of the deceased. Simply he was in search of a quiet home of rest from th storm of life, and his memories of Osip Alexyevitch were connected in hi soul with a whole world of calm, solemn, and eternal ideals, in every wa- the reverse of the tangled whirl of agitation into which he felt himsel being drawn. He was in search of a quiet refuge, and he certainly fount it in Osip Alexyevitch’s study. When, in the deathlike stillness of th study, he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing-table of his deceasei friend, there passed in calm and significant succession before his menta vision the impressions of the last few days, especially of the battle o, Borodino, and of that overwhelming sense of his own pettiness and falsit; in comparison with the truth and simplicity and force of that class o men, who were mentally referred to by him as ‘they.’ When Gerasin roused him from his reverie, the idea occurred to Pierre that he wouL take part in the defence of Moscow by the people, which was, he knew expected. And with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him ; peasant’s coat and a pistol, and had told him that he intended to concea his name, and to remain in Osip Alexyevitch’s house. Then during th first day of solitude and idleness (Pierre tried several times in vain to fi his attention on the masonic manuscripts) there rose several time vaguely to his mind the idea that had occurred to him in the past of th cabalistic significance of his name in connection with the name of Bona parte. But the idea that he, I’Russe Besuhov, was destined to put an en< to the power of the Beast, had as yet only come to him as one of thos dreams that flit idly through the brain, leaving no trace behind. Wheil after buying the peasant’s coat, simply with the object of taking part ii! the defence of Moscow by the people, Pierre had met the Rostovs, am Natasha said to him, ‘You are staying? Ah, how splendid that is!’ th idea had flashed into his mind that it really might be splendid, even ij they did take Moscow, for him to remain, and to do what had been fore told for him to do.
Next day with the simple aim of not sparing himself and not doing les than they would do, he had gone out to the Three Hills barrier. But whe he came back, convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he sud denly felt that what had only occurred to him before as a possibility, ha> now become something necessary and inevitable. He must remain i Moscow, concealing his name, must meet Napoleon, and kill him, so a either to perish or to put an end to the misery of all Europe, which was i Pierre’s opinion entirely due to Napoleon alone.
Pierre knew all the details of the German student’s attempt on Na poleon’s life at Vienna in 1809, and knew that that student had been sho And the danger to which he would be exposing his own life in carryin out his design excited him even more violently.
Two equally powerful feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to his desigi The first was the craving for sacrifice and suffering through the sense c the common calamity, the feeling that had impelled him to go to Mot haisk on the 25th, and to place himself in the very thick of the battlb and now to run away from his own house, to give up his accustome
uxury and comfort, to sleep without undressing on a hard sofa, and to ;at the same food as Gerasim. The other was that vague and exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, luman, for everything that is regarded by the majority of men as the ugliest good in the world. Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly elt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort, is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all ie cast away.
It was the same feeling that impels the volunteer-recruit to drink up lis last farthing, the drunken man to smash looking-glasses and window- janes for no apparent cause, though he knows it will cost him his little ill; the feeling through which a man in doing things, vulgarly speaking, senseless, as it w’ere, proves his personal force and power, by manifesting he presence of a higher standard of judging life, outside mere human imitations.
Ever since the day when Pierre first experienced this feeling in the ilobodsky palace, he had been continually under the influence of it, but t was only now that it found full satisfaction. Moreover at the present moment Pierre was supported in his design, and prevented from abanaon- ng it, by the steps he had already taken in that direction. His flight from ms own house, and his disguise, and his pistol, and his statement to the Rostovs that he should remain in Moscow,—all would have been devoid if meaning, would have been indeed absurd and laughable (a point to •vhich Pierre was sensitive) if after all that he had simply gone out of vloscow like other people.
