War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

An Amateur’s Progress

Progress Report Number 3

May 9, 1998

I am now at the end of Book III (p. 1114 of 1456). My Signet Classic's Book III comprises Parts 9-11 of the Great Books edition.

Natasha Rostova was very ill from having drunk the poison after her abortive elopement with Anatol Kuragin and the subsequent renouncement of her by Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Her psychic wounds were perhaps slower to heal, but her going with a family friend to daily Mass, doing penance, and receiving the Eucharist, completed the cure for her. Prince Andrei went in search of Anatol. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Bolkonsky was after him, and Anatol joined the Army and took an assignment in Moldavia. Still on Anatol’s trail, Bolkonsky obtained an appointment to the staff of his old commander, General Kutuzov, who was about to leave for Turkey. While on duty there, war broke out with France when Napoleon crossed the Niemen River with his Army. Prince Andrei asked Kutuzov to be released so he could command a regiment on the front lines. He was given permission to go.

At first, the Emperor, Tsar Alexander, was also commander-in-chief of the Russian forces, but it soon became apparent that a more effective job could be done by a professional military officer. Kutuzov, though unpopular as an "old man," half blind, and immoral to boot, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian Army. Tsar Alexander returned to Moscow to gain financial support for the war and to encourage the wealthy to allow more of their servants (serfs) to enlist in the Army.

The French kept driving on towards Moscow along the Smolensk road. When they neared Smolensk, they were very near Bald Hills, the home of Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, father of Prince Andrei and Princess Marya. Prince Nikolai sent a servant named Alpatych to buy provisions in Smolensk and to get word of how bad the situation was. While he was there, Alpatych witnessed the bombardment of the city by the French. On fleeing the fires of Smolensk, Alpatych met Prince Andrei who told him to go home with word from him to the old Prince to take the whole family away to Moscow to avoid the French lines which were to pass through in a few days.

Just as the Prince Nikolai was setting out to get the household prepared to move to Bogucharovo, Prince Andrei’s estate, instead of to Moscow, he suffered a paralyzing stroke. In the end, Princess Marya was left with the task of getting the family moved. The old prince suffered a second stroke at Bogucharovo and died. Princess Marya, in the midst of her grief, had to deal with the burial and the immediate removal of the whole household to Moscow.

This was especially a difficult problem because the servants in Bogucharovo, having been freed previously by Prince Andrei, to the status of rent-paying laborers, did not want to depart to Moscow, thinking their chances were better by remaining there and waiting for the French. Princess Marya was saved from this very touchy situation by Count Nikolai Rostov, who happened to be riding through in advance of the French, looking for provisions for his men. Thus ensued the beginning of a possible romantic involvement and also a dilemma for Nikolai who had already written to Sonya that he intended to marry her when he returned.

Meanwhile, back in Petersburg, Pierre’s wife Ellen continued to maintain her status as one of the two top social pace-setters. Her latest problem was that she was in love with two men, neither one being her husband. One was an old Grandee, and the other was a young Prince. First she convinced the younger one that she must be permitted to continue seeing the older one who loved her like a father, though perhaps a little more. She told the young man that if he were to marry her things would be different. To this end, he enrolled his Jesuit friends to convert her to Catholicism and to try to get her marriage annulled. Once this looked possible, Ellen told the old Grandee that she could only stop getting so serious about the young Prince if the Grandee were to ask her to marry. Petersburg was overjoyed about her having received two proposals for marriage. No one seemed to worry about the fact that she was already married. Marriage to the old Grandee would be more acceptable at Court than marriage to the young Prince, and once the old Grandee died, Ellen would be free to marry the young Prince should she wish. Voila!

Pierre Bezukhov was still in Moscow and unaware of his wife’s intrigues. Although he financed an entire regiment, he still felt a need to get personally involved in the war. He subscribed to some theory of names and numbers that paired his name and Napoleon’s as representing "666," and therefore he had been chosen as the one to destroy this Antichrist who was threatening to take Moscow. He rode out to the front lines one day with his servant, just before the battle of Borodino. He met officers who knew him, and they gave him a tour of the troop placements the evening before the battle. Still not satisfied that he’d done enough, he decided to stay for the battle. This was a huge mistake. The battle of Borodino was an extremely bloody one.

Tolstoy devoted a lot of space to the battle of Borodino. Though the French continued to advance on Moscow after the battle, with the Russians having to retreat beyond Moscow, yielding her to French invasion, it has been generally agreed that the French lost the battle of Borodino. The French losses were seventeen percent of their entire force in that battle. What they "conquered" by entering Moscow was an empty city; everyone had left. The French stayed a few weeks and then started to head back to France. Just as a monkey that reaches into a bottle filled with nuts cannot remove its hand filled with nuts, neither were the French able to take with them the spoils of Moscow and reach their homes through the Russian winter. That struggle will be the subject of the final Book, however.

Prince Andrei was severely wounded by an exploding shell during the battle of Borodino. When he awoke in the hospital tent, next to him was Prince Anatol who was having his leg amputated. Though Anatol was his enemy, Prince Andrei could not help loving him, and everyone, for just having survived. Later, as chance would have it, Prince Andrei ended up in the Rostov caravan that was leaving Moscow with as many wounded as they could carry with them. When Natasha discovered that Prince Andrei was among the rescued, she visited him and nursed him at every chance. For his part, the Prince was grateful and forgiving. Natasha’s mother was very worried about her daughter. She was also worried about her youngest son, Petya, who was now in the Army, and was hopeful that somehow her eldest son, Nikolai, could marry Princess Marya. Of course, it would not be possible, under Russian law at the time, for two of her children to be married to siblings of the same family. Yet, it would take a miracle for Prince Andrei to survive this grave wound to the gut.

Pierre Bezukhov did get through Borodino with hardly a scratch, in spite of seeing some really terrible action the entire day. He found a note from his wife, on his return home, asking for a divorce. He slipped out of his house unobserved, and went to the home of his old Freemason mentor who had recently died. He went there to claim the old man’s books, to assume an anonymous identity, and to figure out how he could get at Napoleon and kill him. In the course of all these insane pursuits, he was discovered in his disguise by Natasha as their carriages passed him on the road. This really threw him into a spin, especially since he still loved Natasha, and had even forbidden himself to see her in order to spare her the knowledge of this affection that he felt was so impossible to resolve. As Pierre continued with his assassination plans, amid the general looting and burning of the city by the French, he was arrested for striking a French soldier who was about to harm a young woman. Because he was armed, the French threw Pierre into prison.

Copyright 1998, Herman Fontenot

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