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BOOK 2, PART 2
part two picks up with all the things that were broken in the last book: first, pierre, traveling by train to petersburg, running from helene and his guilt and confusion. finally he concludes that "All we can know is that we know nothing. And that is the acme of human wisdom."
oddly enough, this echoes andrei's frustration from the last book: "There is nothing certain, nothing except the nothingness of everything that is incomprehensible to me, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important!"
as he thinks about his wealth and the ultimate uselessness of owning things (really, what's the point) a begging peasant woman catches pierre's attention. "And what does [the peasant woman] want money for? As if that money could increase by so much as a hairsbreadth her happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less subject to evil and death? Death, which ends all and must come today or tomorrow -- at any rate in an instant as compared with eternity?"
again, this is something andrei struggled with but seemed to accept more easily. "All is vanity, all delusion, compared to those infinite heavens. There is nothing but that. And even that does not exist; there is nothing but stillness, peace."
though andrei regrets his inactivity (as bilibin writes him -- in french -- about the infighting among the russian contingents) he's caught up in little nikolai (<3) and perhaps some self-pitying depression, though he's kinder to marya now.
"Prince Andrei looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the canopy her luminous eyes shone more brilliantly than usual, filled as they were with tears of joy. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly catching the curtains of the crib. Each made the other a warning sign and stood still in the dim light beneath the canopy, as if unwilling to leave that seclusion where they three were alone, shut off from all the world."pierre is naive and misguided but wants to do good. andrei is smart but still focused on himself and maintains a cynical arrogance about the world -- because of lise's death. when pierre comes to visit, their differing beliefs are necessarily discussed.
"'What convinces is when you see a being dear to you, whose life is bound up with yours, to whom you have done a wrong you hoped to expiate' (Prince Andrei's voice trembled and he turned away) 'and all at once this being is suffering, in agony, and ceases to exist....Why? There must be an answer.'pierre's belief in a hereafter moves andrei. somehow, as the weak follower honestly explains his belief to the intelligent, scornful leader, that very simplicity is to a degree winsome. how interesting that two men, having lost their wives, both confused and searching, are granted a measure of peace when they begin to believe in something outside of themselves.
...'If there is a God and a future life, there is truth and there is goodness, and a man's highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe not only that we live today on this scrap of earth, but that we have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,' said Pierre, pointing to the sky.
Prince Andrei stood leaning on the railing of the raft, listening to Pierre, his gaze fixed on the red reflection of the sun on the blue waters. Pierre fell silent. All was still. The raft had long since reached the shore and the only sound was the gentle ripple of the current against it below. It seemed to Prince Andrei that the lapping of the water kept up a refrain to Pierre's words: 'It is the truth, believe it.'
Prince Andrei sighed, and with a radiant, childlike, tender look, glanced at Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, though still shyly sensible of his friend's superiority.
'Yes, if only it were so,' said Prince Andrei. 'However, let's get into the carriage,' he added, and stepping off the ferry he looked up at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw those lofty, eternal heavens he had seen while lying on the battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering in him, something that was best in him, suddenly awoke, joyous and youthful, in his soul. As soon as he returned to the ordinary conditions of life it vanished, but he was aware that this feeling, which he did not know how to develop, existed within him. Pierre's visit marked an epoch in Prince Andrei's life; though outwardly he continued to live in the same way, inwardly a new life began for him."
for pierre, this is specifically the masonic gospel, "and he experienced a joyous feeling of solace, regeneration, and return to life." despite his philosophizing, pierre is easily swayed by feelings. still weak, he likes to be led.
so does nikolai. he wants the black and white rules and regulations of the army, the structure and straightforwardness -- no social rules to navigate and situations to manipulate. he's thrown into confusion by the inhumane hospital and the denisov incident, wanting mercy but having to go through a non-intuitive bureaucratic process, just to be thwarted by a peace treaty being forged between the russians and french. nikolai finds, in this peace, a new social confusion -- was the war useless? with peace, what do the sacrificial deaths of the soldiers mean? and now, without a war, his structure goes away. he wants to be able to unquestioningly follow and not have to think.
unlike boris!
boris has learned to courteously, hypocritically look out for himself while sounding interested in others. he's mastered sly manipulation to gain good opinions and social advancement. and he scorns the rostovs (why? in nikolai: genuine, isn't ambitious, willing to be led, merciful. boris also seems to be into justice, or at least when it's convenient for him).
"Boris, without undue haste and in pure and elegant French, told them a great many interesting things about the armies and the court, carefully refraining from any expression of his won pinion in regard to the facts he was relating."
emphasis mine -- we pause for a moment as I relish my little moment of having called it.
okay, all done.
"Boris smiled circumspectly..."
OOH SUCH THE DISCREET ARTIFICE OF DIPLOMAT
so far, andrei, pierre, and nikolai have struggled with confusion as they encounter circumstances that don't jive with their previous belief systems -- and they have to sort it all out for themselves. I'm interested in all the characters' coping mechanisms with change and with confusion. pierre turns to ecstatic, blind religious fervor; andrei shrinks inward and resolves to care only for 'extensions of himself' and close himself off from the rest of the world; nikolai gets drunk and vows his own blind obedience to the emperor.
will boris ever be confused, or continue in artificial hypocrisy? will natasha struggle? can marya's beliefs uphold her when things get difficult?
relationship tracker:
UNREQUITED
nikolai > emperor aleksandr x)
denisov > natasha
death count: 2
soundtrack - give us the wind, future islands
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