Book 2 Part 4 Chapter 2 (Chapter 131 Overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Nikolai undertakes to regulate the finances. Nikolai thrashes Mitenka. The note of hand.
Briggs: Nikolay gives Mitenka some rough treatment.
Maude: Nicholas settles accounts with Mitenka
Pevear and Volkhonsky: Nikolai confronts the steward Mitenka.

II.

In the first time of his arrival Nikolay was serious and even bored. He was tormented by the forthcoming miserable to intervene in stupid economic affairs, for which his mother called him. So that to rather dump from his shoulders this burden, on the third day of his arrival he angrily, not answering the question of where he was going, went with frowning eyebrows into the wing of Mitenka and demanded him to calculate alone. What such were these alone calculations, Nikolay knew still less than the coming into fear and perplexity Mitenka. The conversation and accounting of Mitenka went on not for long. The headman, elective and governmental council waiting at the front wing with fear and pleasure heard first the buzzing and as if tearing apart everything towering voice of the young count, abusive and scary words pouring one behind the other.

— Robber! Ungrateful creature!...I will chop the dog.. not from daddy... robbed... — and etc.

Then these people with not less pleasure and fear saw how the young count, all red, with blood pouring into his eyes, behind the collar drug out Mitenka, foot and knee with a large dexterity in comfortable time between his words pushed him under the backside and shouted: "Out! So that your spirit, bastard, was not here!"

Mitenka headlong flew off from six stages and ran into the flower bed. (This flower bed was famous terrain for the safety of criminals at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself came drunk from the cities, hiding in this flower bed, and many residents of Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka, knew the saving force of this flower bed.)

The wife of Mitenka and sister-in-law with scared faces leaned out onto the canopy from the doors of the room where boiled clean samovar and a towering high clerk bed under a quilted blanket sewn from short pieces.

The young count, gasping for breath, did not turn attention to them and with decisive steps passed by them and went into the house.

The countess, recognizing immediately through the girls about what happened in the wing, with one part calmed down at this regarding that now their state must be mended, with a different part she worried about how this would carry over her son. She was fit some time on tiptoe to his door, listening as he smoked pipe behind pipe.

On the next day the old count withdrew to the side his son and with a timid smile said to him:

— But whether you know, my soul, in vain you got excited! Mitenka told me everything.

"I knew, — thought Nikolay, — that never I’d understand anything here, in this stupid world."

— You are angered that he had not entered these 700 rubles. Because they are by him written in transport, and on another page you did not look.

— Daddy, he is a bastard and thief, I know. And that he did what he did. But should you not want me to, I will speak nothing to him.

— No, my soul (the count was embarrassed too. He felt that he was a bad manager of the estates of his wife and was to blame before their own children, but he did not know how to correct this). — No, I beg you do business, I am old, I...

— No, daddy, you forgive me should I have done you unpleasantly; I can do less than you can.

"Damn with these, with these men and money, and transports by page, — he thought. — still from the corner in six pieces I understand something, but by page transport — I understand nothing," he said to himself and from this since no more stood up in affairs. Only once the countess called to herself her son, reported to him about how in her was a bill of credit from Anna Mihaylovna of two thousand, and asked Nikolay how he thought to do with it.

— But here is how, — was the response of Nikolay. — You to me have said that this from me depends on; I do not love Anna Mihaylovna and do not love Boris, but they were friendly with us and are poor. So here is how! — and he tore up the bill of credit, and by this act made the old countess sob tears of joys. After this young Rostov, now not standing up for more in whatever the affairs, with passionate enthusiasm occupied the still new for him business of canine hunting, which in large sizes was started by the old count.

Time: the third day after his arrival, the following day

Locations: Otradnoe

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Nikolai confronts Mitenka, grabs him, and kicks him out.

There is an interesting parenthetical about "the saving power of this flower garden" that Mitenka hides in. Nikolai and his father then speak about the confrontation: "The count was also embarrassed. He felt he had managed
his wife's state poorly and was guilty before his children, but he did not know how to set things to rights."

Then the final episode of the chapter, the money Anna Mikhailovna owes the Rostovs, which even though Nikolai doesn't like her or her son, tears it up and decides not to interfere with the running of the household, opting to
focus on hunting with dogs instead.

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 *):

Nikolai Rostof (also "young count" and "her son")

Countess Rostova (just "his mother", "wife" and "old countess")

Mitenka (Nikolai calls him all kinds of names like "brigand", "wretch", "villain" and "dog".)

Count Rostof (just "papenka", "the count" and "old count". His children are referenced as a whole.)

Mitenka's Wife

Mitenka's Wife's Sister

Anna Mikhailovna

Boris

(a little bit of confusion in some unnamed characters early in the chapter who hear Nikolai's yelling to Nikolai. Dole has two, the unhelpfully named "starosta of the estate and the starosta of the commune". Briggs' punctuation
decisions make things confusing, with "The village elder, the peasant spokesman and the village clerk", making it entirely unclear whether two or three people are meant. Edmonds is much clearer "The village elder, a
spokesman from the peasants, and the village clerk", making it obvious that peasant spokesman is part of the job title of the village elder. Garnett seems to have three people: "The village elder, the deputy, and the village
clerk". Dunnigan seems to have two: "The village elder, a delegate from the peasants, and the village clerk". Maude and Mandelker leave it up in the air: "The village elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk". The overseer, or plural as in Dole, or "steward" is obliquely referenced to.)

Abridged Versions: End of Chapter 10 in Bell.
Gibian: Chapter 2.

Fuller: Entire Chapter is cut.

Komroff: Chapter seems preserved. Followed by a break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 2: Chapter is preserved.

Bromfield: A little bit of extra information about Nikolai and Sonya's relationship at the end of the chapter, with her not going on the hunts because she can't ride, making Nikolai feel more free. "Nikolai became more cheerful
and even here, in this world that had been such a fearful tangle, he discovered his own little world, centered on friendship with Natasha and hunting." End of chapter 1
Simmons: Chapter 2: entire chapter is cut and replaced with "Nicholas administers a drubbing to the thieving steward of the family estate and then wipes his hands of the matter."

Additional Notes:

Nikitenko/Jacobson/Kolchin: xii: "Badly outnumbered, nobles usually felt uncomfortable among their serf and interacted with them as little as possible. Some (such as the Sheremetevs) were absentee owners; indeed, wealthy nobles with extensive landholdings were almost always absentee owners, since even if they lived on one of their country estates they were remote figures to the peasants who lived (page xiii) on their other holdings. Even when they were not absent, most wealthy nobles had little contact with their peasants, with the important exception of their house serfs, and dealt with them primarily through administrative intermediaries that included a hierarchy of managers, stewards, and representatives chosen by the peasants themselves."

xx: "he (Nikitenko) proclaimed that "the Russian muzhik (peasant) is practically a perfect savage. He is crude, ignorant, and lacks any understanding of rights and law, while his religion consists of nodding his head and flailing his arms." Nikitenko was even more disillusioned with Russia's intelligentsia, for if the peasant was "a drunkard and a thief," he was "a far better person than the so-called educated, intelligent Russian," who was "a liar from head to toe."

 Anna Karenina (Bayley/Maude): The upper class, as represented by such a man as Stiva Oblonsky,

or by Vronsky himself, Anna's lover, have become frivolous and irresponsible, neglectful of their civic

and patriotic duties....It is a far cry to the idyllic days of the Rostov family, and the country pursuits of

War and Peace...