BOOK 11, Chptr. 11, P&V pg. 847

Book 11, Chapter 11

Rostopchín questions Pierre’s masonic connections, and asks Pierre to leave the city. Pierre learns Hélène wants a divorce. Pierre goes away, where to no one knows.

Summary:

Pierre was summoned to the commander in chief. Rostopchín asks Pierre if he is a mason, and mentions several masons he has had deported. Pierre asks why they were deported, but Rostopchín won’t say. Rostopchín mentions he knows that Pierre had just given a ride to a general who Rostopchín considers undesirable for some reason. Rostopchín advises Pierre not to communicate with such people, and to leave Moscow as soon as possible. Returning home, he has to talk to different people who have been waiting there. He reads Hélène’s letter about wanting a divorce. In the morning, more people are waiting for Pierre. Instead of seeing them, Pierre slips out the back of the house. From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one in the household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again or knew where he was.

quote from the chapter:

They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed… that old man… Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary… the meaning of all… one must harness… my wife is getting married… One must forget and understand… And going to his bed he threw himself on it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.

When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchín to know whether Count Bezúkhov had left or was leaving the town.

A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see them, went to the back porch and out through the gate.

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