre said to himself.
