Book 3 Part 2 Chapter 8 (Chapter 195 overall)

Chapter Summaries: Dole: Prince Bolkonsky arms the landwehr. Princess Mariya refuses to leave. The stroke of paralysis. Taken to Bogucharovo. The change. Mariya's hopes. Her remorse. Her farewell interview with her father. His affection for her. His death. His appearance on the death-bed. On the catafaique.
Briggs: Prince Bolkonsky has a stroke, and then dies, nursed by Princess Marya.
Maude: Prince Nicholas Bolkonski has a paralytic stroke and is taken to Bogucharovo. Princess Mary decides that they must move on to Moscow. Her last interview with her father. His affection for her. his death
Pevear and Volokhonsky: Prior events at Bald Hills. The old prince refuses to leave. He has a stroke. They go to Bogucharovo. Reconciliations. Death of the old prince.

Translation:

VIII.

Princess Marya was not in Moscow and beyond dangers, as thought Prince Andrey.

After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk, the old prince as if suddenly came to his senses from sleep. He told to gather from the villages militias, armed them, and wrote the commander in chief a letter, which informed him about his adopted intentions to stay at Bald Mountains to the last extremes and to defend it, leaving it to his consideration to accept or not to accept steps for the defense of Bald Mountains, in which will be taken in captivity or killed one of the oldest Russian generals, and declared to the home that he was staying at Bald Mountains.

Yet, himself staying at Bald Mountains, the prince ordered about the dispatch of the princesses and Desala with the little prince to Bogucharovo, and from there to Moscow. Princess Marya, scared by the feverish, sleepless activity of her father, replacing his former omission, could not decide to leave him alone and in the first time in her life allowed herself to not obey him. She refused to go, and in her collapsed a terrible thunderstorm of anger of the prince. He resembled her in that he was unfair in all against her. Trying to accuse her, he said to her that she tortured him, that she quarrelled with him and his son, had against him ugly suspicions, that the task of her place was to poison his life, and kicked her out of his office, saying to her that should she not leave, he all cared. He said that he did not want to know about her existence, but forwardly notified her, so she did not dare to fall from his eye. That he, contrary to the concerns of Princess Marya, did not tell to forcibly take her away, but only ordered her to not show herself to his eyes, gladdened Princess Marya. She knew that this proved that in his most secret soul throughout he was glad that she stayed at home and did not leave.

On the next day after the departure of Nikolushki, the old prince in the morning dressed in full uniform and gathered to go to the commander in chief. The carriage was now served. Princess Marya saw, as he, in uniform and all orders, got out of the home and went to the garden to make a review of the armed men and yard. Princess Marya sat at the window, listening to his voice, distributing from the garden. Suddenly from the alleys ran out a few people with scared faces.

Princess Marya ran out to the porch, to the floral road and into the alley. Towards her moved a big crowd of militias and court, and in the middle of this crowd a few people under their hands dragged a small old man in uniform and orders. Princess Marya ran up to him, and in the game of small circles of light, falling through the shadow of phony alleys, and could not give herself a report on what turn had occurred on his face. She saw only that what was the former strict and decisive expression of his face was replaced by an expression of timidity and submissiveness. Seeing his daughter, he stirred his powerless lips and wheezed. It could not be understood what he wanted. He raised his hand, was carried off to the office and placed on that sofa which he was so afraid of in the latter time.

Was brought the doctor to that same night, letting blood and declaring that the prince had a stroke of the right part.

At Bald Mountains staying became more and more dangerous, and on the next day after the stroke, the prince was carried to Bogucharovo. The doctor went with him.

When they arrived at Bogucharovo, Desala with the little prince had already left to Moscow.

All at this same position, not worse and not better, broken by paralysis, the old prince for three weeks lied at Bogucharov in the new, built by Prince Andrey, house. The old prince was in unconsciousness; he lied as a mutilated body. He not ceasing to mumble something, twitched his eyebrows and lips, and it could not be to know or understand him, by who surrounded him. One could know for sure — that he suffered and felt the need to still express something. Yet what this was, this no one could understand; whether this was some caprice of the sick and half crazy, whether this carried off to the common passage of cases, or carried this off to family circumstances?

The doctor spoke that the expressed anxiety meant nothing, that it had physical causes; but Princess Marya thought (and that her presence always intensified his anxiety, confirmed her assumption), thought that he wanted to say something to her. He obviously suffered physically and morally.

