step inside, your honor!"

"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a
hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army
has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can'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 one of
the passages.

From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just
as the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head 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 that
moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva
bridge and the officer ran out into the square.

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

The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the
bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,
several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the
troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were
harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.
The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child's chair
with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and
desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams
of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that
General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were
dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,
had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the
bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting
and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops
were now moving forward.

CHAPTER XXII

Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the
streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round
the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody
drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The
Povarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the
Rostovs' house was littered with wisps of hay and w