THE COMMOTION among the peoples begins to subside. —
人群中的骚动逐渐平息。 —

The waves of the great tempest begin to abate, and eddies begin to be formed about the calmer surface where diplomatists are busy, fancying the calm is their work.
巨大暴风雨的波浪开始平息，涡流开始在较平静的水面上形成，外交家们忙碌着，以为这平静是他们的功劳。

But all at once the quiet sea is convulsed again. —
但突然之间，宁静的海洋再次翻腾。 —

The diplomatists imagine that they, their disagreements, are the cause of this fresh disturbance; —
外交官们以为是他们的分歧引起了这次新的动荡； —

they look for wars between their sovereigns; the position seems insoluble. —
他们预料到各国之间会爆发战争；局势看似不可解。 —

But the storm they feel brewing does not come from the quarter where they look for it. —
但是，他们感到酝酿中的风暴并不来自他们所期待的方向。 —

It rises again from the same starting point—Paris. The last backwash of the westward movement follows—the backwash which was to solve the seemingly inextricable diplomatic difficulties, and to put an end to the military unrest of the period.
它再次从同一个起点升起—巴黎。西进运动的最后余波到来—这股余波将解决看似无解的外交困境，并结束时期的军事动荡。

The man who has devastated France comes back to France alone, with no project, and no soldiers. —
这个曾经蹂躏法国的人孤身回到法国，没有计划，也没有士兵。 —

Any policeman can arrest him; but by a strange freak of chance no one does seize him, but all meet with enthusiasm the man they have been cursing but a day before, and will curse again within a month.
任何一个警察都可以逮捕他，但令人诧异的是没有人去逮捕他，相反大家对他表示了热烈的欢迎，而这些人在前一天还在咒骂他，一个月后又会继续咒骂他。

That man is needed for the last act winding up the drama.
这个人需要在这个戏剧的最后一幕中扮演角色。

The act is performed.
演出开始。

The last part is played. The actor is bidden to undress, and wash off his powder and paint; —
最后一部分演完了。演员被告知脱下戏服，洗掉粉饰； —

he will be needed no more.
他将不再需要。

And for several years this man, in solitude on his island, plays his pitiful farce to himself, intrigues and lies, justifying his conduct when a justification is no longer needed, and shows all the world what the thing was men took for power when an unseen hand guided it.
接下来的几年里，这个人独自生活在他的岛上，为自己的可怜的闹剧而忙碌、阴谋、撒谎，当他无需再解释时，他为自己的行为辩护，并向全世界展示那个不见之手引导它时，当时人们认为的权力是什么东西。

The stage manager, when the drama was over, and the puppet stripped, showed him to us.
剧终时，舞台管理员把裸露的木偶呈现给我们。

“Look what you believed in! Here he is! Do you see now that it was not he but I that moved you?”
“看看你所相信的！就是他！现在你明白了吗？不是他动摇了你们，而是我。”

But blinded by the force of the movement men for long could not perceive that.
然而，由于运动的力量使人们失去了视觉。

Even more coherence and inevitability is to be seen in the life of Alexander I., the personage who stood at the head of the counter-movement from east westward.
亚历山大一世的生活中，东西方的对抗运动的首领，展现了更加连贯和必然性。

What was needed for the man who, to the exclusion of others, should stand at the head of that movement from the east westward?
作为逆向东西方运动的领导者，他需要什么？

There was needed a sense of justice, an interest in the affairs of Europe, but a remote one, not obscured by petty interests, a moral preeminence over his peers—the sovereigns of the time; —
他需要一个正义感，对欧洲事务的兴趣，但是这种兴趣应该是远离琐事的，一种在同时代的君主中卓越的道德优势； —

there was needed a gentle and attractive personal character; —
他还需要一种温和而迷人的个人品格； —

there was needed too a personal grievance against Napoleon. —
他还需要对拿破仑个人的怨恨。 —

And all that is to be seen in Alexander I.; —
这一切在亚历山大一世身上都可以看到； —

it was all prepared beforehand by the innumerable so-called chance circumstances of his previous life, by his education and the liberalism of the beginning of his reign, and the counsellors around, and Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.
这些都在他以前的生活的无数所谓偶然事件、他的教育和他统治初期的自由主义、以及他周围的顾问、奥斯特利茨战役、提尔西特合约以及埃尔福特会晤中提前准备好了。

During the war in defence of the country this personage is inactive; he is not needed. —
在国家防御战争期间，这个人物是不活跃的；他没有被需要。 —

