Pierre and the affable French officer sit talking the whole evening about many things but mostly about love and women. Eventually Pierre truthfully tells the officer the entire story of his life.
Pierre and the affable French officer sit talking the whole evening about many things but mostly about love and women. Eventually Pierre truthfully tells the officer the entire story of his life.
Book 11, Chapter 29
Pierre and the affable French officer sit talking the whole evening about many things but mostly about love and women. Eventually Pierre truthfully tells the officer the entire story of his life.
Summary:
The amiable French officer sits down to eat with Pierre. At first not wishing to be there, Pierre is won over by the friendly, outgoing manner of the officer, and they talk for a long time. They talk about battles, about women, and about Paris. Pierre involuntarily enjoyed talking with this cheerful and good-natured man. The French officer tells Pierre about his love life, and about how much he admires Napoleon. The wine and pleasant conversation cause Pierre to realize he could never actually go through with his plan of assassinating Napoleon. This in turn makes Pierre feel weak. They talk much more for a long time about all sorts of things, but mostly about women. Hearing about the French officers’ lovers, Pierre remembers Natásha. Pierre realizes his last meeting with Natásha had had in it something very important and poetic. Pierre opens up and honestly tells the French officer the whole story of his life. Outside they see a distant fire in the city. Then the tipsy Pierre, without saying goodnight, wanders off and falls asleep on a sofa.
quote from the chapter:
When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he understood that. The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand it he begged Pierre to continue.
Platónic love, clouds… he muttered.
Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together, something loosened Pierre’s tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his marriage, Natásha’s love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe’s questions he also told what he had at first concealed-his own position and even his name.
More than anything else in Pierre’s story the captain was impressed by the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there concealing his name and station.
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