As Natasha walked in beside her mother behind a footman in livery who was clearing their way through the crowd she heard the voice of a young man talking about her in an audible whisper.
'That's young Countess Rostov. Didn't she . . .'
'She's looking thin, but she's still pretty!'
She caught several comments and thought she heard the names of Kuragin and Bolkonsky mentioned. But she was always thinking things like that. She couldn't get it out of her mind that anybody who so much as glanced at her must surely be thinking about what had happened to her. With a heavy feeling and a sinking heart, as always in a crowd nowadays, Natasha walked on in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace, bearing herself as only a woman can, with poise and dignity totally belying the pain and shame in her heart. She knew she was pretty, there was no mistaking that, but this was no longer a source of pleasure for her. On the contrary, it had hurt her more than anything else in recent days, and it was particularly painful on this bright, hot summer's day in town. 'Another Sunday, another week,' she said to herself, thinking back to the previous Sunday, 'and still the same life that isn't life, the same conditions that used to make life seem so easy. I'm still young and pretty, and now I know I'm a good person. I was wicked before, but now I'm good,' she thought, 'but these are the best years of my life and they're slipping by, completely useless.' She stood there next to her mother, nodding to people they knew who were standing near by. From force of habit Natasha watched the ladies to see how well turned-out they were, and looked disapprovingly at a lady not far away who held herself badly and crossed herself with a little cramped gesture. Then came the annoying thought that she was still being judged, and here she was, judging other people, so by the time the first sounds of the service rang out she was disgusted at the vileness of her character, disgusted that she had lost what purity of heart she had had before.
A venerable old priest with a gentle air about him took the service with the kind of peaceful solemnity that has such an inspiring and calming effect on the souls of worshippers. The sanctuary doors were closed, the curtain came slowly across and from within came a low voice uttering solemn words. Natasha felt herself inexplicably choking on tears, and she was swept by a feeling of blissful lassitude.
'Teach me what to do . . . how to find righteousness for ever and ever . . . what to do with my life!' she prayed. A deacon came out in front of the altar screen, and with his thumb sticking out he drew his long hair from under his robes, made the sign of the cross on his breast, and began the litany in loud and solemn tones:
'In peace let us pray to the Lord.'
'As a single community, all people together with no distinction of class, free from all enmity, united in brotherly love, let us pray . . .' thought Natasha.
'For peace from above and for the salvation of our souls . . .'
'For the world of angels and the souls of all spiritual beings who dwell above us,' prayed Natasha.
When they prayed for the army she thought of her brother and Denisov. When they prayed for all who travel at sea and on land she thought of Prince Andrey, prayed for him and prayed that God might forgive her for the wrong she had done him. When they prayed for all who love us, she prayed for her family, her father and mother and Sonya - newly aware of her wickedness towards them and the full strength of her love for them. When they prayed for those who hate us, she made herself think of enemies and people full of hatred so she could pray for them. In the category of enemies she included her father's creditors and everybody who had any business dealings with him, and every time her mind strayed to enemies and those who hate us she thought of Anatole, who had done her so much harm, and although he hadn't actually hated her she was delighted to have him as an enemy to pray for. Only when praying could she think clearly and calmly about Prince Andrey or Anatole, conscious that her feelings towards them dwindled away to nothing compared with her fear and love of the Lord God. When they prayed for the Royal Family and the Synod, she bowed very low and crossed herself even more devoutly, telling herself that although it was all above her head she couldn't have any doubts - she just loved the ruling Synod and wanted to pray for it.
When the litany was over, the deacon crossed his stole over his breast and said, 'Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ the Lord.'
'Commit ourselves to the Lord,' Natasha repeated in her heart. 'O Lord God, I commit myself to Thy will,' she thought. 'I ask for nothing. I want nothing. Teach me what I must do, how to exercise my will! Take me unto Thee. Please take me!' Natasha said, eager and full of emotion. She stood there without crossing herself, her slender arms dangling down, as if she expected to be seized at any moment by an unseen force that would deliver her from herself, from her misgivings and urges, her remorse, hopes and sins.
Several times during the service the countess stole a glance at her daughter's radiant face and glittering eyes, and prayed for God to help her.
To everyone's surprise, the deacon made a sudden departure from the liturgy that Natasha knew so well by bringing out the little foot-stool reserved for the priest to kneel on when he reads out the prayers on Trinity Sunday, and placing it in front of the sanctuary gates. Then out came the priest wearing his lilac-coloured velvet skullcap; he adjusted his hair and flopped down on his knees. The congregation also knelt, exchanging glances in some surprise. What they then heard was a new prayer just received from the Synod, a prayer for the protection of Russia against enemy invasion.
'Lord God of all power, God of our salvation,' intoned the priest in the soft, clear, restrained voice that is only heard in churches of the Slavs and makes such a devastating impact on the Russian heart.
