the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was represented by e , the very letter elided from the article le before the word Empereur . By omitting the e , though incorrectly, Pierre got the answer he sought. L’russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him. How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for a moment. His love for Natásha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoléon , and L’russe Besuhof —all this had to mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a great achievement and great happiness.
On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had promised the Rostóvs to bring them, from Count Rostopchín whom he knew well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the morning, when he went to call at Rostopchín’s he met there a courier fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at Moscow balls.
“Do, please, for heaven’s sake, relieve me of something!” said the courier. “I have a sackful of letters to parents.”
Among these letters was one from Nikoláy Rostóv to his father. Pierre took that letter, and Rostopchín also gave him the Emperor’s appeal to Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of Nikoláy Rostóv, awarded a St. George’s Cross of the Fourth Class for courage shown in the Ostróvna affair, and in the same order the name of Prince Andréy Bolkónski, appointed to the command of a regiment of Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostóvs of Bolkónski, Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their son’s having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order and