Hopes in healing were not. To carry him could not be. And what would be, should he die on the road? "Whether it would not be better would this be the end, really the end!" sometimes thought Princess Marya. She day and night, almost without sleep, watched for him and, fearful to say, she often watched for him not with the hope of finding signs of relief, but watched, often wishing to find signs of the approximation of the end.

How weird it was for the princess to be aware in herself of this feeling, but it was in her. And what was still uglier for Princess Marya, this was that with the time of the disease of her father (whether or not it was even earlier, whether or not then, when she, expecting something, was left with him) in her woke up all that was asleep in her, the forgotten personal willingness and hopes. That, what for years had not come to her head — thought about a free life without fear of her father, even the thought about the opportunity of love and family happiness, as temptations of the devil incessantly carried in her imagination. As she removed it from herself, incessantly to her came in her head questions about how she now, after this, would arrange her life. These were the temptations of the devil, and Princess Marya knew this. She knew that the only weapon against him were prayers, and she tried to pray. She became in the position of prayers, watched the image, read the words of prayers, but could not pray. She felt that now she was swept by a different world everyday, difficult and free of activities, completely opposite to that moral world, in which she was concluded before and in which the best comfort was — prayer. She could not pray and could not cry, and the everyday care swept her.

Staying at Bogucharov became dangerous. With all parties it was heard about the approaching French, and in one the village, at 15 versts from Bogucharov, was a manor plundered by French marauders.

The doctor insisted that it was needed to carry the prince farther; the leader sent an official to Princess Marya, persuading her to leave as soon as she could; a police officer, having arrived at Bogucharovo, insisted in the same, saying that at forty versts were the French, that by the village goes a French proclamation, and that should the princess not leave with her father before the 15th, then he for that will not be responsible.

The princess on the 15th decided to go. Care for the preparations, returning orders, for which all turned to her, for the whole day occupied her. On the night from the 14th to the 15th she held, as usual, not undressed, in the neighboring from that room in which lied the prince. A few times, awake, she heard him groaning, muttering, the creaking of the bed, and the steps of Tihon and the doctor, tossing him. A few times she listened at the door, and to her it seemed that he now mumbled louder than ordinary and more often tossed and turned. She could not sleep, and a few times fit to the door, listening, wishing to enter and not daring to do this. Although he did not speak, Princess Marya saw, knowing how unpleasant for him was all expressions of fear for him. She noticed, as displeased, he turned away from her sight, sometimes unwittingly and stubbornly in him striving. She knew that her coming at night, in an unusual time, annoyed him.

Yet never in her was there pity, so fearful to lose him. She remembered all her life with him, and in each word and act of his she found an expression of his love to her. Occasionally between these memories rushed in her imagination temptations of the devil, thoughts about what will be after his death and how to arrange her new, free life. Yet with disgust she drove away these thoughts. In the morning he fell silent, and she fell asleep.

She woke up late. That sincerity, which was in the awakening, showed her clearly that only the disease of her father occupied her. She woke up, listened to that what was behind the door, and, upon hearing his groaning, with a sigh said to herself that all was the same.

— Yes why the same? What the same did I want? I want his death, — she cried out with disgust to mostly herself.

She dressed, washed up, read prayers and exited onto the porch. To the porch passed without horses crews, on which were stacked things.

The morning was warm and gray. Princess Marya stopped on the porch, not ceasing to be horrified before her sincere abomination and trying to bring into order her thought, before entering to him.

The doctor came down from the stairs and came up to her.

— He is better now, — said the doctor. — I sought you. You can somewhat understand what he says, his head is fresher. Let's go. He calls you...

The heart of Princess Marya so strongly hammered at this news that she, becoming pale, leaned to the door, so that not to fall. Seeing him, speaking with him, falling under his look now, when all the soul of Princess Marya was crowded by these scary criminal temptations — was painfully happy and terrible.

— Let's go, — said the doctor.

Princess Marya entered to her father and came up to the bed. He lied high on his back with his own small, bony, covered in lilac knotty veins hands, in a blanket, with a laden to all left eye and with a sloping right eye, with motionless eyebrows and lips. He was all such slender, little and miserable. His face, it seemed, had withered or melted, shredded features. Princess Marya came up and kissed his hand. His left hand reaped her hand so that it was seen that he now for a long time was waiting for her. He twitched her arm, and his eyebrows and lips angrily stirred.

She scaredly looked at him, trying to guess what he wanted from her. When she, changing position, moved, so that his left eye saw her face, he calmed down, in a few seconds not lowering from her eye. Then his lips and tongue stirred, was heard sounds, and he began to speak, timidly and pleadingly looking at her, apparently fearing that she would not understand him.

