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Rostopchin, nevertheless, affecting to persevere, is said to have caused a great quantity of rockets and other combustibles to be prepared. Moscow itself was designed to be the great infernal machine, the sudden nocturnal explosion of which was to consume the Emperor and his army.
Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do.
But, in spite of all, the greater part of this caste, with its essential conservative instincts, was nothing more than an inert mass, without initiative, and incapable even of defending its own interests except by the aid of the government. Rostopchin did not suspect the profound truth of his capricious saying.
Kutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow without a battle. On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of Moscow, Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside. A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchin, who had come out from Moscow, joined them.
A drone of voices was audible through the closed window. "Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the window. "It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant. Rostopchin went again to the balcony door. "But what do they want?" he asked the superintendent of police.
Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty remark on that occasion.
What did it matter to him who then alone amid a senseless crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was happening what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to him who was appointed chief of the artillery.
It was to check the action of Britain in the East that the Czar now turned to the French Consul, and seconded his efforts for the formation of a naval confederacy in the North, while his minister, Rostopchin, planned a division of the Turkish Empire in Europe between Russia and her allies.
Only among the back rows of the people, who were all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling of feet be heard. While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchin stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand. "Lads!" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. "This man, Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing."
Prince Bolkonski glanced at the young man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind, evidently considering him too young. "My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy to have a good style," returned Count Rostopchin. "One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up," remarked the old prince.
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