Freed from prison, Pierre is sick for three months. It took him awhile to get used to being at liberty again, but the spiritual insights he had gained in prison, his new faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God, remained with him.
Freed from prison, Pierre is sick for three months. It took him awhile to get used to being at liberty again, but the spiritual insights he had gained in prison, his new faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God, remained with him.
Book 15, Chapter 12
Freed from prison, Pierre is sick for three months. It took him awhile to get used to being at liberty again, but the spiritual insights he had gained in prison, his new faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God, remained with him.
Summary:
When Pierre was freed from prison, he found out from Denísov about the deaths of Hélène and Prince Andrew. Being free again felt strange to him and he just wanted to get away as quickly as possible from places where people were killing one another, to some peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over all the strange new facts he had learned. It took him quite a while to get over the feeling of being in prison. He had gone only a short distance before he fell ill and was laid up for three months. It was only gradually during his convalescence period that Pierre lost the impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months and got used to the idea that no one could make him go anywhere tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But the spiritual insights he had gained while he was in prison stuck with him. He was now a different person than he had been earlier in life. He no longer felt tormented by needing to find an aim in life. Now he had faith-not faith in any kind of rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest God.
quote from the chapter:
Now, however, he had learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and therefore-to see it and enjoy its contemplation-he naturally threw away the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men’s heads, and gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil and happy he became. That dreadful question, What for? which had formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. To that question, What for? a simple answer was now always ready in his soul: Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair falls from a man’s head.
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