War and Peace

To the End of Part 1

How could I have forgotten in my previous entry the tender and loving marriage of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and his lovely wife Lise?  Here is how Tolstoy describes their rapturous relationship at the very beginning of the story:

Just then a new person entered the drawing room.  This new person was the young Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the little princess’s husband.  Prince Bolkonsky was of medium height, a rather handsome young man with well-defined and dry features.  Everything in his gifure, from his weary, bored gaze to his quiet, measured gait, presented the sharpest contrast with his small, lively wife.  Obviously, he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but was also so sick of them that it was very boring for him to look at them and listen to them.  Of all the faces he found so boring, the face of his pretty wife seemed to be the one he was most sick of (14).

 Nice, huh.  When we finally meet the older Prince Bolkonsky in 1, XXII, we discover that his father has essentially been exiled from proper society, and he has no relish of returning.  Tolstoy writes,

With the people around him, from his daughter to the servants, the prince was brusque and invariably demanding, and thus, without being cruel, inspired a fear and respect for himself such as the cruelest of men would not find it easy to obtain (88).

He has a meek, pious daughter named Marya whom he schools in geometry every day.  Here’s an example of the beauty of their relationship:

Princess Marya went into the waiting room at the appointed hour for the morning greeting and fearfully crossed herself and inwardly recited a prayer.  Every day she went in and every day she prayed that this daily meeting would go well. (88)

According to the Introduction to this translation, the counterpoints to one another are the easygoing Rostovs and the “severe” Bolkonskys.  The new Count Pierre Bezukhov – we found out how he had ascended to his title through a correspondence between Julie Karagin and Princess Marya Nikolaevna, a correspondence filled with characterization of these two young women – is modeled on Tolstoy’s version of himself as a younger man.

The end of Part 1 has Prince Andrei the younger saying goodbye to Prince Andrei the elder as he sets off for the war against Napoleon, a war and a man both objects of ridicule to the elder.  The exiting prince asks his father to care for his pregnant wife in his absence, and to raise the child himself, if it is a boy and if Prince Andrei is killed.  The Part ends as abruptly as is appropriate for any part of the story involving Prince Andrei.