When he had sent off all the Cossacks of the Suite on the run, he began to despatch simple members of the curious public, and even thrust his own legs out of the calash in his impatience, and was on the point of rushing off himself, and fairly gnashed his teeth—everything seemed so slow to him.
Such, at that time, was the demand that everything should be very quick and exact, that not a single moment might be wasted to Russian usefulness.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] By the transposition of a letter, the old armorer contrives to call them "whistle-Cossacks."
[21] Cossack whip—really, the Tatar whip used by the Cossacks, and all mountaineers, of the Tatar and Mongolian tribes. It is a short, thick, round leather lash, all of one size, without a tapering tip.
IX
The Tula artisans, who had executed a marvellous bit of business, had only just completed their work. The Cossacks of the Suite dashed up to them breathless, and the simple members of the curious public never arrived at all, because, through lack of practice, they flung their feet widely over the road, and tumbled down, whereupon they fled homewards, and hid themselves in the first place that offered, through fear of encountering Platoff's eye.
But as soon as the Cossacks of the Suite rushed up, they instantly began to shout, and when they saw that the men did not open to them, they immediately proceeded to tear at the bolts and shutters, without ceremony. But the bolts were so stout that they did not yield in the least, and they wrenched at the door; but the door was backed up inside by oaken bars. Then the Cossacks picked up a beam in the street, fixed it under the roof-frame, after the fashion customary at conflagrations, and tipped the whole roof off the little house at one toss. But no sooner had they removed the roof than they instantly tumbled over backwards themselves, for such a spiral[22] of sweat arose from the artisans in their confined quarters, caused by their unresting toil, that it was impossible for an unaccustomed man, coming directly from the fresh air, to breathe it all at once.
The messengers shouted: "What are you doing, you scoundrels, you thus and so? And how dare you to infect us with such a spiral, to boot? After this, God is not with you!"