Briggs: Pierre is in a frenzy of joy. He loves everybody he meets.
Time: see previous chapter
Mentioned: his courtship of Helene
Translation:
XIX.
In the soul Pierre now was happening nothing like that what was happening in it in the similar circumstances in the time of his matchmaking with Elen.
He did not repeat, as then, with painful shame the words he said, did not speak to himself: "ah, what for had I not said this, and what for, what for did I say then “I love you?”.1014 Now, the opposite, each word of hers, he repeated in his imagination with all the details of the face, smile and did not want to subtract, or add: he wanted only to repeat them. Doubts in whether it was okay or bad that that he took, — were not in the shadows. Only one scary doubt sometimes came to his head: whether or not all this was a dream. Was Princess Marya mistaken? Was I not too proud and arrogant? I believe it; but suddenly, what must happen, Princess Marya will tell her, but she will smile and answer: "how weird! He is rightly mistaken. Does he not know that he is a person, simply a person, but I?.. I am really another, higher."
Only this doubt often came to Pierre. He did not make plans or do anything. To him it seemed so unbelievable that happiness lay ahead, that he was standing in this place, and really nothing further could be. All was finished.
A joyful, unexpected madness, to which Pierre counted himself incapable, controlled him. All the meaning of life, not for him alone, but for all the world, seemed to him consisting in only his love and the opportunity of her love to him. Sometimes all people seemed to him busy only by one thing, — his future happiness. To him it seemed sometimes that they all rejoiced so the same as he himself, and only were trying to hide this joy, pretending to be busy with other interests. In each word and movement he saw hints in their happiness. He often amazed people, meeting with him, with his own significant, expressing secret consent, happy views and smiles. Yet when he understood that people could not know about his happiness, he throughout his soul pitied them and felt the wish to explain something to them, that all that busied them is absolute nonsense and rubbish, not standing their attention.
When he was offered to serve, or when was discussed some kind of general, state affair or war, assuming that from such and such exodus of events depended the happiness of all people, he listened with a meek condolence of a smile and amazed the speaking with him people with his own strange remarks. Yet as those people, which seemed to Pierre to understand the present meaning of life, i.e. his feelings, and those miserable, which obviously did not understand this, — all people in this period of time presented to him such a bright light shining in him feeling that he without the slightest efforts, right away, met with how would that was human, saw in him all that was good and decent love.
Looking at the business and paperwork of his deceased wife, he to her memory felt no feeling, besides pity about how she did not know this happiness which he knew now. Prince Vasiliy, especially proud of now receiving new places and stars, presented to him as a touching, kind and miserable old man.
Pierre often then remembered this time of happy madness. All judgments that he made up for himself about people and circumstances for this period of time, stayed for him forever faithful. He not only did not abdicate afterwards from these views of people and things, but the opposite, in the interior of doubts and contradicting, came running to that look which had been in this time of madness, and this look always manifested as true.
"Maybe, he thought, I seemed then strange and ridiculous; but I then was not so insane as it seemed. The opposite, I was then smarter and shrewder than now, and understood all that is worth understanding in life because of how...I was happy."
The madness of Pierre consisted in that he did not wait for, as before, personal reasons that he called the virtues of people, so that to love them, but the love overwhelmed his heart and it, the unreasonable love of people, found undoubted causes, for which their love was worth.
1014 "je vous aime?". ("I love you?")
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Unlike the paralyzing fear that he had with Helene, Pierre acts without doubt and with happiness.
"Pierre's insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and, loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reason for which it was worth loving them."
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
Ellen (also "late wife")
Princess Mariya
Prince Vasili (arguable he is in the chapter rather than mentioned)
Abridged Versions: No break in Bell.
Gibian: Line break instead of chapter break.
Fuller: Entire chapter is cut.
Komroff: Entire chapter is cut.
Kropotkin: Entire chapter is cut.
Simmons: The reflections on his courtship with Helene is shortened. The section with Vasili and political affairs is removed. Line break instead of chapter break.
Additional Notes:
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