Four ---- “At one draught, or he loses!” shouted a fourth. The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person) were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. “Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that... In another four years then I will ask for your hand.” Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one replied, and the four simply looked at one another. All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room. When I want to see one of those big people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times — till I get what I want. “It's now two o'clock and you dine at four. Were I in the cavalry I should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty,” said he, looking at Shinshin and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief desire of everyone else. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count's monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre held out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever-increasing amiability at the other guests. “I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. “They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles without eating.” Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping, resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge on his side of it. On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Four men seized the hussar and began lifting him. In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. Between four and five in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilibin's house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit to Brunn. He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments, carts, guns, art.

Numbers in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

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724

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85 pages

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epub

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