With knotted and shaking fingers he drew back the bolts and opened the door. On the threshold he saluted.
“It is the call to arms, mes officiers,” he said. Then, shouldering his musket, he turned away, and all his clocks struck six. The bells of the city churches seemed to greet him as he stepped into the street, for in Moscow each hour is proclaimed with deafening iteration from a thousand towers.
He looked down the Petrovka; from half the houses which bordered the wide roadway—a street of palaces—the smoke was pouring forth in puffs. He went uphill towards the Red Square and the Kremlin, where the Emperor had his head-quarters. It was to this centre that the patrols had converged. Looking back, Barlasch saw, not one house on fire, but a hundred. The smoke arose from every quarter of the city at once. He hurried on, but was stopped by a crowd of soldiers, all laden with booty, gesticulating, shouting, abusing one another. It was Babel over again. The riff-raff of sixteen nations had followed Napoleon to Moscow—to rob. Half a dozen different tongues were spoken in one army corps. There remained no national pride to act as a deterrent. No man cared what he did. The blame would be laid upon France.
The crowd was collected in front of a high, many-windowed building in flames.
“What is it?” Barlasch asked first one and then another. But no one spoke his tongue. At last he found a Frenchman.
“It is the hospital.”
“And what is that smell? What is burning there?”
“Twelve thousand wounded,” answered the man, with a sickening laugh. And even as he spoke one or two of the wounded dragged themselves, half burnt, down the wide steps. No one dared to approach them, for the walls of the building were already bulging outwards. One man was half covered with a sheet which was black, and his bare limbs were black with smoke. All the hair was burnt from his head and face. He stood for a moment in the doorway—a sight never to be forgotten—and then fell headlong down the steps, where he lay motionless. Some one in the crowd laughed—a high cackle which was heard above the roar of the fire and the deafening chorus of burning timbers.
Barlasch passed on, following some officers who were leading their horses towards the Kremlin. The streets were full of soldiers carrying burdens, and staggering beneath the weight of their spoil. Many were wearing priceless fur cloaks, and others walked in women's wraps of sable and ermine. Some wore jewellery, such as necklaces, on their rough uniforms, and bracelets round their sunburnt wrists. No one laughed at them, but only glanced enviously at the pillage. All were in deadly earnest, and none graver than those who had found drink and now regretted that they had given way to the temptation; for their sober comrades had outwitted them in finding treasure.
One man gravely wore a gilt coronet crammed over the crown of his shako. He joined Barlasch, staggering along beside him.