Nicholas enjoys a trip to the country to buy horses for the army. That evening he attends a dance at the home of the local military governor, where he amuses himself by ostentatiously flirting with a married woman.
Nicholas enjoys a trip to the country to buy horses for the army. That evening he attends a dance at the home of the local military governor, where he amuses himself by ostentatiously flirting with a married woman.
Book 12, Chapter 4
Nicholas enjoys a trip to the country to buy horses for the army. That evening he attends a dance at the home of the local military governor, where he amuses himself by ostentatiously flirting with a married woman.
Summary:
Contrary to what one might expect, the most useful people living through major historical events tend to stay focused on their own daily lives, and not think much about the big historical picture. Nicholas and the Russian army were this way. Within Kutúzov’s army there was little talk or thought about the loss of Moscow. When the army caught sight of the city’s burned ruins, no one swore to be avenged on the French. They instead thought about normal army concerns like their next pay or their next quarters. Similarly, if Nicholas Rostóv had been asked then what he thought of the state of Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose. So, when about this time Nicholas was sent to purchase some horses in the country, he did so in a somewhat light hearted manner, glad to be getting away from camp for a few days. He went to visit a particularly good horse breeder in the country. That night there was an informal dance at the house of the local military governor. The dashing Nicholas, a charming bachelor who danced very well, impressed all the women at the dance. Nicholas amused himself at the party by ostentatiously flirting with an attractive married woman. This amused the woman, but didn’t at all amuse her husband, who gradually grew more sullen as she became more animated.
quote from the chapter:
dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.
All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials. With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if, without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the latter’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless that sometimes even he involuntarily yielded to Nicholas’ good humor.
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