Page 1675 - war-and-peace

dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck trailed
twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.
At the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd
closed in with savage yells and swayed about him, Rostop-
chin suddenly turned pale and, instead of going to the back
entrance where his carriage awaited him, went with hurried
steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along
the passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The
count’s face was white and he could not control the feverish
twitching of his lower jaw.
‘This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This
way, please...’ said a trembling, frightened voice behind
him.
Count Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obe-
diently, went in the direction indicated. At the back entrance
stood his caleche. The distant roar of the yelling crowd was
audible even there. He hastily took his seat and told the
coachman to drive him to his country house in Sokolniki.
When they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no
longer hear the shouts of the mob, the count began to re-
pent. He remembered with dissatisfaction the agitation and
fear he had betrayed before his subordinates. ‘The mob is
terribledisgusting,’ he said to himself in French. ‘They are
like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease.’ ‘Count!
One God is above us both!’Vereshchagin’s words sudden-
ly recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his
back. But this was only a momentary feeling and Count
Rostopchin smiled disdainfully at himself. ‘I had other du-
ties,’ thought he. ‘The people had to be appeased. Many

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