‘Where is he?’ he said, and the moment he said it he caught sight of a young man with a long, thin neck, and the shaven half of his head covered with a short stubble, coming round the corner of the building between two dragoons. This young man was wearing a thin blue coat with a fox-fur lining that had once looked very smart, and a filthy pair of rough and baggy convict’s trousers with the bottoms shoved down into a pair of dirty boots that had worn thin. His feeble and spindly legs were heavily shackled and he was finding it difficult to walk properly.
‘Ah!’ said Rostopchin, hurriedly averting his eyes from the young man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step. ‘Place him there.’
Clanking his shackles, the young man struggled to his appointed place on the step. Running a finger round the inside of his coat-collar, which was too tight, he turned his long neck this way and that, and then gave a deep sigh as he folded his thin hands (not the hands of a workman) over his stomach in a gesture of resignation.
For several seconds, while the young man was getting himself up on to the step, there was complete silence. Only at the back of the crowd, with everybody pressing forward in the same direction, was there any noise: some grunting and groaning amid all the pushing and shoving.
Rostopchin scowled and passed a hand over his face as he waited for him to arrive at the appointed spot.
‘Listen, men!’ he said, with a metallic ring to his voice. ‘This man, Vereshchagin, is the swine that has lost Moscow for us.’
The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little and showing no resistance, stood there with hands still clasped together over his stomach. His haggard young face, with its look of despair and hideously disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down. At these opening words he slowly raised his head and looked up at the count from below, as if he wanted to say something to him, or at least to catch his eye. But Rostopchin kept his eyes away from him. A blue vein behind the young man’s ear stood out like a cord on his long, thin neck, and suddenly his face coloured up.
All eyes were on him. He stared out at the crowd, and, as if detecting signs of encouragement on the faces before him, he gave a pathetic little smile and looked down again, shuffling his feet on the step.
‘He is a traitor to his Tsar and his country. He went over to Bonaparte. He is the only Russian to have disgraced a Russian name. It is because of him that we are losing Moscow,’ said Rostopchin in a grating monotone, and suddenly he took a quick glance down at Vereshchagin, who was still standing there in the same attitude of resignation. As if to indicate that one look at him was the last straw, he raised a fist in the air and virtually screamed at the crowd:
‘You judge him! Do what you want with him!’
The people were silent; all they did was squeeze up closer. Clutching at each other, struggling to breathe in that highly charged, stifling atmosphere, unable to move, vaguely sensing the approach of some indescribable horror, the mob could not take much more. The men at the front who had seen and heard all that had gone on before them stood there horror-stricken with wide eyes and gaping mouths, straining their backs to resist the pressure from behind.
‘Give him a thrashing! . . . Let this traitor die and no longer disgrace the name of a Russian citizen!’ screamed Rostopchin. ‘Kill him! That’s an order!’
No one could hear what Rostopchin was saying, but the fury in his voice was enough to send a deep groan through the mob and make them surge forward. But then once again they stopped.
‘Count!’ Vereshchagin’s timid yet theatrical voice cut across the momentary silence. ‘Count, God above is our only . . .’ said Vereshchagin, looking up, and again the thick vein pulsated with blood on his thin neck. The colour raced to his cheeks and just as quickly faded. He never finished what he had started to say.
‘Kill him! That’s an order!’ yelled Rostopchin, suddenly as white as Vereshchagin himself.
‘Sabres at the ready!’ shouted the officer to the dragoons, drawing his own weapon.
Another wave, now overwhelming, swept through the crowd from back to front, shoving everybody forward, and sent those at the front staggering over to the bottom steps. The tall young man, with a stony look on his face, found himself right next to Vereshchagin, with his fist still rigid in the air.
‘Hit him!’ the officer said to the dragoons in a voice not much more than a whisper, and one of the soldiers, his face suddenly contorted with fury, lashed Vereshchagin on the head with the flat of his sword.
Vereshchagin gave a quick gasp of surprise, and looked round in alarm, as if he couldn’t understand why they had done this to him. An echoing gasp of surprise and horror ran through the crowd.