Princess Marya, straining all her forces of attention, watched him. The comic work, with which he tossed his tongue, forced Princess Marya to lower her eyes and with labor suppress the rising in her throat sobbing. He said something, by several times repeating his words. Princess Marya could not understand them; but she tried to guess that what he spoke and repeated interrogatively the said to her words.

— Gaga — fights... fights...— he repeated a few times... No way could it be to understand these words. The doctor thought that he guessed it and, repeating his words, asked: The princess is afraid? He negatively shook his head and again repeated the same...

— Soul, soul ache, — unraveled and said Princess Marya. He affirmatively moaned, taking her hand and beginning to press her to various parts of his breast, as if looking for a present for her place.

— All thoughts! About you... thought... — then he reprimanded much better and clearer than before, now, when he was sure that he was understood. Princess Marya snuggled her head to his hand, trying to hide her sobbing and tears.

His hand moved by her hair.

— I called you all night... — he reprimanded.

— If I would have known... — through tears she said. — I was afraid to enter.

He shook her arm.

— You did not sleep?

— No, I did not sleep, — said Princess Marya, negatively shaking her head. Unwittingly obeying her father, she now so the same, as he spoke, tried to speak more signs, and as if also with labor tossing his tongue.

— Darling... — or — my friend...— Princess Marya could not make out; but for sure, by the expression of his sight, what was said was a tender, caressing word, which he never spoke. — What for did you not come?

"But I wanted, wanted his death!" thought Princess Marya. He was silent.

— Thank you... daughter, my friend... for all, for all...sorry... thanks... sorry... thanks!.. — and tears flowed from his eyes. — Call Andryusha, — he suddenly said, and something childishly timid and incredulous expressed in his face, in this demand. He as if himself knew that his demand had no sense. So, at least, it seemed to Princess Marya.

— I from him received a letter, — answered Princess Marya. He, with surprise and timidity, watched her.

— Where again is he?

— He is in the army, mon père (father), in Smolensk.

He for long kept silent, closed his eyes; then affirmed, as he would answer his doubt and in confirmation of what he now all got and remembered, nodded his head and opened his eyes.

— Yes, — he said clearly and quietly. — They killed Russia! Ruined! — and he again sobbed, and tears flowed in his eyes. Princess Marya could not hold on more and cried too, looking at his face.

He again closed his eyes. His sobbing ceased. He made a sign of his hand to his eyes; and Tihon, realizing it, wiped his tears.

Then he opened his eyes and said something, which for long no one could understand, and finally was got and delivered to Tihon alone. Princess Marya looked for the meaning of his words in this mood, in which he spoke for a moment before this. Then she thought that he spoke about Russia, then about Prince Andrey, then about her, about his grandson, then about his death. And from this she could not guess his words:

— Put on your white dress, I love it,— he spoke.

Realizing these words, Princess Marya sobbed still louder, and the doctor, taking her under the arm, brought her out from the room to the terrace, persuading her to calm down and make preparations for departure. After this as Princess Marya exited from the prince, he again began talking about his son, about the war, about the sovereign, angrily twitched his eyebrows, began to raise a hoarse voice, and with it was made a second and last stroke.

Princess Marya stopped on the terrace. The day roamed, it was sunny and hot. She could not understand anything, or think or feel anything, besides her passionate love to her father, the love, which, to her seemed, she did not know to this minute. She ran out to the garden, and sobbing ran downwards to the pond, by the young, planted by Prince Andrey, fake paths.

— Yes... I... I... I wanted his death! Yes, I wanted so that it was soon finished... I wanted to calm down... but what will be with me? In what is my calm, when he will not be! — muttered out loud Princess Marya, with fast steps going by the garden and with her hands crushing her chest, from which frantically escaped sobbing. Bypassing the garden circle, which brought her again to home, she saw going towards her m-lle Bourienne (who stayed at Bogucharov and did not want to leave from there) and a stranger. This was the leader of the county, himself arriving to the princess so that to represent her in all the miserably soon departure. Princess Marya listened and did not understand him; she introduced him into the house, proposed him to breakfast and sat with him. Then, excusing before the leader, she came up to the door of the old prince. The doctor with an alarmed face got out to her and said that it could not be.

— Go, princess, go, go!

Princess Marya went again in the garden and under the mountain at the pond, in this location, where no one could see, sat on the grass. She did not know how long she stayed there. Some running woman’s steps by the track caused her to wake up. She went up and saw that Dunyasha, her maid, who was obviously fleeing for her, suddenly as would be a frightened kind of young lady, stopped.

