The tumult increased, the crowd continued to grow. The whole square was alive with people. There seemed to be imminent danger of a bloody collision.
Trirodov went that morning to the chief of the rural police and to the officer of the gendarmerie. He wished to convince them that a secret burial would only add to the workers’ excitement. The chief listened to him in a dull way, and kept on repeating:
“Impossible. I can’t....”
He gazed down persistently. This caused his neck to look tight, poured out like copper. And he kept on turning his ring round his finger as if it were a talisman protecting him from hostile calumny.
The colonel of the gendarmes proved easier to deal with. In the end Trirodov succeeded in obtaining an order for the surrender of the bodies of the dead men to their families.
The chief of the rural police arrived in the square. The crowd greeted him with discordant and angry cries. He stood up in his trap and motioned with his hand. Every one grew silent. He addressed them:
“Would you like to bury them yourselves? Very well, you shall have them. Only be careful that nothing happens which shouldn’t happen. In any case, the Cossacks will be present, in an emergency. And now I will see that the bodies of your comrades are delivered to you.”