BY NINE O'CLOCK in the morning, when the troops were moving across Moscow, people had ceased coming to Rastoptchin for instructions. All who could get away were going without asking leave; those who stayed decided for themselves what they had better do.
Count Rastoptchin ordered his horses in order to drive to Sokolniky, and with a yellow and frowning face, sat in silence with folded arms in his study.
Every governing official in quiet, untroubled times feels that the whole population under his charge is only kept going by his efforts; and it is this sense of being indispensably necessary in which every governing official finds the chief reward for his toils and cares. It is easy to understand that while the ocean of history is calm, the governing official holding on from his crazy little skiff by a pole to the ship of the people, and moving with it, must fancy that it is his efforts that move the ship on to which he is clinging. But a storm has but to arise to set the sea heaving and the ship tossing upon it, and such error becomes at once impossible. The ship goes on its vast course unchecked, the pole fails to reach the moving vessel, and the pilot, from being the master, the source of power, finds himself a helpless, weak, and useless person.
Rastoptchin felt this, and it drove him to frenzy. The head of the police, who had got away from the crowd, went in to see him at the same time as an adjutant, who came to announce that his horses were ready. Both were pale, and the head of the police, after reporting that he had discharged the commission given to him, informed Count Rastoptchin that there was an immense crowd of people in his courtyard wanting to see him.
Without a word in reply, Count Rastoptchin got up and walked with rapid steps to his light, sumptuously furnished drawing-room. He went up to the balcony door, took hold of the door-handle, let go of it, and moved away to the window, from which the whole crowd could be better seen. The tall young fellow was standing in the front, and with a severe face, waving his arms and saying something. The blood-bespattered smith stood beside him with a gloomy air. Through the closed windows could be heard the roar of voices.
“Is the carriage ready?” said Rastoptchin, moving back from the window.
“Yes, your excellency,” said the adjutant.
Rastoptchin went again to the balcony door.
“Why, what is it they want?” he asked the head of the police.
“Your excellency, they say they have come together to go to fight the French, by your orders; they were shouting something about treachery. But it is an angry crowd, your excellency. I had much ado to get away. If I may venture to suggest, your excellency …”
“Kindly leave me; I know what to do without your assistance,” cried Rastoptchin angrily. He stood at the door of the balcony looking at the crowd. “This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done with me!” thought Rastoptchin, feeling a rush of irrepressible rage against the undefined some one to whose fault what was happening could be set down. As is often the case with excitable persons, he was possessed by fury, while still seeking an object for it. “Here is the populace, the dregs of the people,” he thought, looking at the crowd, “that they have stirred up by their folly. They want a victim,” came into his mind, as he watched the waving arm of the tall fellow in front. And the thought struck him precisely because he too wanted a victim, an object for his wrath.
“Is the carriage ready?” he asked again.
“Yes, your excellency. What orders in regard to Vereshtchagin? He is waiting at the steps,” answered the adjutant.
“Ah!” cried Rastoptchin, as though struck by some sudden recollection.
And rapidly opening the door, he walked resolutely out on the balcony. The hum of talk instantly died down, caps and hats were lifted, and all eyes were raised upon the governor.
“Good-day, lads!” said the count, speaking loudly and quickly. “Thanks for coming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we have first to deal with a criminal. We have to punish the wretch by whose doing Moscow is ruined. Wait for me!” And as rapidly he returned to the apartment, slamming the door violently.
An approving murmur of satisfaction ran through the crowd. “He'll have all the traitors cut down, of course. And you talk of the French … he'll show us the rights and the wrongs of it all!” said the people, as it were reproaching one another for lack of faith.
A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the main entrance, and gave some order, and the dragoons drew themselves up stiffly. The crowd moved greedily up from the balcony to the front steps. Coming out there with hasty and angry steps, Rastoptchin looked about him hurriedly, as though seeking some one.
“Where is he?” he said, and at the moment he said it, he caught sight of a young man with a long, thin neck, and half of his head shaven and covered with short hair, coming round the corner of the house between two dragoons. This young man was clothed in a fox-lined blue cloth coat, that had once been foppish but was now shabby, and in filthy convict's trousers of fustian, thrust into uncleaned and battered thin boots. His uncertain gait was clogged by the heavy manacles hanging about his thin, weak legs.
“Ah!” said Rastoptchin, hurriedly turning his eyes away from the young man in the fox-lined coat and pointing to the bottom steps. “Put him here!”
With a clank of manacles the young man stepped with effort on to the step indicated to him; putting his finger into the tight collar of his coat, he turned his long neck twice, and sighing, folded his thin, unworkmanlike hands before him with a resigned gesture.
