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.
