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.
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