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We drove to the Hotel Bristol, now the headquarters of the Jaroslavl Executive Committee, where Rostopchin, the president, discussed with Larin and Radek the programme arranged for the conference. Rostopchin admitted that the commissariat arrangements of the Soviet and its Executive Committee were very bad.
They stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise. They have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice will I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!" he cried, raising his voice higher and higher. Count Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed in on Vereshchagin. He turned away.
Those standing in front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all stood with wide open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength, and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them. "Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!" shouted Rostopchin. "Cut him down. I command it."
His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the Emperor's being expected to arrive next day all aroused with fresh force that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially since the beginning of the war.
Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutuzov, Rostopchin turned angrily in his caleche and gazed sternly from side to side. The Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white and others like them walking singly across the field shouting and gesticulating.
Rostopchin took advantage of all these movements, which he excited or checked according as they were favourable to him or otherwise.
The governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, intended to greet the entering conqueror with an illumination, and, as he had no torches handy, he set fire to the houses.
The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had forbidden people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that ladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. "There will be less panic and less gossip," ran the broadsheet "but I will stake my life on it that scoundrel will not enter Moscow."
The only thing which Count Rostopchin could properly be reproached with, was his concealing too long the bad news from the armies, either from flattering himself, or believing it to be necessary to flatter others.
Thus was this population dispersed in detail or in masses. The roads were covered to the distance of forty leagues by fugitives on foot, and several unbroken files of vehicles of every kind. At the same time, the measures of Rostopchin to prevent dejection and preserve order detained many of these unfortunate people till the very last moment.
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