"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.