For several seconds, while the young man was taking up his position on the step, there was complete silence. Only at the back of the mass of people, all pressing in one direction, could be heard sighs and groans and sounds of pushing and the shuffling of feet.
Rastoptchin, waiting for him to be on the spot he had directed, scowled, and passed his hand over his face.
“Lads!” he said, with a metallic ring in his voice, “this man, Vereshtchagin, is the wretch by whose doing Moscow is lost.”
The young man in the fox-lined coat stood in a resigned pose, clasping his hands together in front of his body, and bending a little forward. His wasted young face, with its look of hopelessness and the hideous disfigurement of the half-shaven head, was turned downwards. At the count's first words he slowly lifted his head and looked up from below at the count, as though he wanted to say something to him, or at least to catch his eye. But Rastoptchin did not look at him. The blue vein behind the young man's ear stood out like a cord on his long, thin neck, and all at once his face flushed crimson.
All eyes were fixed upon him. He gazed at the crowd, and, as though made hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled a timid, mournful smile, and dropping his head again, shifted his feet on the step.
“He is a traitor to his Tsar and his country; he deserted to Bonaparte; he alone of all the Russians has disgraced the name of Russia, and through him Moscow is lost,” said Rastoptchin in a harsh, monotonous voice; but all at once he glanced down rapidly at Vereshtchagin, who still stood in the same submissive attitude. As though that glance had driven him to frenzy, flinging up his arms, he almost yelled to the crowd:
“You shall deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you!”
The people were silent, and only pressed closer and closer on one another. To bear each other's weight, to breathe in that tainted foulness, to be unable to stir, and to be expecting something vague, uncomprehended and awful, was becoming unbearable. The men in the front of the crowd, who saw and heard all that was passing before them, all stood with wide-open, horror-struck eyes and gaping mouths, straining all their strength to support the pressure from behind on their backs.
“Beat him! … Let the traitor perish and not shame the name of Russia!” screamed Rastoptchin. “Cut him down! I give the command!” Hearing not the words, but only the wrathful tones of Rastoptchin's voice, the mob moaned and heaved forward, but stopped again.
“Count!” … the timid and yet theatrical voice of Vereshtchagin broke in upon the momentary stillness that followed. “Count, one God is above us …” said Vereshtchagin, lifting his head, and again the thick vein swelled on his thin neck and the colour swiftly came and faded again from his face. He did not finish what he was trying to say.
“Cut him down! I command it! …” cried Rastoptchin, suddenly turning as white as Vereshtchagin himself.
“Draw sabres!” shouted the officer to the dragoons, himself drawing his sabre.
Another still more violent wave passed over the crowd, and reaching the front rows, pushed them forward, and threw them staggering right up to the steps. The tall young man, with a stony expression of face and his lifted arm rigid in the air, stood close beside Vereshtchagin. “Strike at him!” the officer said almost in a whisper to the dragoons; and one of the soldiers, his face suddenly convulsed by fury, struck Vereshtchagin on the head with the flat of his sword.
Vereshtchagin uttered a brief “Ah!” of surprise, looking about him in alarm, as though he did not know what this was done to him for. A similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd.
“O Lord!” some one was heard to utter mournfully. After the exclamation of surprise that broke from Vereshtchagin he uttered a piteous cry of pain, and that cry was his undoing. The barrier of human feeling that still held the mob back was strained to the utmost limit, and it snapped instantaneously. The crime had been begun, its completion was inevitable. The piteous moan of reproach was drowned in the angry and menacing roar of the mob. Like the great seventh wave that shatters a ship, that last, irresistible wave surged up at the back of the crowd, passed on to the foremost ranks, carried them off their feet and engulfed all together. The dragoon who had struck the victim would have repeated his blow. Vereshtchagin, with a scream of terror, putting his hands up before him, dashed into the crowd. The tall young man, against whom he stumbled, gripped Vereshtchagin's slender neck in his hands, and with a savage shriek fell with him under the feet of the trampling, roaring mob. Some beat and tore at Vereshtchagin, others at the tall young man. And the screams of persons crushed in the crowd and of those who tried to rescue the tall young man only increased the frenzy of the mob. For a long while the dragoons were unable to get the bleeding, half-murdered factory workman away. And in spite of all the feverish haste with which the mob strove to make an end of what had once been begun, the men who beat and strangled Vereshtchagin and tore him to pieces could not kill him. The crowd pressed on them on all sides, heaved from side to side like one man with them in the middle, and would not let them kill him outright or let him go.
“Hit him with an axe, eh? … they have crushed him … Traitor, he sold Christ! … living … alive … serve the thief right. With a bar! … Is he alive? …”
Only when the victim ceased to struggle, and his shrieks had passed into a long-drawn, rhythmic death-rattle, the mob began hurriedly to change places about the bleeding corpse on the ground. Every one went up to it, gazed at what had been done, and pressed back horror-stricken, surprised, and reproachful.
“O Lord, the people's like a wild beast; how could he be alive!” was heard in the crowd. “And a young fellow too … must have been a merchant's son, to be sure, the people … they do say it's not the right man … not the right man! … O Lord! … They have nearly murdered another man; they say he's almost dead … Ah, the people … who wouldn't be afraid of sin …” were saying now the same people, looking with rueful pity at the dead body, with the blue face fouled with dust and blood, and the long, slender, broken neck.
A punctilious police official, feeling the presence of the body unseemly in the courtyard of his excellency, bade the dragoons drag the body away into the street. Two dragoons took hold of the mutilated legs, and drew the body away. The dead, shaven head, stained with blood and grimed with dust, was trailed along the ground, rolling from side to side on the long neck. The crowd shrank away from the corpse.
When Vereshtchagin fell, and the crowd with a savage yell closed in and heaved about him, Rastoptchin suddenly turned white, and instead of going to the back entrance, where horses were in waiting for him, he strode rapidly along the corridor leading to the rooms of the lower story, looking on the floor and not knowing where or why he was going. The count's face was white, and he could not check the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.
“Your excellency, this way … where are you going? … this way,” said a trembling, frightened voice behind him. Count Rastoptchin was incapable of making any reply. Obediently turning, he went in the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood a carriage. The distant roar of the howling mob could be heard even there. Count Rastoptchin hurriedly got into the carriage, and bade them drive him to his house at Sokolniky beyond the town. As he drove out into Myasnitsky Street and lost the sound of the shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He thought with dissatisfaction now of the excitement and terror he had betrayed before his subordinates. “The populace is terrible, it is hideous. They are like wolves that can only be appeased with flesh,” he thought. “Count! there is one God over us!” Vereshtchagin's words suddenly recurred to him, and a disagreeable chill ran down his back. But that feeling was momentary, and Count Rastoptchin smiled contemptuously at himself. “I had other duties. The people had to be appeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the public good,” he thought; and he began to reflect on the social duties he had towards his family and towards the city intrusted to his care; and on himself—not as Fyodor Vassilyevitch Rastoptchin (he assumed that Fyodor Vassilyevitch Rastoptchin was sacrificing himself for le bien publique)—but as governor of Moscow, as the representative of authority intrusted with full powers by the Tsar. “If I had been simply Fyodor Vassilyevitch, my course of action might have been quite different; but I was bound to preserve both the life and the dignity of the governor.”
Lightly swayed on the soft springs of the carriage, and hearing no more of the fearful sounds of the mob, Rastoptchin was physically soothed, and as is always the case simultaneously with physical relief, his intellect supplied him with grounds for moral comfort. The thought that reassured Rastoptchin was not a new one. Ever since the world has existed and men have killed one another, a man has never committed such a crime against his fellow without consoling himself with the same idea. That idea is le bien publique, the supposed public good of others.
To a man not swayed by passion this good never seems certain; but a man who has committed such a crime always knows positively where that public good lies. And Rastoptchin now knew this.
Far from reproaching himself in his meditations on the act he had just committed, he found grounds for self-complacency in having so successfully made use of an occasion so à propos for executing a criminal, and at the same time satisfying the crowd. “Vereshtchagin had been tried and condemned to the death penalty,” Rastoptchin reflected (though Vereshtchagin had only been condemned by the senate to hard labour). “He was a spy and a traitor; I could not let him go unpunished, and so I hit two birds with one stone. I appeased the mob by giving them a victim, and I punished a miscreant.”
Reaching his house in the suburbs, the count completely regained his composure in arranging his domestic affairs.
Within half an hour the count was driving with rapid horses across the Sokolniky plain, thinking no more now of the past, but absorbed in thought and plans for what was to come. He was approaching now the Yauzsky bridge, where he had been told that Kutuzov was. In his own mind he was preparing the biting and angry speeches he would make, upbraiding Kutuzov for his deception. He would make that old court fox feel that the responsibility for all the disasters bound to follow the abandonment of Moscow, and the ruin of Russia (as Rastoptchin considered it), lay upon his old, doting head. Going over in anticipation what he would say to him, Rastoptchin wrathfully turned from side to side in the carriage, and angrily looked about him.
The Sokolniky plain was deserted. Only at one end of it, by the alms-house and lunatic asylum, there were groups of people in white garments, and similar persons were wandering about the plain, shouting and gesticulating.
One of them was running right across in front of Count Rastoptchin's carriage. And Count Rastoptchin himself and his coachman, and the dragoons, all gazed with a vague feeling of horror and curiosity at these released lunatics, and especially at the one who was running towards them.
Tottering on his long, thin legs in his fluttering dressing-gown, this madman ran at headlong speed, with his eyes fixed on Rastoptchin, shouting something to him in a husky voice, and making signs to him to stop. The gloomy and triumphant face of the madman was thin and yellow, with irregular tufts of beard growing on it. The black, agate-like pupils of his eyes moved restlessly, showing the saffron-yellow whites above. “Stay! stop, I tell you!” he shouted shrilly, and again breathlessly fell to shouting something with emphatic gestures and intonations.
He reached the carriage and ran alongside it.
“Three times they slew me, three times I rose again from the dead. They stoned me, they crucified me … I shall rise again … I shall rise again … I shall rise again. My body they tore to pieces. The kingdom of heaven will be overthrown … Three times I will overthrow it, and three times I will set it up again,” he screamed, his voice growing shriller and shriller. Count Rastoptchin suddenly turned white, as he had turned white when the crowd fell upon Vereshtchagin. He turned away. “G … go on, faster!” he cried in a trembling voice to his coachman.
The carriage dashed on at the horses' topmost speed. But for a long while yet Count Rastoptchin heard behind him the frantic, desperate scream getting further away, while before his eyes he saw nothing but the wondering, frightened, bleeding face of the traitor in the fur-lined coat. Fresh as that image was, Rastoptchin felt now that it was deeply for ever imprinted on his heart. He felt clearly now that the bloody print of that memory would never leave him, that the further he went the more cruelly, the more vindictively, would that fearful memory rankle in his heart to the end of his life. He seemed to be hearing now the sound of his own words: “Tear him to pieces, you shall answer for it to me!— Why did I say these words? I said it somehow without meaning to … I might not have said them,” he thought, “and then nothing would have happened.” He saw the terror-stricken, and then suddenly frenzied face of the dragoon who had struck the first blow, and the glance of silent, timid reproach cast on him by that lad in the fox-lined coat. “But I didn't do it on my own account. I was bound to act in that way. La plèbe … le tra?tre … le bien publique, …” he mused.
The bridge over the Yauza was still crowded with troops. It was hot. Kutuzov, looking careworn and weary, was sitting on a bench near the bridge, and playing with a whip on the sand, when a carriage rattled noisily up to him. A man in the uniform of a general, wearing a hat with plumes, came up to Kutuzov. He began addressing him in French, his eyes shifting uneasily, with a look between anger and terror in them. It was Count Rastoptchin. He told Kutuzov that he had come here, for since Moscow was no more, the army was all that was left. “It might have been very different if your highness had not told me you would not abandon Moscow without a battle; all this would not have been!” said he.
Kutuzov stared at Rastoptchin, and, as though not understanding the meaning of the words addressed to him, he strove earnestly to decipher the special meaning betrayed at that minute on the face of the man addressing him. Rastoptchin ceased speaking in discomfiture. Kutuzov slightly shook his head, and, still keeping his searching eyes on Rastoptchin's face, he murmured softly:
“Yes, I won't give up Moscow without a battle.”
Whether Kutuzov was thinking of something different when he uttered those words, or said them purposely, knowing them to be meaningless, Count Rastoptchin made him no reply, and hastily left him. And—strange to tell! the governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rastoptchin, picking up a horse whip, went to the bridge, and fell to shouting and driving on the crowded carts.
到早晨九点钟，当部队已经通过莫斯科时，再也没有谁来向伯爵请示了。所有能走的人，他们自己走了；留下来的那些人，他们自己决定该怎么办。
伯爵吩咐套马，准备到索科尔尼茨去，他皱起眉头，脸色蜡黄，抱紧胳膊默不作声地坐在办公室里。
每一位行政长官在世道太平时，都觉得只有靠了他的勤政，他治下的平民百姓才过得自在，蒸蒸日上，而当意识到非我莫属时，每个行政长官便以作为对自己劳苦和勤政的主要奖赏。故尔可以理解，只要历史的海洋风平浪静，作为统治者的行政长官，乘坐一条破船用钩竿抓挠人民的大船向前驶行，一定会觉得，被他钩着的大船是靠他的努力才前进的。但风浪一起，海上波涛汹涌，大船自动地前进。这时，便不会发生错觉了。大船以那前所未有的速度自动地航行着，当钩竿够不着前进着的航船时，统治者便突然从掌权者，力量的源泉的地位，转变为渺小的无用的虚弱的人。
拉斯托普钦感觉到这点，也正是这点使他恼火。
受到人群阻拦的警察局长，和前来报告马已套好的副官，一起走进伯爵办公室。两人脸色苍白，局长谈了执行任务的情况后，报告说，院子里有一大群民众希望见伯爵。
拉斯托普钦一言不发，起身快步走进豪华、明亮的客厅，走到了阳台门边，抓住门柄，又松开手，朝窗户走去，从那里更能看清全部人群。高个小伙子站在前几排中间，绷紧着脸，挥动着一只手在讲话。脸上糊着血的铁匠阴沉地站在他身旁。透过关闭的窗户，可听到闹哄哄的声音。
“马车准备好了？”拉斯托普钦问，离开了窗户。
“好了，爵爷。”副官说。
拉斯托普钦又走到阳台门边。
“他们有什么要求？”他问警察局长。
“钧座，他们说他们奉钧座之命准备去打法国人，又在喊叫着什么叛徒。不过这是一群暴徒，钧座。我好不容易才脱身，钧座，卑职斗胆建议……”
“请便吧，没有您我也知道怎么办，”拉斯托普钦生气地大声说。他在阳台门边往下看着人群。“他们把俄国搞成这样！他们把我也搞成这样！”拉斯托普钦想，感到心里头升起一股不可遏制的怒火，要向这笔账该记在他头上的某个人发泄。像肝火旺的人常有的情形，愤怒控制了他，但还没找到发泄对象。“La voilà la populace，la lie du peuple，”他望着人群心里想道，“la plébe qu'ils ont soulevée par leur sottise．Il leur faut une victime．”①出现在他思绪里，这时，他看到了高个小伙子挥动手臂。他之所以有这个想法，正是因为他本人就需要这件牺牲品，这个供他发泄愤怒的对象。
①这一群贱民，老百姓的败类。平民，他们的愚蠢把这些败类和贱民鼓动起来了，他们需要一个牺牲品。
“马车准备好了吗？”他又问了一次。
“好了，爵爷。您下令如何处置韦列夏金？他已被带来，在门廊旁等着。”副官说。
“噢！”拉斯托普钦大叫了一声，仿佛被意外想起的一件事震惊了。
于是，他迅速拉开门，迈着坚定的步子走上阳台。说话声突然静止，礼帽和便帽都从头上脱下，所有的眼睛都抬起来望着走出来的伯爵。
“你们好，弟兄们！”伯爵讲得又快又响亮，“谢谢你们到来。我马上下来看你们，但我们得先处置一个坏人。我们必须惩办一个使莫斯科毁掉了的坏人。请等着我！”伯爵同样快步地返回室内，砰地一声关上了门。
人群里传遍了满意和赞许的低语声。“这么说，他要惩治所有的坏家伙了！而你说，只是一个法国人……他就会把全部情况给你推开的！”人们说着，仿佛彼此责备对方不相信自己似的。
几分钟后，从正门匆匆走出一位军官，说了句什么命令，于是龙骑兵排成长列。人群离开阳台急切地涌向门廊。拉斯托普钦愤怒地快步走上门廊，急忙扫视周围，似乎在寻找谁。
“他在哪儿？”伯爵问道，就在他刚一说完这句话的同时，他看到两个龙骑兵夹着一个年轻人从屋角走了出来，这人脖子细长，剃掉半边的头又长出了短发。他身穿一件颇为漂亮的，现已破旧的蓝呢面狐皮大衣，肮脏的麻布囚裤，裤脚塞在未经擦拭且已变形的瘦小的靴子里。细瘦而无力的腿上套着脚镣，使步履蹒跚的年轻人行动更加吃力。
“噢！”拉斯托普钦说，急忙从穿狐皮袄的年轻人身上移开目光，指着门廊的最下一级台阶。“带他到这儿来，”年轻人拖响着脚镣，艰难地走到指定的台阶下，用一根指头戳开压紧的衣领，扭动了两下细长的脖领，叹了一口气，把细瘦的不干活的手叠在肚皮上，保持温顺的姿势。
在那个年轻人在梯级上站稳的几秒钟内，仍然没人作声。只是在后面几排，那里的人都往一个地方挤，听得到咕哝嘟囔，推挤和脚步移动的声音。
拉斯托普钦在等他站好的时间里，阴沉沉地用手抹了抹脸。
“弟兄们！”拉斯托普钦用金属般的洪亮嗓音说，“这个人，韦列夏金，就是那个使莫斯科毁掉了的坏人。”
穿狐皮袄的年轻人温顺地站着，手掌交叉叠在肚皮上，微微弯腰。他那绝望的憔悴的、由于头被剃得残缺不全而显得难看的年轻的脸，向下低垂着。在听到伯爵头几句话时，他缓慢地抬起头来仰望伯爵，想要对他讲话或与他对视，但拉斯托普钦不看他。年轻人的细长脖颈上，在耳后，一根青筋像一条绳子那样鼓起来，随后，脸色突然发红。
所有的目光一齐射向他。他看了看人群，似乎从他们脸上看到尚有希望的表情，他凄惨而悄然地笑了一笑，又低下了头，移动好站在阶梯上的双脚。
“他背叛了自己的皇上和祖国，他效忠波拿巴，就是他玷污了俄国人的名声，并且，因为他莫斯科才毁掉了的，”拉斯托普钦从容地尖起嗓子讲述着；但突然飞快地往下面看了一眼韦列夏金，这人依然是一副温顺的模样。仿佛他被这一瞥激怒了，他举起手几乎喊叫地对这群人说：“你们自己来审判他吧！我把他交给你们！”
这群人默不作声，只是挤得愈来愈紧，互相偎靠着，呼吸着这股被感染了的窒息的空气，没有力气移动身子，等待着某种不可知的不可理解的可怕事情发生，是教人难以忍受的。前排的人对一切情形看得清楚听得明白，都恐怖地睁大眼睛，张大嘴巴，鼓足了劲，挺直了腰，挡住后面的人的推挤。
“打他！……让这个叛徒完蛋，不许他有损俄国人的名声！”拉斯托普钦喊着。“用刀砍！我命令！”没听清楚讲话，却听清伯爵愤怒声音的人群，骚动起来，并往前挤，随后又停了下来。
“伯爵！……”在又一次出现的短暂的寂静中，响起了韦列夏金胆怯而又铿锵的说话声。“伯爵，我们的头上，有一个上帝……”韦列夏金说，他抬起了头，细小的脖颈上那根粗血管又充血了，鼓胀起来，红潮很快泛上他的面庞，又很快地消失。他没有把他要说的话说完。
“砍他的头！我命令……”拉斯托普钦吼叫之后，突然脸色刷白，像韦列夏金一样。
“刀出鞘！”军官向龙骑兵发出口令，本人也拔出了军刀。
人群又一次地更为猛烈地涌动起来，涌动的波浪到达前排后，竟摇晃着涌上门廊的台阶。高个小伙子于是同韦列复金并排站在一起，脸上的表情呆若石头，举起的那只手也僵着不放下来。
“砍！”军官对龙骑兵的说话声几乎是耳语，于是，一个士兵突然恶狠狠扭曲着脸，举起一把钝马刀砍向韦列夏金的头部。
“啊！”韦列夏金吃惊地叫了一声，恐惧地环顾四周，似乎还不明白，为什么这事发生在他身上。人群同样发出恐惧的惊叹。
“哦，上帝！”不知谁发出悲伤的叹息。
韦列复金在发出那声惊叫之后，紧接着又痛得他可怜地呼喊，而这一声呼喊倒要了他的命。压力达到极限的人类感情的堤防，刚才还控制着人群，现在顷刻瓦解了。罪行既然开了头，就必须会把它干到底。责难的哀吟，淹没在人群雷霆怒吼之中。这最后一次不可遏制的波浪，就像最后的，击碎船只的七级浪一样利害，从后面几排涌到前排，冲倒他们，吞没了一切。砍了一刀的龙骑兵想再砍一刀。韦列夏金恐怖的叫着，抱头跑向人群。高个小伙子被他撞了一下，趁势伸出两手卡住韦列夏金细长的脖颈，狂叫着和他一起跌倒在挤成一团的吼叫着的人群脚下。
一些人扭打韦列夏金，另一些人扭打高个小伙子。被压在下面的人的喊叫，和奋力救助高个小伙子的人的呼喊，只激起了人群的狂怒。很长时间，龙骑兵老是解救不出那个满脸是血，被打得半死的工人。尽管人群迫不及待地奋力要把已经开了头的事情进行到底，但很长时间，那些扑打韦列夏金，想要卡死他撕碎他的人，都未能整治死他；人群从各个方向朝他们压过来，以他们为中心，形成一团板块，从一边到另一边地晃来晃去，既不让他们有机会打死他，又不让他们放掉他。
“用斧子砍呀，怎么样？……压成团了……叛徒，出卖了基督！……活着……还活着……恶人活该受罪。用门闩揍！
……还没死啊！”
直到牺牲品不再挣扎，它的呐喊变成有节奏的悠长的嘶哑的喘息，人群方才匆忙离开倒在地上浑身是血的尸体。刚才得以接近并且目睹这一情景的每一个人，此刻带着恐怖、责备、惊慌的神情纷纷朝后边挤去。
“哦，上帝，人跟野兽一样，哪儿有活路哟！”人群里有人说。“小小的年纪……怕是买卖人家的孩子，那样的一帮人啊！……据说，不是那一个……怎么不是那一个……呵，上帝！……听说还有一个挨了打，差不多要死了……唉，这些人啊……不怕作孽……”那些人现在又这样说，用病态的怜悯的表情看着尸体，血淋淋的发青的脸上沾满尘土，细长的脖颈被砍烂了。
一名忠于职守的警官，发觉尸体摆在大人院内不像话，有碍观瞻，命令龙骑兵把它拖到街上去。两名龙骑兵抓起打得变了形的腿，拖走尸体。血迹斑斑，糊满尘土，已经僵死的细脖子上的剃了半边的脑袋，动来动去地在地上拖着。人群挤着让开尸体。
在韦列夏金倒地，人群狂叫着挤到他身旁，前仰后翻，东倒西歪时，拉斯托普钦突然脸色苍白，他不是朝着在那里等候他上马车的后门廊走去，而是低下了头，不由自主地沿着通往下面一层房间的走廊快步地走。他自己也不知道去什么地方，为什么这样走，伯爵的面容苍白，下巴颏像害疟疾般不住停地发抖。
“爵爷，往这边……您这是往哪儿？……请这边走。”他身后一个害怕得发抖的声音说。
拉斯托普钦已无力答话，只是顺从地转过身来，朝指给他的方向去。后门廊下停着一辆轻便马车。隔得远了的汹涌的人声，在这里仍可听到。拉斯托普钦匆匆坐上马车，吩咐驶往他在索科尔尼茨的郊外别墅。行至肉铺街，再也听不到人群的哄闹声之后，伯爵开始感到后悔。他现在懊恼地回想起他在下层面前表现出的激动和惶恐不安。“La populace est terrible，elle est hideuse，”他用法语这样想。“Ils sont comme les loups qu'on ne peut apaiser qua'vecde la chair．”①“伯爵，我们的头上有一个上帝！”他突然想起韦列夏金这句话，一阵不愉快的寒战，透过他的脊梁骨。但只是短暂的一瞬，拉斯托普钦伯爵轻蔑地嘲笑了一下自己。“J'avais d'autres devoirs，”他想，“Il fallait apaiser le peuple．Bien d'autres victimes ont péri et périssent pour le bien publique．”②于是，他转而去想他所担负的责任：对他的家庭，对他的（即委托给他的）都城，以及对他自己所负的责任——不是想费多尔·瓦西里耶维奇·拉斯普钦（他认为费·瓦·拉斯托普钦正为bien publique③作自我牺牲），而是想那个作为总督，权力的代表和沙皇的全权代表的他。“如果我仅仅是费多尔·瓦西里耶维奇，ma ligne de condnite auraite été tout autrement tracée④，但我应既保住生命，又保持总督之尊严。”
①民众成群结队是可怕的，真讨厌。他们像狼群，除了肉，别的东西什么也满足不了他们。
②我有另外的职责（即安定民心——原编者注）。许多牺牲品已经并仍将为公众利益遭到灭亡。
③公众利益。
④我的道路将完全是另一个样子。
拉斯托普钦坐在马车柔软的弹簧座上轻轻摇晃着，再也听不到人群可怕的叫喊，他在生理上已趋平静，于是又像通常那样，随着生理上的平静，理智也为他构想出使精神趋于平静的理由。使拉斯托普钦心地安宁的那一思想并不新鲜。自世界之存在及人们相互残杀之时日起，任何人犯下类似的罪行时，总是以这一思想安慰自己。这一思想便是le bien publique①，别人的利益。
对于未陷入嗜欲的人来说，此种福利总是不可知的；但一个正在犯下罪行的人，却总是十分清楚这一福利之所在。拉斯托普钦此刻就很清楚。
他不仅依随自己的成见不责备自己所作出的行为，反而找到了自我满足的理由，非常成功地利用这一à proBpos②——既惩治了罪犯，又安定了民众。
“韦列夏金已受审，并判了死刑，”拉斯托普钦想（虽然韦列夏金只由枢密院判服苦役）。“他是卖国贼和叛徒；我不能使他免于刑罚，而且是je faisais d'une pierre deux coups③；为了保持安定，我让民众处置牺牲品，惩罚了坏人。”
①公众利益。
②恰当的时机。
③一石二鸟。
驶抵郊外别墅，作了些家务安排，伯爵完全心平气和了。
半小时之后，伯爵换乘快马拉的马车经过索科尔尼茨田野时，已不再回想曾经发生的事，只思考和想象着将要发生的事情。他现在是去雅乌兹桥，他被告知库图佐夫在那里。拉斯托普钦伯爵想出一些愤怒而尖刻的言辞，准备用来对库图佐夫的欺瞒加以责备。他要让这头御前老狐狸知道，放弃故都，毁灭俄国（拉斯托普钦是这样认为）。引起的种种不幸，责任在于他这个老糊涂。拉斯托普钦预先想过一遍要对他说的话之后，就愤怒地在马车里转动身躯，怒气向四下张望。
索科尔尼茨田野一片荒凉。只是在它的尽头，在养老院和疯人院旁边，见到一堆堆穿白衣衫的人，其中有几人单个地在田野上走着，一边吼叫，一边挥动胳膊。
这几人中的一个跑着横穿过拉斯托普钦伯爵马车行驶的路。伯爵本人，以及车夫和龙骑兵们，都略带惊恐和好奇地看着这些放出来的疯子，尤其是那个跑到他们跟前来的人。这人摇晃着细长的瘦腿，长衫飘动着，拼命追着马车跑，两眼紧盯拉斯托普钦，用嘶哑的嗓子对他喊，并比划着要他停车。疯子的胡须浓密而又参差不齐，忧郁而严肃的面孔又瘦又黄。黑色的玛瑙般的瞳仁在黄而发红的眼白里低垂地、惊慌地转动着。
“停！别动！我说！”他尖叫着，又用威严的音调和姿势，喘息着喊些什么。
他赶上马车，与它并排跑着。
“他们杀死我三次，我三次从死尸复活。他们用石头打我，把我钉上十字架……我将复活……将复活……复活。他们撕碎了我的身躯。天国要毁灭……我摧毁它三次，重建它三次，”他嚷叫着，嗓门愈来愈高。拉斯托普钦伯爵脸色突然苍白，就像人群扑向韦列夏金时他的脸色发白一样。他转过头去。“走……走快点！”他用颤抖的声音对车夫喊道。
马车全速飞驰；但伯爵很久都还听到身后渐远渐弱的疯子的绝望的呼喊，而眼前则见到那个身穿狐皮大衣的惊惶的满是血迹的叛徒的脸。
这一切都还记忆犹新，拉斯托普钦现在感到它已深入自己血液嵌入内心了。他现在清楚地意识到，这记忆中的血痕将永不消失，并且相反，时间愈久，这一可怕的记忆在他心上会愈加折磨他，愈加令他难受。他现在似乎听到自己说话的声音：“砍死他，你们砍下头来回报我！”“为什么我说这句话！大概是偶然说的……我本来可以不说（他想），那就什么事都不会有了。”他看到那个砍人的士兵的恐惧而又突然变得凶狠的面孔，看见那个穿狐皮大衣的年轻人向他投射过来的胆怯的无言的责备的目光……“但我不是为自己这样作的。我必须这样作。La plèbe，le traitre ……le bien publique．”①他想。
①平民，叛徒……公众利益。
雅乌兹桥头，军队仍十分拥挤。天气很热。阴沉忧郁的库图佐夫坐在桥边一条凳子上，用鞭子玩弄沙土，这时有一辆马车隆隆向他驶来。一位身穿将军服，戴羽饰帽，不知他是愤怒，还是恐惧，眼睛珠子不停地乱转，他走到库图佐夫身旁，用法语向他讲起话来。这就是拉斯托普钦伯爵。他向库图佐夫说，莫斯科故都已经不存在了，剩下的唯有军队。
“如果钧座不告诉我，您本来不会不战而拱手让出莫斯科，这一切就都不会发生，结局就不同啦！”他说。
库图佐夫望着拉斯托普钦，好像不明白他说的这番话的意义，并且费力地想看出此刻说话人脸上的特殊表情。拉斯托普钦赧颜地沉默了。库图佐夫微微摇头，探询的目光仍盯着拉斯托普钦的脸，悄声地说：
“不，我不会不战而交出莫斯科的。”
库图佐夫说这句话时想着完全不同的事情也好，或是明知其无意义不过说说而已也好，拉斯托普钦伯爵倒没再说什么，匆匆离开了库图佐夫。真是怪事！莫斯科总督，骄傲的拉斯托普钦伯爵拿起一根短皮鞭，走到桥头，开始吆喝起来驱赶挤成一团的大车。
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