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When Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his

room, stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures

at the wall, as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and

glaring savagely over his spectacles, and then again resuming his

walk, muttering indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and

gesticulating.

"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger

at someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to

the rights of man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre-who at

that moment imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have

just effected the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and

captured London-could pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a

well-built and handsome young officer entering his room. Pierre

paused. He had left Moscow when Boris was a boy of fourteen, and

had quite forgotten him, but in his usual impulsive and hearty

way he took Boris by the hand with a friendly smile.