But as soon as a general European war becomes inevitable, at the given moment, he is in his place, and bringing the European peoples together he leads them to the goal.
但一旦一场普遍的欧洲战争成为不可避免的时候，在恰当的时刻，他出现在他的位置上，将欧洲人民团结起来，引领他们走向目标。

The goal is reached. After the last war of 1815 Alexander finds himself at the highest possible pinnacle of human power. —
目标达到了。1815年最后一场战争之后，亚历山大发现自己处于人类权力的顶峰。 —

How does he use it?
他如何利用这个权力呢？

While Napoleon in his exile was drawing up childish and lying schemes of the blessings he would have showered on humanity if he had had the power, Alexander, the pacifier of Europe, the man who, from his youth up, had striven for nothing but the good of the people, the first champion of liberal reforms in his country, now when he seemed to possess the greatest possible power, and consequent possibility of doing good to his people, felt his work was done, and God’s hand was laid upon him, and recognising the nothingness of that semblance of power, turned from it, gave it up to despicable men, and men he despised, and could only say:
拿破仑在流亡期间构想了一些幼稚而虚假的计划，声称如果他有权力，他会给予人类无尽的福祉。而亚历山大，欧洲的安抚者，这个自年少时就一直追求人民福祉的人，自以为拥有最大的权力和为人民做好事的机会，却感到自己的使命已经完成，感到上帝的手已经伸向他，认识到那种权力的虚无，于是他转身离开，把权力交给了可鄙的人和他鄙夷的人，并且只能说：

“Not to us, not to us, but to Thy Name! I too am a man like all of you; —
“不是为了我们，不是为了我们，而是为了你的名字！我也像你们一样是个人； —

let me live like a man, and think of my soul and of God.”
让我像个人一样生活，思考我的灵魂和上帝。”

Just as the sun and every atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and at the same time is only a part of a whole inconceivable to man through its vastness, so every individuality bears within it its own ends and yet bears them so as to serve general ends unfathomable by man.
就如太阳和每一粒以太都是一个完整的球体，并且同时也只是一个无法人类理解的整体的一部分，每个个体都肩负着自己的目标，但同时也为人类难以探究的普遍目标服务。

A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. —
一只蜜蜂停在花上刺了一个孩子。 —

And the child dreads bees, and says the object of the bee is to sting people. —
孩子害怕蜜蜂，并且说蜜蜂的目的是刺人的。 —

A poet admires the bee, sipping honey from the cup of the flower, and says the object of the bee is to sip the nectar of the flower. —
一个诗人欣赏蜜蜂从花中啜取蜜糖，并且说蜜蜂的目的是啜取花蕊的花蜜。 —

A beekeeper, noticing that the bee gathers pollen and brings it to the hive, says that the object of the bee is to gather honey. —
一个养蜂人注意到蜜蜂采集花粉并带到蜂房，说蜜蜂的目的是采集蜜糖。 —

Another beekeeper, who has studied the life of the swarm more closely, says the bee gathers honey to feed the young ones, and to rear a queen, that the object of the bee is the perpetuation of its race. —
另一个研究蜂群生活更详细的养蜂人说蜜蜂采集蜜糖是为了喂养幼蜂和繁育蜂王，蜜蜂的目的是繁殖自己的种群。 —

The botanist observes that the bee flying with the pollen fertilises the pistil, and in this he sees the object of the bee. —
植物学家观察到蜜蜂飞行时会带上花粉并使花药授粉，从而认为这就是蜜蜂的目的。 —

Another, watching the hybridisation of plants, sees that the bee contributes to that end also, and he may say that the bee’s object is that. —
另一个人观察到植物的杂交过程，发现蜜蜂也对此起到了贡献，他可以说蜜蜂的目的就是这个。 —

But the final aim of the bee is not exhausted by one or another, or a third aim, which the human intellect is capable of discovering. —
然而，蜜蜂的最终目标并非由人类智力能够发现的某个目标。 —

The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of such aims, the more obvious it becomes that the final aim is beyond its reach.
人类智慧越高，越能发现这种目标，就越明显地意识到最终目标是超出其能力范围的。

All that is within the reach of man is the observation of the analogy of the life of the bee with other manifestations of life. —
在人类能触及的范围内，只能观察到蜜蜂生活与其他生命表现形式之间的类比。 —

And the same is true with the final aims of historical persons and of nations.
历史人物和民族的最终目标也是如此。