“He has his affair—that parishioner,” muttered Barlasch, looking at him with a smile that twisted his mouth to one side. And, as he spoke, the man's throat rattled. De Casimir was reloading his pistol. So persistent was the gaze of the dead man's eyes that de Casimir turned on his heel to look in the same direction.
“Quick!” he exclaimed, pointing to the doorway, from which a lazy white smoke emerged in thin puffs. “Quick, he has set fire to the house!”
“Quick—with what, mon colonel?” asked Barlasch.
“Why, go and fetch some men with a fire-engine.”
“There are no fire-engines left in Moscow, mon colonel!”
“Then find buckets, and tell me where the well is.”
“There are no buckets left in Moscow, mon colonel. We found that out last night, when we wanted to water the horses. The citizens have removed them. And there is not a well of which the rope has not been cut. They are droll companions, these Russians, I can tell you.”
“Do as I tell you,” repeated de Casimir, angrily, “or I shall put you under arrest. Go and fetch men to help me to extinguish this fire.”
By way of reply, Barlasch held up one finger in a childlike gesture of attention to some distant sound.
“No, thank you,” he said, coolly, “not for me. Discipline, mon colonel, discipline. Listen, you can hear the 'assembly' as well as I. It is the Emperor that one obeys. One thinks of one's military career.”