And the murderer remained undiscovered
to the last.
So rapidly did events take place in the Yamkas, in the house of
Emma Edwardovna; and well nigh not a one of its inmates escaped a
bloody, foul or disgraceful doom.
The final, most grandiose, and at the same time most bloody
calamity was the devastation committed on the Yamkas by soldiers.
Two dragoons had been short-changed in a rouble establishment,
beaten up, and thrown out at night into the street. Tom to pieces,
in blood, they returned to the barracks, where their comrades,
having begun in the morning, were still finishing up their
regimental holiday. And so, not half an hour passed, when a
hundred soldiers burst into the Yamkas and began to wreck house
after house. They were joined by an innumerable mob that gathered
on the run--men of the golden squad [Footnote: Zolotorotzi-a
subtle euphemism for cleaners of cesspools and carters of the
wealth contained therein.--trans.], ragamuffins, tramps, crooks,
souteneurs. The panes were broken in all the houses, and the grand
pianos smashed to smithereens.
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