Briggs: Pierre gets used to freedom and reviews his life.
Pevear and Volokhonsky (chapters 12-13): Pierre falls ill in Orel. His joyful feeling of freedom and its effect on others. He returns to Moscow.
Translation:
XII.
Pierre, as this for the most part is, felt all the heaviness of physical hardships and strains, tested in captivity, only then when these strains and deprivations were finished. After his release from captivity he had arrived in Eagle, and on the third day of his arrival, in that time as he gathered in Kiev, got sick and laid in Orel for three months; with him was, as said the doctor, a bilious fever. Despite that the doctor treated him, let his blood and gave to drink medicine, he all the same recovered.
All that was with Pierre with the time of release and before the disease, left in him almost no impressions. He remembered only the gray, gloomy, then rainy, then snowy weather, inner physical longing, pain in his legs, in his sides; remembered the common impression of misfortunes, the misery of people; remembered the worrying for his curiosity officers, generals, questioning him, his chores about so that to find crew and horses, and the main thing, remembered his inability to think and feel in that time. On the day of his release he saw the body of Petya Rostov. On that same day he found out that Prince Andrey was alive for months after the Borodino battle and only recently died in Yaroslavl at the house of the Rostovs. On that same day Denisov, informing this news to Pierre, between the conversation mentioned about the death of Elen, assuming that Pierre already for a long time knew. All this to Pierre seemed then only weird. He felt that he may not understand the meanings of all this news. He then hurried only to soon leave from these places, where people killed each other to some quiet refuge and there come round, relax and think out all that strange and new that he found out behind this time. Yet as only he had arrived in Eagle, he got sick. Waking up from his disease, Pierre saw around himself two people, arrived from Moscow, — Terenty and Vaski, and the older princess, who lived in Yelts, at the estate of Pierre, and upon learning about his release and disease, arrived to him, so that to walk behind him.
In the time of his convalescence, Pierre only little by little weaned from the made habitual to him impressions of the last months, and got used to that he had nowhere to drive tomorrow, that his warm bed would not be taken away and that for sure he will have lunch, tea, and dinner. Yet in a dream he still for long saw himself all in those same conditions of captivity. So the same little by little Pierre understood that news which he found out after his exit from captivity; the death of Prince Andrey, the death of his wife, the destruction of the French.
The joyful feeling of freedom, — that complete, inalienable, inherent person of freedom, the consciousness of which he for the first time experienced in the first halt, at the output from Moscow, filled the soul of Pierre in the time of his convalescence. He was surprised that this internal freedom was independent of external circumstances, now as if with surplus, with luxury furnished and outside freedom. He was alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything from him; nowhere was he sent. All that he wanted was his; the forever tormenting him before thought about his wife was no more, as she now was not there.
— Ah how okay! How glorious! — he spoke to himself, when he was encouraged by a purely covered table with a fragrant broth, or when he at night lied down on a soft blank bed, or when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. — Ah how okay, how glorious! — and by old habit he made to himself the question: well, but then what? What will I do? And immediately again he responded to himself: nothing. I will live. Ah how glorious!
That very thing that he was before tormented by, what he sought constantly, the objective of life, — now for him did not exist. This desired objective of life now not accidentally existed for him, not in a real alone moment, but he felt that it was not and may not be. And this absence of goals gave him that complete, joyful consciousness of freedom, which at this time formed his happiness.
He could not have goals because that he now had faith, — not faith in some rules, or words, or thoughts, but faith in the living, always felt God. Before he sought Him in purposes which he set for himself. This search of goals was only the search of God; and suddenly he found out in his captivity not words, not reasoning, but a direct feeling, that, what for him a long time already was said by his nanny: that God is here, here, everywhere. He in captivity found out that the God in Karataev was greater, infinite and incomprehensible, than in the recognized by the masons Architect of the universe. He felt the sense of humanity, found the sought in himself under his feet, then as he strained his vision, looking long away from himself. He all his life watched there for something, on the top of the heads of surrounding people, but the need was to not strain his eyes, but only look before himself.
He was not able before to see the great, incomprehensible and endless. He only felt that it must be somewhere, and sought it. In all close, he understood, saw one limited, shallow, everyday senselessness. He armed his mental visual pipe and watched in the distance, there, where this shallow everyday, hiding in the haze seemed to him great and endless only because of how it was not clearly apparent. So to him presented European life, politics, freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy. Yet then, in those minutes which he counted his weakness, his mind penetrated in this distance, and there he saw that same shallow, everyday senselessness. Now again he learned to see the great, eternal and endless to all, and because of it, naturally, so that to see it, so that to enjoy his contemplation, he threw the pipe in which he watched before across the heads of people, and happily contemplated around himself the forever changing, the forever great, incomprehensible and infinity of life. And the nearer he watched, by that the more he was calm and happy. Before destroyed all his mental buildings the terrible question: what for? Now for him it did not exist. Now to this question — what for? In his soul always was ready a searched answer: then, that God is, that God, without the commitment of whom does not subside a hair from the head of a human.
Time: the third day, three months
Mentioned: a month
Locations: Orel (Oryol in Briggs)
Mentioned: Kiev, Borodino, Yaroslav, Moscow, Elets, French, European
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: We flip to Pierre, who spends three months recovering. "Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered."
Pierre learns of the deaths of Petya, Andrei, and Helene and wants more than anything to get to where people are not killing each other. After becoming internally free during his captivity, he becomes externally free, even free from the tormentations of his wife, since "she was no longer there", which is followed immediately with "Ah, how good!"
The absence of his search for meaning in life leads to a happiness that God is right with him and everywhere, contrary to the God above represented by the Masons.
Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):
Pierre
Petya Rostof (again, the dead body)
Prince Andrei
Denisof
Ellen
Terentii (the names are dropped in Bell. "Terenty" in Maude, Garnett, and Edmonds.)
Vaska
The oldest of the princesses
Karatayef
Abridged Versions: Start of Chapter 17 in Bell. No break at the end.
Gibian: Chapter 5: Line break instead of chapter break.
Fuller: First, the news that Elena has died while Pierre was prisoner is moved here. It is reduced to a paragraph that mentions the Italian doctor and the drug that killed here and even Vassily's initial attempts to take proceedings about him. This is followed by a line break to which we see the content of chapter 12. Some of the information about the Masons is removed, but chapter otherwise the chapter is preserved and followed by a line break.
Komroff: Pierre's reflections on his freedom, God, and his wife are shortened. Followed by a line break.
Kropotkin: Chapter 6: The episode with Petya's body and Densiov telling him about his wife's death is removed. His reflections on God, Masons, etc is almost entirely removed. No break.
Simmons: Chapter 5: some of Pierre's reflections are shortened. Line break instead of chapter break.
Additional Notes:
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