Book 2 Part 5 Chapter 19 (Chapter 161 overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Pierre returns to Moscow. Pierre's judgement of Anatol. Pierre informed of the attempted elopement. Pierre's amazement. Pierre's interview with Natasha.
Briggs: Pierre sees Natasha and confirms that Anatole is already married.
Maude: Pierre at Marya Dmitrievna's. He tells Natasha that Anatole is married
Pevear and Volkhonsky: Pierre tells the truth about Anatole.

Translation:

XIX.

With the day of the arrival of his wife in Moscow, Pierre tidied up to leave somewhere, only so that to not be with her. Soon after the arrival of the Rostovs in Moscow, the impression which Natasha produced in him, made him in a hurry to perform his intention. He went to Tver to the widow of Iosif Alekseevich, who promised for a long time to deliver him the paperwork of the deceased.

When Pierre returned to Moscow, he was given a letter from Marya Dmitrievna, which called him to herself in quite important business, concerning Andrey Bolkonsky and his bride. Pierre avoided Natasha. To him it seemed that he had to her a feeling stronger than that which he should have as a married person to the bride of his friend. And some fate constantly reduced him with her.

"What such has happened? And what of it is business to me?" he thought, dressing to go to Marya Dmitrievna. "Soon would arrive Prince Andrey and marry her!" thought Pierre on the way to Ahrosimova.

On Tverskoy Boulevard someone called out to him.

— Pierre! Have arrived for a long time? — screamed a familiar voice to him. Pierre raised his head. In a paired sleigh ride, in two gray trotters, throwing snow ahead of the sledges, flashed Anatole with his everlasting friend Makarin. Anatole sat all in a classical pose of military dandies, wrapping the bottom face of the beaver collar and a little bending down his head. His face was rosy and fresh, his hat with a white plume was put onto the side, opening his curled and showered with petty snow hair.

"And right, here presents a wise man!" thought Pierre,"Not seeing farther than the present minute's pleasure, nothing worries him, and because of it he is always happy, satisfied and calm. What would I give, so that to be such as he!" with envy thought Pierre.

In the front of Ahrosimova a lackey, taking off from Pierre his fur coat, said that Marya Dmitrievna asked him into the bedroom.

Opening the door to the hall, Pierre saw Natasha sitting in the window with a thin, pale and angry face. She looked around at him, frowned and with an expression of cold virtues exited from the room.

— What happened? — asked Pierre, entering to Marya Dmitrievna.

— Nice affairs, — answered Marya Dmitrievna: — fifty eight years I have lived in the world, such shame I’ve never seen. — and taking from Pierre a word of honor of silence about all that he recognized, Marya Dmitrievna reported to him how Natasha refused her groom without her parents knowing, that the cause of this rejection was Anatole Kuragin, from whom she was reduced by the wife of Pierre, and with whom Natasha wanted to run in the absence of her father so that to secretly get married.

Pierre lifted his shoulders and with an agape mouth listened to what was said to him by Marya Dmitrievna, not believing his ears. The bride of Prince Andrey, so strongly beloved, this before nice Natasha Rostov, exchanged Bolkonsky for the fool Anatole, already married (Pierre knew of his secret marriage), and to so fall in love with him so that to agree to run with him! — this Pierre could not understand and could not represent to himself.

The sweet impression of Natasha, which he knew from childhood, could not connect in his soul with the new presentation about her baseness, nonsense and cruelty. He remembered about his wife. "All they are one and the same," he said to himself, thinking that he was not alone in getting a sad lot related with a nasty woman. Yet he all the same to tears was pitying Prince Andrey, pitying his pride. And the more he pitied his friend, with more contempt and even disgust he thought about this Natasha, with such an expression of cold virtues now passing by him in the hall. He did not know that the soul of Natasha was overwhelmed with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that she was not to blame in this, that her face accidentally expressed calm dignity and austerity.

— And how to get married! — spoke Pierre to the words of Marya Dmitrievna. — He could not get married: he is married.

— Hour from hour is not easier, — spoke Marya Dmitrievna. — Good boy! That bastard! But she waits, for a second day waits. At least waits for him to stop, you need to speak to her.

Upon learning from Pierre the details of the marriage of Anatole, pouring out her wrath to him in abusive words, Marya Dmitrievna reported to him that for what she called him. Marya Dmitrievna was afraid that the count or Bolkonsky, who could at all moments come, upon learning the business which she intended to hide from them, would not be called into a duel with Kuragin, and because of this requested him to order from her name his brother-in-law to leave from Moscow and not to dare to appear in her eyes. Pierre promised her to perform her wish, only now realizing the danger, which threatened the old count, Nikolay, and Prince Andrey. Briefly and exactly setting out to him her demands, she released him into the living room.

— Look the same, the count knows nothing. You make as if you know nothing, — she said to him. — But I will go say to her that there is nothing to wait for! And stay for dinner, if you want, — shouted Marya Dmitrievna to Pierre.

Pierre met the old count. He was embarrassed and disturbed. On this morning Natasha told him that she refused Bolkonsky.

