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The moujiks then appeared on the scene and began to fight among themselves for the possession of the yellow objects. In the melee one old woman was nearly crushed to death. Ivan laughed and was greatly amused at the sight of so many persons quarrelling over a few pieces of gold. Be more gentle. I have plenty more, and I will give them to you;" whereupon he began throwing about more of the coins.
At times came the news that the Czar had been inspired by Providence to inaugurate some new and important reform, only to be followed by the announcement that Satan had held a conference with his Imperial Majesty, and that the reform had fallen through. All such information was carried into Togarog by word of mouth, for few of the good moujiks could read the papers.
Higher they rose and higher, until at last, as the sun sank toward the west, we were in the broad main street, and galloped up it amid the shouts of the moujiks and the cries of frightened women until we found ourselves in front of the great town-hall. My cavalry I drew up in the square, and I, with my two sergeants, Oudin and Papilette, rushed into the building.
"You should not be so greatly surprised; such things are common in Russia," said Vladimir Paulitch, with a faint smile. "Yes, sir," he resumed, "I am one of Count Kostia's serfs, and you may imagine whether or not I am grateful to him for having had the goodness to fashion from the humble clay of which nature had formed one of his moujiks, the glorious statue of Doctor Vladimir Paulitch.
Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild flying figure in a rich furred coat dashed round the corner and almost into his arms, half-spilling the wine. 'In God's name, Reb Aaron! panted the refugee, and fell half-dead across the threshold. The physician dragged him hastily within, and slammed the door, just as two moujiks drunken leaders of the chase lurched past.
For my part, I am astonished that we do not see it. Not far from my estate this spring some moujiks were working on a railway embankment. You know what a peasant's food is, bread, kvass,* onions. With this frugal nourishment he lives, he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this bill of fare becomes cacha and a pound of meat.
But poor Gregory was in no state to thank anybody; nearly swooning with pain, he could scarcely stand. Two moujiks took him by the arms and led him towards the serfs' quarters, followed by Ivan. Having reached the door, however, Gregory stopped, turned his head, and seeing the aide-de-camp gazing pitifully at him, "Oh sir," he cried, "please thank his excellency the general for me.
The bureaucracy indiscriminately oppresses and seeks to crush all three sections; the democracy despairs of the moujiks and hates the Jews, though it accepts their financial help; while the moujiks distrust every one, and also hate the Jews, whom they murder whenever they get the chance.
The road was strewn with battered corpses, some lying in heaps; and burly moujiks, shrieking unsexed viragoes, and brutal soldiers, maddened with vodka, delirious with the lust of blood and pillage, were sacking the houses that were not yet ablaze, destroying, in insensate fury, what they were unable to carry off, fighting like demons over their plunder.
Of the scores of Nihilists who had already been executed not one was alluded to as a Catholic, although that church claimed them as her own; but the newspapers added the word "Jew" every time they had occasion to mention his name. There were as yet no open hostilities in Russia. The great majority of laborers and moujiks knew nothing of this agitation.
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