'Lord God of all power, God of our salvation! Look down this day with mercy and blessings on Thy humble people. Graciously hear us, spare us and have mercy on us. Thy land is confounded by the foe, and he would fain lay waste the whole earth. These lawless men are gathered together to overthrow Thy kingdom and destroy Thy holy Jerusalem, Thy Beloved Russia, to defile Thy temples, overturn Thine altars and desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked prevail? How long shall they wield their unlawful power?
'Almighty God, hear us when we pray to Thee, strengthen with Thy might our most gracious and supreme Sovereign Lord, Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be mindful of his virtue and gentleness; reward him according to his righteousness and long may it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel. Bless his counsels, his undertakings and all his deeds; strengthen his kingdom with Thine Almighty hand, and vouchsafe him victory over the enemy, even as Thou gavest Moses victory over Amalek, and Gideon over Midian, and David over Goliath. Preserve his army; put bows of brass into the hands of those that have gone to war in Thy name, and gird their loins with strength for the fight. Take up Thy sword and shield, arise and come to our aid; confound and put to shame those who devise evil against us, and let them be scattered before the face of Thy faithful warriors like dust before the wind; may Thy mighty angel confound them and put them to flight. May the net that they know not ensnare them, and their plots hatched in secret be turned against them. And let them fall beneath the feet of Thy servants and be laid low by our hosts. O Lord, Thou art able to save both great and small, Thou art God, and no man shall prevail against Thee.
'God of our Fathers, remember Thy blessings and mercy of old. Turn not Thy face from us; be gracious to us in our unworthiness; spare us in Thine infinite mercy, and in Thy bounteous goodness forgive us our transgressions and iniquity. Create in us a pure heart, and renew a righteous spirit within us; strengthen us all in our faith in Thee; fortify us with hope; inspire us with true love for one another; arm us with unity of spirit in the righteous defence of the inheritance Thou hast given to us and to our forefathers; and let not the sceptre of the unrighteous be raised against the destiny of Thy holy people.
'O Lord our God, in Whom we believe and trust, confound us not in our hope for Thy mercy, and give us a sign of Thy blessing, that those who hate us and our Ortho
dox faith may see it and be put to shame and confusion, and may all lands know that the Lord is Thy Name and that we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord, and grant us Thy salvation. May the hearts of Thy servants rejoice in Thy mercy. Strike down our enemies and be swift to destroy them beneath the feet of Thy faithful servants. For Thou art the defence, the succour, and the victory of those that put their trust in Thee; and to Thee be the glory, to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.'
In her state of heightened religious sensitivity Natasha was deeply affected by this prayer. She hung on every word about the victory of Moses over Amalek, and Gideon over Midian, and David over Goliath, and about the destruction of 'Thy Jerusalem', and she prayed with all the emotion and tenderness that filled her heart to overflowing, though she couldn't quite make out what she was praying for. She felt wholeheartedly involved in prayers for a righteous spirit, the fortifying of hearts with faith and hope, and the inspirational power of love. But she couldn't pray for her enemies to be trampled underfoot when only a few minutes earlier she had been wishing for more enemies to love and pray for. Yet neither could she doubt the righteousness of the prayer recited by the priest on his knees. She felt a thrill of dread at the awesome punishments due to be meted out to mankind for its sins, especially her sins, and she prayed that everyone should be forgiven, including her, and that she and everybody else should enjoy peace and happiness in their lives. And it seemed to her that God heard her prayer.
CHAPTER 19
Ever since the day Pierre had driven home from the Rostovs with Natasha's look of gratitude still fresh in his mind, stared up at the comet in the sky and felt the range of new possibilities opening up before him, he had stopped worrying about the agonizing problem of the vanity and senselessness of all earthly things. The terrible questions, 'Why?' 'What's it all about?', which had always assailed him whatever he was doing, had now been replaced, not by different questions or answers to the old ones, but by an image of her. If he heard people prattling on about nothing, or did so himself, if he read or heard about something that reminded him of human wickedness or folly, he no longer despaired; he had stopped wondering why people bothered with anything at all when life was so short and uncertain. He had only to think of her as he had last seen her, and all his doubts melted away, not because she had any answers to the questions that had been haunting him, but because her image transported him instantly into another realm of sweetness, light and active spirituality, where there was no question of being in the right or in the wrong, a region of beauty and love well worth living for. If he came across some worldly abomination he would say to himself, 'Soand-so's robbing the state and the Tsar while the state and the Tsar weigh him down with honours, is he? Well, let him get on with it - she smiled at me yesterday, she asked me round, and I love her, and nobody will ever know.'
