They have a pleasant supper, reminiscing about the events of 1812. In the evening, Nicholas learns Mary is keeping a diary. He is impressed by her great goodness. They talk about the day and the children.
They have a pleasant supper, reminiscing about the events of 1812. In the evening, Nicholas learns Mary is keeping a diary. He is impressed by her great goodness. They talk about the day and the children.
First Epilogue, Chapter 15
They have a pleasant supper, reminiscing about the events of 1812. In the evening, Nicholas learns Mary is keeping a diary. He is impressed by her great goodness. They talk about the day and the children.
Summary:
The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but turned on the subject Nicholas liked best- recollections of 1812. That evening, Nicholas learns that Mary has been keeping a diary. Nicholas read a little of it, and reflected on how proud he was of his wife’s intelligence and goodness, of her untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the sole aim was the children’s moral welfare. Nicholas told her he regretted having become angry with Pierre earlier about his government opposition. Mary says Pierre may be correct that everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is our duty to help our neighbor, but that they have a higher duty not to expose themselves and the children to dangerous risks. This brings up little Nicholas. Nicholas said he hoped he would be able to leave all of the children in an excellent financial position. Mary thought, but did not say, that perhaps Nicholas worried too much about money. Nicholas hopes to soon repurchase Otradnoe. Mary wasn’t able to enter into Nicholas’ financial worries, but she felt a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still stronger. She hoped she loved little Nicholas as well as her own children, and all her family as well as Christ loved mankind. When they were through talking, Nicholas went to pray to the icons.
quote from the chapter:
Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the sole aim was the children’s moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady, tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach, in which she had her being.
He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of himself.
“I quite, quite approve, my dearest!” said he with a significant look, and after a short pause he added: “And I behaved badly today. You weren’t in the study. We began disputing—Pierre and I—and I lost my temper. But he is impossible: such a child!
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