Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty-Three

In an unfinished building on Varvarka Street there were shouts and singing of drunken men.Its lower level opened a hotel.In a small dingy room, a dozen or so workmen were sitting on a bench around a table, all drunk, sweating, clouded eyes, yawning with their mouths wide open, and singing a song.They sang with all their might, obviously not because they wanted to, but purely to prove that they were drunk and having fun, drink, drink.Among them was a tall, fair-haired lad in a solid blue coat who towered above them all.He had a face with a delicate and straight nose, and if his ever-moving lips were not so thin or tightly closed, and his eyes were not cloudy, gloomy, and dull, then his face would be beautiful.He towered over the singers, obviously thinking something, and solemnly and stiffly waved his white hand, the sleeve rolled up to the elbow, over the heads, and stretched his dirty fingers unnaturally. .The cuffs of his coat kept slipping down, and he rolled them up again with his left hand, as if this white, veined, waving arm must be exposed, and there was a deep meaning in it.As he sang, there were shouts of fighting and clashing sounds in the passage and on the steps.The tall boy waved his hand.

"Stop!" he shouted commandingly, "It's fighting, brothers!" Still rolling up his sleeves, he walked up to the steps. These workers followed him.They were led by a tall young man this morning, and brought a few leathers from the factory to the hotel owner in exchange for wine.Blacksmiths from several nearby blacksmith shops heard the commotion in the hotel, thinking that the hotel was being robbed, so they also wanted to rush in desperately.There was a fight on the steps. The boss wrestled with a blacksmith in the door opening. When the workers came out, the blacksmith broke free from the boss and fell on the road.Another blacksmith rushed to the door and put his chest against the boss.

As soon as the boy with his sleeves rolled up came up, he punched the blacksmith in the face and shouted wildly: "Brothers! Our men are beaten!" At this time, the blacksmith who had just fallen got up from the ground, scratched his wounded face, and bleed, crying and shouting: "Help! Someone's been killed! . . . Someone's been killed! Brethren! ..." "Oh, I beat you to death, you killed someone!" A peasant woman came out of the gate next door and said sharply.A group of people surrounded the bloody blacksmith. "You haven't robbed people enough, and you've snatched the shirts that others are wearing," someone's voice asked the hotel owner, "Why, you killed someone? A robber!"

The tall young man standing on the steps stared at the boss and at the blacksmiths with cloudy eyes, as if he was considering who he should fight with now. "Murderer!" he yelled suddenly at his boss. "Tie him up. Brothers!" "Why, just tie me up!" the boss shouted, pushing away the person who was rushing towards him, and took off his hat and threw it on the ground.This move seemed to have some mysterious intimidating effect, and the workers who surrounded the boss stood still hesitantly. "As for the regulations, my friend, I know that very well. I'm going to the police station. Don't you think I won't? Robbery is forbidden to anyone!" cried the proprietor, picking up his hat.

"Let's go, see what you say! Let's go... see what you say," the tavernkeeper and the tall boy repeated to each other, and they walked down the street.Workers and onlookers followed them noisily.A blacksmith with a bloody face walked beside them. On the corner of Marošeka Street, opposite a large house with the bootmaker's sign and shuttered shutters, stood a score of emaciated, emaciated bootmakers in smocks and tattered coats. "He should be giving everyone severance pay!" said the thin craftsman with a thin beard and furrowed eyebrows. "He sucked our blood dry and left us alone, what's that. He lied to us for a whole week. We dragged it to the point where he ran backwards by himself."

The talking craftsman fell silent at the sight of a great crowd and a bloodied figure, and all the bootmakers stepped out with impatient curiosity towards the moving mass. "Where are these people going?" "Obviously, go see the official." "So our men didn't have the upper hand, did they?" "What do you think! See what people say." Listening to this question and answer, the boss took advantage of the increasing number of people and fell behind them, turned around and went back to his hotel. The tall young man didn't notice the disappearance of his enemy, the boss. He still waved his exposed arm and kept talking, attracting everyone's attention.Everyone huddled close to him, hoping for answers to the various questions that were troubling them.

"He'll follow the rules, he'll uphold the law, that's what officials do. Should I say that, Orthodox?" said the tall boy, with a smile on his face. "He thinks the government is gone, right? Is it possible that there is no government? Otherwise, there will be more people robbing things." "It's empty talk!" Someone in the crowd replied. "Why not, Moscow has given up! People tell you for fun, and you think it's true. We have a lot of troops, so let the enemy in like this! That's what the government does. Let's listen to what the people say ’ said the men, pointing to the tall lad.

Near the walls of Chinatown, another small crowd surrounded a man in a pea coat with a document in his hand. -------- ①The name of a place near the Kremlin is not a Chinatown like the Chinese settlements in some cities in the United States. "Notice, read the notice! Read the notice!" Someone in the crowd said, so everyone rushed towards the person who read the notice. The man in the pea coat read the proclamation for the thirty-first of August.He looked a little embarrassed as the crowd closed in, but the tall lad pushed close to him and begged him, and he began to read from the beginning with a trembling voice.

"I will see His Excellency the Duke early tomorrow morning," he read, ("Your Excellency!" the tall lad repeated solemnly with a smile on his lips and frowning his brows)... "Confer with him, take action, and help the army to destroy the bandits; we About to put their arrogance..." Here the reader paused ("See?" said the lad loudly and triumphantly. "He'll lay it all out for you...) to destroy them, and Send these guests to hell; I'll be back by lunchtime, and get to work on this, get it done, get it done, and get the culprits out." The last few sentences were read in silence.The tall boy bowed his head sadly.Obviously, no one understood the last few words.In particular: "I'll be back at lunch tomorrow," a line that grieved even those who read it and those who heard it.Everyone's understanding is very strong, but this kind of speech is too simple and obvious, it can be said by every one of them, so it can't be regarded as a notice from the upper authorities.

Everyone stood silently and sadly.The tall boy moved his lips and shook his body. "You should ask him!... Is this himself? Of course you have to ask!... He can't give pointers... He should explain..." Suddenly, voices were heard from a few rows behind the crowd, and everyone's attention turned to The chariot of the chief constable driving into the square, escorted by two dragoons. The chief commissioner was ordered by the earl to burn the cargo ship this morning, and he had made a large sum of money in the course of his mission. The money was in his pocket, and when he saw the crowd approaching him, he told the coachman to stop.

"Who are you?" he called out to a group of three or five people who approached timidly. "What are you doing? I'm asking you?" The chief asked repeatedly without getting an answer. "Boss, they," said the little official in a thick woolen coat, "Boss, they obeyed the earl's notice, and they were willing to serve regardless of their lives. They were definitely not riots, just as the earl's order said... ..." "The count is not gone, he is here, and arrangements concerning you will be made," said the prefect. "Come on!" he said to the coachman.The crowd remained where they were, surrounding those who had heard the officer's words, while watching the carriage go away. At this moment the chief constable, looking back in horror, said something to the coachman, and the horse galloped even faster. "Liar, brethren! Chase him!" cried the tall lad. "Don't let him go, brethren! Let the earth answer! Catch him!" cried the crowd, and ran after the carriage. The crowd chasing the chief ran noisily toward Lubyanka Street. "What, the lord and the businessman are all gone, and we have to sacrifice for this. What, we are their dogs, or something!" The crowd complained more and more.