— Trouble, trouble, my friend,557 — he spoke to Pierre, — trouble with these girls without mothers; really I am so grieving that we have arrived. I will be frank with you. You have heard, she refused the groom who was asking for nothing. I never was extremely rejoiced in this marriage. He is a good person, but what the same, against the commitment of the father happiness would not be, and Natasha without grooms will not remain. Yes all the same long now has so gone on, yes and how the same this is without father, without mother, such a step! But now she is sick, and God knows what! Bad, Count, bad with daughters without mothers... — Pierre saw that the count was extremely disturbed, and tried to transfer the conversation to a different subject, but the count again returned to his grief.

Sonya with an alarmed face entered into the living room.

— Natasha was not really healthy; she is in her room and wanted to see you. Marya Dmitrievna is in hers and asks you too.

— Yes, because you are very friendly with Bolkonsky, it is right to want to deliver something, — said the count. — Ah, my God, my God! How all was okay! — and taking for a rare whisk of gray hair, the count got out from the room.

Marya Dmitrievna declared to Natasha about how Anatole was married. Natasha did not want to believe her and demanded confirmation of this from Pierre himself. Sonya reported this to Pierre in that time, as she across the corridor saw him off to the room of Natasha.

Natasha, pale, strictly sat beside Marya Dmitrievna and from the very door met Pierre with a feverishly brilliant, interrogative look. She did not smile, did not nod her head, she only stubbornly watched him, and her look asked him only about: whether he was a friend or such the same enemy as all others, by the relation to Anatole? Pierre himself obviously did not exist for her.

— He knows all, — said Marya Dmitrievna, pointing at Pierre and turning to Natasha. — He will let it be known whether I told the truth.

Natasha, as a wounded, driven animal watching approaching dogs and hunters, watched that to that, that to another.

— Natalya Ilinichna, — started Pierre, lowering his eyes and testing the sense of pity to her and disgust to that operation which he was to do, — Really this is or not, this is for you must be all care for because of how...

— So this really is not that he is married?

— No, this really is.

— He was married and for a long time? — she asked, — Word of honor?

Pierre gave her his word of honor.

— He is still here? — she asked quickly.

— Yes, I saw him now.

It was obviously not in her forces to speak and made with her hands a sign for him to leave her.

557 mon cher, (my dear,)

Time: undefined

Locations: Moscow, Tver Boulevard, Marya Dmitrievna's house
Mentioned: Tver

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Switch to Pierre, who is avoiding his wife and Natasha: "It seemed to him that he had a stronger feeling for her than a married man ought to have for his friend's fiancee."

On his way to go see Natasha, on Marya Dmitrievna's insistence, he runs into Anatole.

"Yes, indeed, there's a true wise man!" thought Pierre. "He doesn't see anything beyond the present moment of pleasure, nothing troubles him--and therefore he's always cheerful, content, and calm. I'd give anything to be
like him!" Pierre thought with envy."

His reaction to Natasha's attempted elopement: The sweet impression of Natasha, whom he had known since she was a child, could not be combined in his soul with the new notion of her baseness, stupidity, and cruelty."

He pities Andrei and decides all women are the same.

"He did not know that Natasha's soul was filled with despair, shame, humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face happened to express calm dignity and severity."

"it's bad with daughters and no mother"

The news that Anatole was already married, which Pierre reveals, rocks Natasha.

"As a wounded animal at bay looks at the approaching dogs and hunters, Natasha looked from one to the other."

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 (“his wife”)

Natasha Rostova (also “Natalya Ilyinitchna”)

Iosiph Alekseyevitch (and his widow, who gets no characterization.)

Marya Dmitrievna Akrasimova (and her footman, who may or may not be Gavrilo.)

Prince Andrei Bolkonsky

Anatol Kuragin

Makarin

Count Rostof (“father”, “old count”, and “the count”)

Nikolai

Countess Rostova (“mother”)

Sonya

Abridged Versions: Start of Chapter 22 in Bell, no break.
Gibian: Chapter 19.

Fuller: Chapter is preserved.

Komroff: While Pierre still sees Anatole, his inner monologue about him is removed. Rest of chapter appears preserved.

Kropotkin: Chapter 13: Chapter is preserved.
Simmons: Chapter 19: the section where Pierre sees Anatole and reflects on Anatole's philosophy is removed.

Additional Notes:

From Moscow to Tver is not quite 200 kilometers. Tolstoy himself visited the city.

From the Alexander Herzen museum in Moscow, here is what Tverskoy Boulevard would have looked like in 1825, a few years after the novel is set

Holbrook compares Anatole as a "lesser man" like Oblonsky (whose cheating on his wife opens Anna Karenina) whose lifestyle is appealing but overall short of the Tolstoy ideal.

I find it an interesting tension in Pierre's character, as well as Tolstoy's work and life in general. On one hand, hedonism is shown to be rather successful in drowning out the

difficulties of the world and the nature of existence, but at the end of the day, Tolstoy finds the more meaningful life to be the one of meekness and temperance.

One can also see this in the (overstated by critics) difference of Tolstoy's earlier and mid-period (War and Peace and Anna Karenina) celebration of life versus the more austere

political or fictional (Ivan Ilyich and Resurrection) works.