shops and locked them up again, and
themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the
square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call.
But the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the
direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run
farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were
to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one
with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,
the other in an overcoat 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 infantrymen
without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were
slipping 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 the rest 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 rest from
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 went with
him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. 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 his arms.

"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudge
trifles, you are welcome to anything--we shall be delighted! Pray!...
I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman,
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 be placed 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 what any of you
like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the
officer.

"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first
tradesman angrily. "Please