"Eh? What?" Andrei Antonovich turned to him with a stern face, but without the least surprise or any recollection of the carriage or the coachman, as if he were in his own study.
"Officer of the first precinct Filibusterov, Your Excellency. There's a riot in town."
"Filibusters?" Andrei Antonovich repeated ponderingly.
"That's right, Your Excellency. The Shpigulin men are rioting."
"The Shpigulin men! ..."
Something came back to him, as it were, at the mention of "the Shpigulin men." He even gave a start and raised his finger to his forehead: "The Shpigulin men!" Silent, but still pondering, he went unhurriedly to the carriage, got in, and gave orders for town. The officer in the droshky followed after.
I imagine that on his way he vaguely pictured many quite interesting things, on many themes, but he hardly had any firm idea or any definite intention on entering the square in front of the governor's house. But the moment he caught sight of the lined-up and firmly standing crowd of "rioters," the row of policemen, the powerless (and perhaps intentionally powerless) police chief, and the general expectation directed at him, all the blood rushed to his heart. Pale, he stepped from the carriage.
"Hats off!" he said, breathlessly and barely audibly. "On your knees!" he shrieked unexpectedly—unexpectedly for himself, and it was in this unexpectedness that the whole ensuing denouement of the affair perhaps consisted. It was like coasting down a hill at the winter carnival; can a sled that is already going down stop in the middle of the hillside? As ill luck would have it, Andrei Antonovich had been distinguished all his life by the serenity of his character and had never shouted or stamped his feet at anyone; and such men are far more dangerous if it once happens that their sled for some reason shoots off downhill. Everything went whirling around in front of him.
"Filibusters!" he screamed, in an even more shrill and absurd way, and his voice cracked. He stood, still not knowing what he was going to do, but knowing and sensing with his whole being that he was now certainly going to do something.
"Lord!" came from the crowd. Some fellow began to cross himself; three or four men indeed made as if to kneel, but the rest moved in a mass about three steps forward, and suddenly they all began to squawk at once: "Your Excellency... the deal was for forty... the manager ... don't you go telling us," etc., etc. Nothing could be made of it.
Alas! Andrei Antonovich was unable to make anything out: the flowers were still in his hand. The riot was as evident to him as the kibitkas had been earlier to Stepan Trofimovich. And amid the crowd of "rioters" who stood goggling at him, Pyotr Stepanovich kept darting about in front of him, "agitating" them—he who had not left him for a moment since the day before, Pyotr Stepanovich, the detested Pyotr Stepanovich...
"Birch rods!" he cried, still more unexpectedly.
A dead silence ensued.
This was how it went at the very beginning, judging by the most precise information and my own conjectures. But on what followed the information becomes less precise, as do my conjectures. There are, however, certain facts.
First, the birch rods appeared somehow all too hastily; they had apparently been readied in advance by the quick-witted police chief.
However, only two men were punished in all, I think, not even three; I insist on that. That all the men, or at least half of them, were punished, is sheer invention. It is also nonsense that some poor but noble lady was supposedly seized as she was passing by and promptly thrashed for some reason; and yet I later read about this lady myself in a report in one of the Petersburg newspapers. Many people here were talking about a woman from the cemetery almshouse, a certain Avdotya Petrovna Tarapygin, who, as she was crossing the square on her way back to the almshouse, supposedly pushed her way through the spectators, out of natural curiosity, and on seeing what was happening, exclaimed: "Shame on 'em!"—and spat. For this she was supposedly picked up and also "attended to." Not only was this case printed, but a subscription for her benefit was set up here in town on the spur of the moment. I myself donated twenty kopecks. And what then? It turns out that there never was any such almshouse Tarapygin woman in our town at all! I went myself to inquire at the almshouse by the cemetery: they had never even heard of any Tarapygin woman; moreover, they got quite offended when I told them the rumor. In fact, I mention this nonexistent Avdotya Petrovna only because the same thing that happened with her (if she had existed in reality) almost happened with Stepan Trofimovich; it may even be on account of him that this whole absurd rumor about Tarapygin got started—that is, the gossip in its further development simply went and turned him into some Tarapygin woman. First of all, I do not understand how he gave me the slip as soon as we came to the square. Having a presentiment of something none too good, I wanted to take him around the square right to the governor's porch, but I became curious myself and stopped just for a moment to question some first passer-by, when suddenly I saw that Stepan Trofimovich was no longer beside me. Following my instinct, I rushed at once to look for him in the most dangerous place; for some reason I had a presentiment that his sled had also shot off downhill. And indeed I found him already at the very center of the event. I remember seizing him by the arm; but he calmly and proudly gave me a look of boundless authority: