Briggs: The killing of Vereshchagin. Lunatics on the loose. Kutuzov at the bridge.
Pevear and Volokhonsky: Count Rastopchin seeks a victim. He speaks to the mob. The killing of Vereshchagin. Rastopchin flees Moscow. His meeting with Kutuzov.
Translation:
XXV.
At the 9th hour of the morning, when the troops now moved through Moscow, no one came to ask for more orders from the count. All who could go, rode by themselves; those who stayed, decided with themselves that they needed to go.
The count told to serve the horses, so to go to Sokolniki and, frowning, yellow and silent, folding his hands, sat in his office.
To each administrator in calm, reasonable times it seems that only his efforts move all his subordinate population, and at this consciousness of their need every administrator feels the main reward for their proceedings and efforts. They understand that since, while the historical sea is calm, the ruler administrator, with his fragile boat resting on a pole in the ship of the people, and the very moving of it must seem that his efforts move the ship in which he rests. But the cost goes up to storm, to worry the sea and to move the very ship, and then really the delusion is impossible. The ship is going by its huge, independent underway pole not getting to the moving ship, and the ruler suddenly from the situation of ruler, the source of forces goes over to a worthless, useless and weak human.
Rastopchin felt this, and this annoyed him.
The police chief who stopped the crowd, and the adjutant who came to report that the horses were ready, together entered to the count. Both were pale, and the police chief, delivering about the performance of their errands, informed that in the courtyard of the count stood a huge crowd of people, willing to see him.
Rastopchin, in words not answering, got up and in fast steps directed to his luxurious bright living room, came up to the door of the balcony, took for it with his hand, removed it and moved to the window, from which was more visible all the crowd. The little one stood in the front ranks and with a strict face, swinging his hand, spoke something. The bloody blacksmith with a gloomy look stood beside him. Through the covered window was heard a rumble of voices.
— The crew ready? — said Rastopchin, walking away from the window.
— Ready, your excellency, — said the adjutant. Rastopchin again came up to the door of the balcony.
— And what do they want? — he asked the police chief.
— Your excellency, they speak that they gathered to go to the French by your orders, about treason someone shouted. Yet an exuberant crowd, your excellency. I forcibly left. Your excellency, I dare to propose...
— Please go, I without you know what to do, — angrily shouted Rastopchin. He stood at the door of the balcony, looking at the crowd. "Here is what they have done with Russia! Here is what they have done to me!" thought Rastopchin, feeling the lift in his soul of irrepressible wrath against someone that he could ascribe the cause of what happened. As this often can be with hot people, his wrath already controlled him, but he sought still for him a subject. "It is that black, scum of the population," he thought, looking at the crowd, "plebeians, which lifted their stupidity! They need a victim,"785 had come in his head, looking at the waving hand of the little one. And because this had come into his head that needed was a victim, this subject for his anger.
— Is the crew ready? — another time he asked.
— Ready, your excellency. What do you order about Vereshchagin? He waits at the porch, — was the response of the adjutant.
— Ah! — cried out Rastopchin, as somehow stricken with an unexpected memory.
And, fastly opening the door, he got out with decisive steps to the balcony. The dialect suddenly fell silent, hats and caps were taken off, and all eyes were risen to the released count.
— Hello, guys! — said the count fast and loudly. — Thanks for coming. I now come to you, but before we only need to manage with villians. We need to punish the villain from whom was killed Moscow. Hold to me! — and the count so the same quickly returned to the chambers, hard slamming the door.
By the crowd ran an approving murmur of pleasure. "He means the villains will be managed of course! But you speak French... he all distance will untie!" — said the people, as if reproaching each other in his disbelief.
In a few minutes from the parade doors hastily got out the officer, ordering something, and the dragoons pulled out. The crowd from the balcony greedily moved to the porch. Coming with angry fast steps on the porch, Rastopchin hastily turned back around himself, as would be looking for someone.
— Where is he? — said the count, and at that same moment as he said this, he saw from behind the corner of the home coming out between two dragoons a young man with a long subtle neck, with his head half shaved and overgrown. This young person was dressed in a sometime dapper, covered in blue cloth, shabby fox sheepskin coat and in the dirty bedside of prisoner’s trousers, shoved in uncleaned, worn out subtle boots. On thin, weak legs heavily hung shackles, impeding the indecisive gait of the young man.
— Ah! — said Rastopchin, hastily turning away his look from the young man in fox sheepskin and pointing to the lower step of the porch. "Put him here!" The young person, clanking shackles, heavily stepped over at the indicated step, holding with a finger the pressed collar of his sheepskin coat, turning two times his long neck and sighing, the submissive gesture folding up before his stomach his subtle, non-working hand.
For a few seconds, while the young person was installed on the step, went on silence. Only in the rear ranks crushing to one place were people heard groaning, moans, tremors and the clattering of rearranged feet.
Rastopchin, expecting for him to stop in the pointed location, frowning, rubbed his hand with his face.
— Guys! — said Rastopchin’s metallically voice, — This person, Vereshchagin— that very bastard from which was killed Moscow.
The young person in fox sheepskin stood in a submissive pose, folding the wrists of his hands together before his stomach and little bending over. Emaciated with a hopeless expression, his disfigured shaved head and young face was omitted downwards. At the first words of the count he slowly raised his head and looked from below at the count, as would be wishing to say something to him or though to meet his look. Yet Rastopchin did not watch him. The long fine neck of the young man, as a rope, strained and turned blue behind his ear, and suddenly his face blushed.
All eyes were directed on him. He looked at the crowd and, as would be hopeful by that expression, which he read on the face of people, he sadly and timidly smiled and, again lowering his head, mended his feet on the step.
— He changed his tsar and homeland, he spread Bonaparte, he of all Russians disgraced the name of the Russian, and from him is killed Moscow, — spoke Rastopchin in an even, sharp voice; but suddenly quickly looked downwards at Vereshchagin, continuing to stand in that same submissive pose. As if this look blew him up, he, holding up his arm, shouting almost, turned to the people: — His court spread out with him! Give him back to you!
The people kept silent and only all closer and closer pressed to each other. To keep each other, breathing in this infected stuffiness, not having the forces to move and wait for something unknown, incomprehensible and scary, became unbearable. The people, standing in the front ranks, who had seen and heard all that what was happening before them, all with scared, wide open eyes and open mouths, straining all their forces, held on their backs the pressure of the rear.
— Beat him!.. Let‘s kill the traitor and not shame the name of Russia! — shouted Rastopchin. — Cut! I order! — upon hearing not the words, but the angry sounds of the voice of Rastopchin, the crowd groaned and moved forward, but again stopped.
— Count!.. — spoke among again the coming minute of silence of timid and together theatrical voice of Vereshchagin. — Count, one God above us..., — said Vereshchagin, holding up his head, and again pouring thick blood lived on his fine neck, and color came fast forward and ran away from his face. He did not finish talking what he wanted to say.
— Cut him! I order!.. — screamed Rastopchin, suddenly becoming pale so the same as Vereshchagin.
— Sabers out! — shouted the officer of the dragoons, himself taking out his saber.
Another still stronger wave soared by the people and, having reached to the front ranks, this wave moved to the front and wobbling, was brought to the very steps of the porch. The little one, with a petrified expression on his face and stopping to raise his hand, stood nearby with Vereshchagin.
— Cut! — almost whispered the officer of the dragoons, and one of the soldiers suddenly with a distorted maliced face stroked Vereshchagin with the blunt broadsword by the head.
"Ah!" shortly and surprisingly cried out Vereshchagin, scaredly looking back and as if not understanding what for this was done with him. Such the same moan of wonder and horror ran by the crowd.
"Oh Lord!" was heard someone's sad exclamation.
Yet following behind the exclamation of wonder, escaping in Vereshchagin, he pitifully cried out from pain, and this shout ruined him. That pulled to a higher extent block of human feeling, which still held the crowd, broke instantly. The crime was begun, and it was necessary to complete it. A complaining moan of reproach was drowned out by the formidable and angry roar of the crowd. As the last seventh shaft breaks ships, soared from the rear ranks this last unstoppable wave, coming to the front, knocked them down and swallowed all. The stroking dragoon wanted to repeat their stroke. Vereshchagin with screaming horror, shielding his hands, rushed to the people. The little one, to whom he stumbled, grabbed with his hands the thin neck of Vereshchagin and with wild screaming, with him together, fell under the legs of the piled up roaring people.
One beat and tore Vereshchagin, the other the little one. And the shouting crushed people and those that tried to save the little one, only excited the rage of the crowd. For long the dragoons could not free the bloody half to death beaten factory worker. And for long, despite all the feverish haste, with which the crowd tried to complete the time begun business, those people which beat, choked and tore Vereshchagin, could not kill him; the crowd pressed them with all parties, swayed with them in the mid, as one mass, from the parties at the side was not given the opportunity to finish him off, or to throw him.
"Whether he is beat?... Crushed... Apostate, Christ sold!.. Alive... Living... by the business of a flour thief. That constipation!.. Alive!"
Only now when stopped the fight of the victim and his screams were replaced by the uniform lingering wheezing, the crowd began to hastily travel about the lying bloody body. All approached, looking at that what was done, and with horror, reproach and surprise crowded backwards.
"Oh Lord, that people as animal, where the same may be alive!" was heard in the crowd. "And that little young one... must be from the merchants, some people!., say not that... how the same not that...Oh Lord!.. Another beaten, they say, a little bit alive... Oh, people...Who sins not afraid..." said now those same people, with a painfully pitiful expression looking at the dead body with turning blue smeared blood and the dusty face with the chopped long, subtle neck.
The trying hard police civil servant, finding indecent the presence of a body in the courtyard of his excellency, ordered the dragoons to pull out the body in the street. Two dragoons took for the disfigured legs and dragged the body. The bloodstained dirtied in dust, dead, shaved head on the long neck, twisted and dragged by the land. The people huddled away from the body.
In that time as Vereshchagin fell, and the crowd with a wild shy roar hesitated above him, Rastopchin suddenly became pale and, instead so to go to the back porch, at which was waiting his horses, he, himself not knowing where and what for, lowered his head, with fast steps went by the corridor, leading to the room’s bottom floor. The face of the count was pale, and he could not stop shaking as in a feverish lower jaw.
— Your excellency here... where please?., here please, — spoke back his tremble, scared voice. Count Rastopchin was not in the force to respond, and obediently turning, went there, to where he was pointed. At the rear porch stood a carriage. Far away the rumble of the roaring crowd was heard here. Count Rastopchin hastily sat down in the seat and told to go to his country house at Sokolniki. Leaving on Myasnitskaya and not hearing more screams of the crowd, the count began to repent. He with displeasure remembered now the excitement and fright that he showed before his own subordinates. “The folk crowd is scary, it is disgusting,” he thought in French, “They are as wolves: they are not satisfied besides by meat.”786 "Count! One God above us!" he suddenly remembered the words of Vereshchagin, and an unpleasant sense of cold ran by the back of Count Rastopchin. Yet this sense was instant, and Count Rastopchin contemptuously smiled above himself. "In me were other responsibilities," he thought. “The need was to reassure people. Many other sacrifices died and die for the public good,”787 and he began to think about those common responsibilities that he had in regarding his family, his (entrusted to him) capital and about mostly himself — not as about Fedor Vasilevich Rastopchin (he believed that Fedor Vasilevich Rastopchin donates himself for the public good,),788 but about himself as commander in chief, the representative of authorities and authorized by the tsar. "If I was only Fedor Vasilevich, my way would be totally otherwise inscribed.789 Yet I should keep the life and dignity of commander in chief."
A little swaying in the soft springs of the crew and not hearing more scary noises of the crowd, Rastopchin physically calmed down, and, as this always is, at the same time with physical tranquility the mind faked for him causes of moral reassurance. The idea calming Rastopchin was not new. Since exists in the world people killing each other, not one person committed crimes above himself similar, not reassuring to himself with this thought. This idea is the public good790, the good of other people.
For a human, not obsessed with passion, this good is never known; but a person, committing a crime, always rightly knows, in this consists this good. And Rastopchin now knew this.
He not only in his reason did not reproach himself in making this act, but found causes of complacency in that he was so fortunate to be able to benefit from this comfortable case791 — to punish a criminal and together with that reassure the crowd.
"Vereshchagin was judged and sentenced to mortal execution" thought Rastopchin (although Vereshchagin by the Senate was only sentenced to convict work). He was a betrayer and traitor; I could not leave him unpunished, and then I by one rock was doing two blows;792 I for reassurance gave back the victim to the people and executed the villain."
Having arrived in his country house and occupying home orders, the count completely calmed down.
In half an hour the count rode on fast horses across Sokolniki field, now not remembering about what was, and thought and thinking only about what will be. He rode now to Yauzsky bridge, where, to him it was said, was Kutuzov. Count Rastopchin prepared in his imagination those angry and prickly reproaches that he would express to Kutuzov for his cheating. He would give the feeling to this old courtier fox that the liability for all misfortunes, having to happen from the abandonment of the capitals, from the destruction of Russia (as thought Rastopchin) lied down alone on the survivor of the mind, the old head. Pondering forward that what he will say to him, Rastopchin angrily turned in the carriage and angrily looked around by the sides.
Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, at the almshouses and the yellow home, were seen heaps of people in white clothes and a few of these same people that alone went by the weeds, shouted something and swung hands.
One of them ran across the carriage of Count Rastopchin. And Count Rastopchin himself, and his coachman, and the dragoons, all looked with a vague feeling of horror and curiosity at these issued crazy and in particular at this which ran up to him.
Staggering on their long, thin legs, in a fluttering smock, this crazy swiftly ran, not lowering his eyes from Rastopchin, shouting to him something in a hoarse voice and making signs for him to stop. With overgrown uneven patches of beard, the gloomy and solemn face of the crazy was badly yellow. His black, agate pupils ran low and uneasily by saffron yellow whites.
— Stop! Stop! I speak! — he screamed piercingly and again gasping for breath shouted something with impressive intonations and gestures.
He was equal with the carriage and ran nearby with it.
— Thrice I was killed, thrice resurrected from the dead. They beat me with stones, crucified me... I rise again... rise again... rise again. Tore apart my body. The kingdom of God is destroyed... thrice destroyed and thrice it is erected, — he shouted, all raising and raising his voice. Count Rastopchin suddenly became pale, so, as he became pale when the crowd threw on Vereshchagin. He turned away. Posh... go rather! — he shouted at the coachman in a trembling voice.
The carriage rushed in all the legs of the horses; but for long still behind himself Count Rastopchin heard the distant crazy desperate shout, but before his eyes saw only the surprised, scared, bloody face of the traitor in the fur sheepskin.
As fresh as was this memory, Rastopchin felt now that it was deep, to the blood, crashing in his heart. He clearly felt now that the bloody footprint of these memories will never heal, but that, the opposite, the farther, by that the angrier, more painfully will live to the end of his life this scary memory in his heart. He heard, to him it seemed now, the sounds of his words: "cut him, your head will answer me!" —"What for I said these words! That as accidentally said... I could not say them (he thought): so nothing would be." He saw the scared and then suddenly bitter face of the stroking dragoon and the look of silent, timid reproach, which threw on him this boy in the fox sheepskin coat..."Yet I not for myself did this. I should have done so. Black, villain…the public good,"793 he thought.
At the Yauzsky bridge all still crowded the army. It was hot. Kutuzov, frowning, dull, sat on a bench about the bridge and played by the sand with a whip, when a noise jumped up to his carriage. A person in a general's uniform, in a hat with a plume, running, with not that angry, not that scared eyes, came up to Kutuzov and began in French to speak to him something. This was Count Rastopchin. He spoke to Kutuzov that appeared here, because of how Moscow and the capitals were no more, and is alone the army.
— It would be another, if your lordship would not have said to me that you would not hand over Moscow, not having given another battle: only this would not be! — he said.
Kutuzov saw Rastopchin and, as if not understanding the meanings in the converted to him words, carefully and intensely read something special, written on in this moment the face of who spoke with him. Rastopchin, embarrassed, fell silent. Kutuzov a little shook his head and, not lowering the testing sight with the face of Rastopchin, quietly spoke:
— Yes, I will not give Moscow not giving a battle.
Whether thinking Kutuzov was completely about another, saying these words, or purposely knowing their meaninglessness saying them, Count Rastopchin did not reply and hastily walked away from Kutuzov. and strange business! The commander in chief of Moscow, the proud Count Rastopchin, taking in hand a whip, came up to the bridge and began with screaming to disperse the crowding wagons.
