Book Eleven: 1812 - Chapter XXI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock atnight till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the woundedand the last of the inhabitants who were leaving.

　　The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place atthe Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.

　　While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around theKremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great manysoldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned backfrom the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the churchof Vasili the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up thehill to the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easilytake things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheapsales filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there wereno dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customersto enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd offemale purchasers- but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats thoughwithout muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silentlymaking their way out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmenand their assistants (of whom there were but few) moved about amongthe soldiers quite bewildered. They unlocked their shops and lockedthem up again, and themselves carried goods away with the help theirassistants. On the square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beatingthe muster call. But the roll of the drums did not make the lootingsoldiers run in the direction of the drum as formerly, but madethem, on the contrary, run farther away. Among the soldiers in theshops and passages some men were to be seen in gray coats, withclosely shaven heads. Two officers, one with a scarf over hisuniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse, the other in anovercoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka Street,talking. A third officer galloped up to them.

　　"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed."

　　"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymenwithout muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, wereslipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!"

　　"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer."There is no getting them together. The army should push on before therest bolt, that's all!"

　　"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge,and don't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the restfrom running away?"

　　"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer.

　　The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and wentwith him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in agroup. A shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose,and a calm, persistent, calculating expression on his plump face,hurriedly and ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging hisarms.

　　"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudgetrifles, you are welcome to anything- we shall be delighted!Pray!... I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorablegentleman, or even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is;but what's all this- sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards beplaced if only to let us close the shop...."

　　Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.

　　"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man."When one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take whatany of you like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turnedsideways to the officer.

　　"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the firsttradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!"

　　"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I havea hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved whenthe army has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our handscan't fight.'"

　　"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing.

　　The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.

　　"It's not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down oneof the passages.

　　From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, andjust as the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shavenhead was flung out violently.

　　This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer.The officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at thatmoment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on theMoskva bridge and the officer ran out into the square.

　　"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was alreadygalloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from whichthe screams came.

　　The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reachedthe bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing thebridge, several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing facesamong the troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which twohorses were harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing closeto the wheels. The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside achild's chair with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman utteringpiercing and desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officersthat the screams of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due tothe fact that General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learningthat soldiers were dispersing among the shops while crowds ofcivilians blocked the bridge, had ordered two guns to be unlimberedand made a show of firing at the bridge. The crowd, crushing oneanother, upsetting carts, and shouting and squeezing desperately,had cleared off the bridge and the troops were now moving forward.