Pierre still went out a good deal, he hadn't stopped drinking and he led the same kind of idle, dissipated life, because apart from a few hours spent with the Rostovs he had to get through the rest of his time somehow, and the habits and friendships formed in Moscow kept drawing him back inexorably to the same old life. But in recent days, with rumours from the theatre of war sounding more ominous by the day, and with Natasha's health much improved, which meant that she no longer required the same degree of sympathy and pity, he had found himself increasingly overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of restlessness. His present position was untenable, he thought, and, sensing the approach of some disaster that was going to change the whole course of his life, he cast around impatiently on all sides watching for signs of it. One of his brother masons had revealed to Pierre a certain prophecy concerning Napoleon, taken from the Revelation of St John the Divine, where, in chapter xiii, verse 18, we read: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
And in the fifth verse of the same chapter: And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
The French alphabet, laid out alongside the Hebrew (or Arabic) numerical system, with the first nine letters representing units, the next tens, and so on, gives the following values: a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160
If you use this system to write out the words l'empereur Napoleon numerically, the sum of the letter-numbers comes to 666 (allowing 5 for the e omitted from le), which makes Napoleon the beast prophesied in the Apocalypse. More than that, if you apply the same system to the French number forty-two, quarante-deux (the span of months allotted to the beast that spoke 'great things and blasphemies'), you get 666 once again, from which it emerges that Napoleon came to a peak in 1812, a French Emperor forty-two years old. This prophecy made a great impression on Pierre, and he began wondering what could possibly put an end to the power of the beast that was Napoleon. Using the same system of taking the numerical values of letters and adding them up, he set out to solve this problem. He wrote down possible answers: l'empereur Alexandre? La nation russe? He added up the letters, but they came to much more or much less than 666. Once he applied the system to his own name in its French version, 'Comte Pierre Besouhof', but the total was miles out. He changed the spelling, substituting z for s added de and the article le, but he still couldn't get what he wanted. Then it occurred to him that if the answer he was looking for was to be found in his name, surely his nationality ought to be mentioned as well. He tried Le russe Besuhof and this came to 671, only five too much and 5 was the value of e, the letter dropped from the definite article in l'empereur Napoleon. Dropping the e again (quite unjustifiably) Pierre got the answer he was after in the phrase l'russe Besuhof - exactly 666! This discovery shook him. How, and by what means, he was connected with the great event predicted in the Apocalypse, he couldn't tell, but the connection was there beyond doubt. It was all there: his love for Natasha, the Antichrist, Napoleon's invasion, the comet, the number 666, l'empereur Napoleon and l'russe Besuhof - all these things were going to gestate together and something would suddenly emerge from them to help him break out of that vicious circle created by the petty concerns of Moscow that had so enthralled him, and lead him forth to some mighty achievement and true happiness.
The day before the Sunday when the new prayer was read out, Pierre was due to carry out his promise to the Rostovs by calling on Count Rostopchin to collect a copy of the Tsar's appeal to the country and also pick up any late news from the army. On his arrival at Count Rostopchin's that morning Pierre ran straight into a special courier just back from the army. The courier was a familiar figure on the Moscow ballroom scene and Pierre knew him well.
'For heaven's sake, can you take something off me?' said the courier. 'I've got a sackful of letters to parents.'
These included a letter from Nikolay Rostov to his father. Pierre took that, and Count Rostopchin gave him a copy of the Tsar's appeal to Moscow, fresh off the press, the last army orders and his own most recent bulletin. A quick glance through the army announcements, including lists of the dead and wounded, and also recent honours, told Pierre that Nikolay Rostov had been awarded the Order of St George, Fourth Class, for outstanding bravery at Ostrovna, and that Prince Andrey Bolkonsky had been placed in command of a regiment of chasseurs. Although reluctant to reawaken the Rostovs' memories of Bolkonsky, Pierre couldn't resist the temptation to raise their spirits by handing on the news of their son's decoration, so he sent the printed announcement and Nikolay's letter straight round to the Rostovs, holding back the Tsar's appeal, Rostopchin's bulletin and the other announcements so he could take them along at dinner-time.
The conversation with Rostopchin, who looked so worried and hard-pressed, Pierre's encounter with the courier, who had let it drop so casually that the army was in a terrible state, rumours of spies being caught in
Moscow and a pamphlet in circulation stating that Napoleon had sworn to be in both capitals by autumn, together with the Tsar's impending arrival the next day - all things conspired to rekindle with new intensity in Pierre that feeling of excitement and anticipation that had never really left him since the appearance of the comet, and had flared up again at the beginning of the war.
The idea of doing some military service had occurred to Pierre long before this, and he would have done something about it but for two things: in the first place, he was a sworn member of the Masonic brotherhood committed to peace on earth and the abolition of war, and secondly, one look at the great mass of Muscovites who had gone into uniform as self-proclaimed patriots, and for some reason he squirmed with embarrassment at the idea of doing the same thing. But the main reason for not carrying out his intention to join up was the rather vague idea that he, l'russe Besuhof, was associated with the number of the beast, 666, and his role in putting an end to the power of the beast 'speaking great things and blasphemies' had been predetermined from time immemorial, which meant that his was not to go about doing things, his was to sit there and wait for the inevitable to happen.