Penguin edition - Briggs translation - Black cover w/ chandelier:
Volume IV, Part I (chapters 1-16) & Part II (chapters 1-19), pp 1037-1145.
Signet edition - Dunnigan translation - tan cover w/ flag:
Book 4, Part One (chapters 1-16) & Part Two (chapters 1-19)
Modern Library - Garnett translation - Olive cover w/ gold stripe:
Part Twelve (chapters 1-16) and Part Thirteen (chapters 1-19)
Amazon edition - Maude translation - light blue cover:
Book Twelve (1812) and Book Thirteen (1812)
The last paragraph reads:
But as for cutting off the enemy’s retreat - nobody was cut off or overrun. And the French army, more united than ever because of the danger, continued on its disastrous journey to Smolensk, melting away steadily as it went.
Analysis - Part 1:
This relatively short section focuses on how people experience death. At the beginning of the section, Tolstoy shows how death affects the living by exploring Petersburg society’s reaction to Hélène Bezukhov’s sudden illness. We never see Hélène’s point of view; we only learn about her illness by sifting through the conflicting rumors about her abrupt disappearance from society.
These rumors demonstrate two important reactions that people often have to death: panic and victim-blaming. The people at Anna Pavlovna’s soirée overreact to minor details of Hélène’s case, such as the fact that she is using an Italian doctor. Although they try to seem nonplussed, it is clear that Hélène’s imminent death has sown tension and fear among her friends. When it is clear that Hélène will not recover, her friends assume that her illness and death are a consequence of her machinations to get out of her marriage – a logical jump that makes her sudden demise more comprehensible.
In Pierre’s plot, Tolstoy explores the human response to death in much more detail. Pierre’s lengthy internal monologue in the execution yard reveals the death penalty to be a travesty that helps no one. Tolstoy emphasizes that the act of killing another person is nearly as horrible for the killer as it is for the victim. Despite his panic, Pierre finds peace in this realization, and refrains from blaming anyone for what he believes will be his impending execution. Instead, he sadly wonders who has caused this tragic state of affairs.
Pierre only finds renewal when he meets Platon Karataev in prison. Platon impresses Pierre with his simplicity, his wholehearted faith in God, and most importantly, his meek acceptance of death. As Platon explains, if he were not forced to risk his life as a soldier, his brother would have to, and this would be more of his tragedy because his brother has four children. By accepting the possibility of his death and trying to see the good in it, Platon becomes a role model for Pierre. His way of living allows Pierre to forget his earlier need for a heroic death and instead to focus on helping those around him.
Tolstoy closes the section with one more image of how people respond to death. Prince Andrei’s detached internal monologue reveals his inner resignation and gradual acceptance of death. The reactions of his family and friends to his passing is perhaps more relevant. Tolstoy notes that each character mourns for a different reason, and none of them are mourning only because they have lost Andrei. Marya cries because Nikolushka will grow up without a father; Sonya and Countess Rostov cry for Natasha; Count Rostov cries because he will soon die too. This moment illustrates how even when faced with the enormity of death, people tend to respond to how the death affects themselves and those around them – and not necessarily to the loss of the individual. Even in extreme circumstances, people consider the needs of themselves and their family first.
Finally, the one element of this section not concerned with death is the growing love between Nikolai Rostov and Marya. Though these two would have been terribly-matched had they met in earlier volumes, Nikolai’s personal growth has prepared him to admire her near-saintliness. The way that Marya suffers for others, gives of herself even when prompted not to, and attempts to live morally in all ways all appeal to Nikolai, whose earlier passions have been quashed by the realities not only of war (which is ugly) but also of society (which is depraved, a lesson he learned through his gambling problems). Marya’s simplicity touches on what he experienced during his sojourn in nature with his siblings long before, and in this way, the couple is now perfectly matched.
Analysis - Part II
Tolstoy temporarily leaves most of his main characters in this section to describe the endgame of the 1812 war. His account focuses heavily on both sides’ tactical successes and failures – from maneuvers in battle to how they handled occupied territory. Before the French surrender, Pierre’s brush with execution becomes a cutting satire of French bureaucracy, which functions so badly that Pierre is nearly executed simply because a general was interrupted while he was deciding Pierre’s sentence.
However, the Russians also become objects of Tolstoy’s critique. He depicts disorganization and a lack of professionalism on both sides. On the Russian side, examples of this include Kutuzov’s lost disposition and the soldiers’ carousing before the battle of Tarutino. As Tolstoy explains, “No battle––Tarutino, Borodino, Austerlitz––comes off the way its organizers supposed. That is an essential condition” (1000). This belief obviously echoes his oft-repeated philosophy of history.
Likewise, the French failures are not limited to their ineffective bureaucracy. “Since the battle of Borodino and the looting of Moscow,” Tolstoy writes, “[the French army] had borne within itself, as it were, the chemical conditions of its decomposition” (1027). Napoleon and his generals seem to have good intentions – they order their men not to loot and treat the Russians they meet respectfully. However, the privation and lack of discipline in the French army means that the foot soldiers eagerly and violently loot Moscow at their first opportunity.
Throughout his war chapters, Tolstoy implicates fear and deprivation as sources of human cruelty. The French soldiers are at their most heartless when they are marching the prisoners out of Moscow. This behavior is easily explained by the fact that the soldiers have been living in increasingly miserable conditions and now must retreat as fast as they can or be killed. Likewise, Pierre tries to kill Dolokhov earlier in the novel because of the primal fear the duel inspires in him.
Despite his mostly scathing critique of how the war’s endgame was handled, Tolstoy also includes vignettes of fundamental human kindness, continuing a motif that has cropped up throughout the novel. The French general Davout is infamous for his cruelty, but Pierre only has to look him in the eye to connect with him on a basic human level and arouse the man’s empathy. Likewise, the prisoners develop camaraderie despite their squalid living conditions, and Pierre becomes a better person through his relationship with the working-class soldier Platon Karataev.
The one main plot that is furthered here is that of Pierre, who now willingly engages in the life around him. Where he once avoided society, drowning himself in drink and women when he had to live within it, he now relishes the society he has. The fact that conditions are miserable is not lost on him, but instead, seems to engender a deeper appreciation for life itself. Simplicity is a virtue Pierre has sought throughout the novel but rarely finds - he usually ends up returning to his licentious ways, or committing to strange rituals like those of the Masons. Here, he has found a serenity in simplicity.