785 La voilà la populace, la lie du peuple, la plèbe qu’ils ont soulevee par leur sottise. Il leur faut une victime (Here is the populace, the dregs of the people, the plebs they raised by their foolishness. They must have a victim)
786 "La populace est terrible, elle est hideuse" "Ils sont comme les loups qu'on ne peut apaiser qu'avec de la chair" ("The populace is terrible, it is hideous" "They are like wolves that can only be appeased with flesh")
787 J’avais d’autres devoirs. "Il fallait apaiser le peuple. Bien d’autres victimes ont peri et perissent pour le bien publique" (I had other duties. "We had to appease the people. Many other victims perished and perish for the public good")
788 bien publique (public good)
789 ma ligne de conduite aurait été tout autrement tracée, (my course of action would have been very differently drawn,)
790 le bien publique (the public good)
791 à propos (in regards to)
792 je faisais d’une pierre deux coups; (I was killing two birds with one stone;)
793 La plèbe, le traître... le bien publique (The plebs, the traitor...the public good)
Mentioned: a few minutes later, half an hour later
Locations: Moscow, Myasnitskaya Street, Yauza Bridge
Mentioned: Sokolniki, French, Russia, Rostopchin's suburban house
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: We stay with Rastopchin as Tolstoy writes about administrators: "To every administrator, in peaceful, unstormy times, it seems that the entire population entrusted to him moves only by his efforts...But once a storm arises, the sea churns up, and the ship begins to move by itself, and then the delusion is no longer possible."
As the police chief arrives, we see the tall fellow and the blood-smeared blacksmith again. Rastopchin decides the crowds needs a victim as he is asked what to do with Vereshchagin. Rastopchin claims that Vereshchagin is the reason ruin has come to Moscow. Interestingly, Tolstoy has Vereshchagin wanting to meet Rastopchin's eyes, but Rastopchin failing to do so. Rastopchin tries to hand him over to the crowd and have them kill him, but the crowd hesitates. Finally, the soldiers are ordered to pull out their swords and one of them strike. "The crime had begun, it was necessary to go through with it." We go back to the ship analogy and the tall factory worker gets tied together and nearly beaten to death.
Rastopchin's reaction is one of fear and a "feverish trembling of his lower jaw." Rastopchin comforts himself by saying that the mob had to be appeased through violence. He also separates his private actions from his public life as Prince Andrei did of Napoleon early in the novel.
"As long as the world has existed and people have been killing each other, no one man has ever committed a crime upon his own kind without calming himself with this same thought."
Apparent line break after "And Rastopchin now knew it."
Tolstoy makes a nice parenthetical about how Vereshchagin was only sentenced with hard labor. While he is thinking about what he will say to Kutuzov, Rastopchin's carriage is chased by a mad man quoting apocalyptic biblical passages. He begins to feel regret and tries to justify his actions. Line break after "le bien publique," he thought."
We now flip to Kutuzov with Rastopchin approaching him. Kutuzov notably looks right at Rastopchin's face while saying that he won't give up Moscow without offering battle, which motivates Rastopchin to take a whip and breaking up the clusters at the bridge.
Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):
Count Feodor Vasilyevitch Rostopchin (also referred to as "the pilot-administrator", as with the fictional ship pilot. Also his adjutant. Also called "illustriousness" and "governor-general." See chapter 69 for variations on Feodor. See chapter 8 for variations on Vasilyevitch.)
Vereshchagin (also "villain", "traitor", and often referred to as "young man".)
Alexander ("Tsar")
Napoleon ("Bonaparte")
Kutuzof
Abridged Versions: Line break after "mob surged away from the corpse" in Dole.
Line break after "the safety of the public" in Bell. Line break in same place in Dunnigan and Maude.
End of chapter is end of chapter 18 in Bell.
Gibian: End of Chapter 12.
Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.
Komroff: The discussion about the role of administrators is removed. The tall factory worker is cut around. The reflections and justifications Rostopchin makes are almost entirely removed. The episode with the lunatic is also absent. Line break after the Kutuzof episode.
Kropotkin: The discussion about the role of administrators is removed. The tall factory worker is cut around. Line break after "The mob surged away from the corpse." The reflections and justifications Rostopchin makes are much shorter. The episode with the lunatic is also absent. The Kutuzof episode ends chapter 10.
Bromfield: No apparent corresponding chapter.
Simmons: The reflections on the pilot of the ship and the lunatic are removed. End of Chapter 12.
Additional Notes:
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