“Of course not,” said the count absently. “But that’s not to the point. I beg you now not to let yourself be taken up with any nonsense, but to help to pack and get off—to get off to-morrow …”

And the count gave his butler and servants the same orders. Petya came back at dinner-time, and he too had news to tell them.

He said that the mob was taking up arms to-day in the Kremlin; that though Rastoptchin’s placard said he would give the word two days later, it had really been arranged that all the people should go next day in arms to the Three Hills, and there a great battle was to be fought.

The countess looked in timid horror at her son’s eager, excited face, as he told them this. She knew that if she said a word to try and dissuade Petya from going to this battle (she knew how he was enjoying the prospect of it), he would say something about the duty of a man, about honour, and the fatherland—something irrational, masculine, and perverse—which it would be useless to oppose, and all hope of preventing him would be gone. And, therefore, hoping to succeed in setting off before this battle, and in taking Petya with her, to guard and protect them on the road, she said nothing to her son, but after dinner called her husband aside, and with tears besought him to take her away as soon as could be, that night if possible. With the instinctive, feminine duplicity of love, though she had till then shown not the slightest sign of alarm, she declared she should die of terror if they did not get away that very night. She was indeed without feigning afraid now of everything.