— Please, princess... prince... — said Dunyasha’s ripped off voice.

— Now, go, go, — hastily began talking the princess, not giving time for Dunyasha to finish that what she had to say, and, trying to not see Dunyasha, ran to home.

— Princess, the will of God is committed, you must be in all ready, — said the leader, meeting her at the entrance of the door.

— Leave me; this is not true, — she viciously shouted at him. The doctor wanted to stop her. She pushed him away and ran up to the door. "And why do these people with scared faces stop me? I need nobody! And what are they doing here!" She opened the door, and the vivid daylight on this before semi-dark room terrified her. In the room were a woman and a nurse. They all pulled back from the bed, giving her the road. He lied all so the same on the bed; but the strict view of his calm face stopped Princess Marya at the doorstep of the room.

"No, he has not died, this may not be!" said Princess Marya to herself, coming up to him and, overcoming her horror, embracing him, pressing to his cheek her lips. Yet she immediately again pulled back from him. Instantly all the power of tenderness to him, which she felt in herself, disappeared, and was replaced by the feeling of horror to that what was before her. "No, he is no more! He is not, but is here the same, in this same location, where he was, something alien and hostile, some strange, terrifying and repulsive secret!" And, covering her face with her hands, Princess Marya fell into the hands of the doctor, supporting her.

—————

In the presence of Tihon and the doctor, a woman washed that what was he, tied up a handkerchief to his head, so that it did not ossify as an open mouth and tied up with another handkerchief the diverged legs. Then they dressed in uniform with orders and placed on the table the small shriveled body. God knows who and when took care about this, but all was made as would by itself. To night around the coffin burned candles, on the coffin was a cover, on the floor was sprinkled juniper, under the dead shriveled head was put a printed prayer, and in the corner sat a deacon, reading a psalter.

As horses shy away, crowd and snort above a death horse, so in the living room around the coffin crowded foreign people and they — the leader, headman, and women, all with stopped eyes, frightened, crossed themselves, bowed, and kissed the cold and hardened hand of the old prince.

Time: See previous chapter (After Alpatych had returned from Smolensk), On the day after the departure of Nikolay, night, three weeks, the 14th and 15th, morning, night

Locations: Lysyya Gory, Bogucharovo
Mentioned: Moscow, Smolensk, French, a village, the army, Russia

Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky has decided that he will defend Bald Hills with his militia and to send Marya and the little prince to Moscow. Marya refuses to leave. Despite the old prince’s anger towards her, she interprets it as him being glad that she refused his command (it, like Andrei’s stand against his father and Bourrienne, is mentioned as the first time she has stood up to him and spoken against him). They do send the little prince Nikolushka however and then Prince Bolkonsky has a stroke so they go to Bogucharovo, which is the house Andrei built.

“One thing could be known for certain--that he was suffering and still felt a need to express something. But what it was, no one could understand: was it some whim of a sick and half-demented man, did it have to do with the general course of things, or did it have to do with family circumstances.”

Marya tries to pray for him but can’t because the difficulty of life has overtaken her moral world.

Prince Bolkonsky tries to talk to his daughter, says that Russia has been lost, and then has another stroke. Marya feels guilty because she believes that she wanted him dead. Prince Bolkonsky eventually dies, and a line break follows “Marya fell into the arms of the doctor, who supported her.”

The preparation of the body: “God knows who took care of it or when, but everything got done as if by itself.”

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 *):

Princess Mariya (also “daughter”, “Darling”, “little daughter”.)

Prince Andrei (also “brother”, “son”, and “Andryusha”.)

Alpatuitch

Prince Bolkonsky (“old prince”, “one of the oldest of Russian generals”, “father”, and “the poor little veteran”.)

Dessalles (he and Nikolushka below are sent away.)

Nikolushka (also “grandson”, “young prince” and “little prince”.)

Tikhon

Alexander (“sovereign”)

Mademoiselle Bourienne

Dunyasha

Old nyanya

(also mention of the peasantry, which Bolkonsky wants to form into “the landwehr”, “the commander-in-chief (assumedly Kutuzof) that Bolkonsky writes a letter to, French marauders, the marshal of the nobility (or “predvodityel”), the district ispravnik, “other women”, “the diachok” reading the psalter, the “starosta”, stramgers, and members of the household, and the doctor who doesn’t seem to be any previously mentioned doctor.)

Abridged Versions: Chapter 16 in Bell. Line break after “a second and final stroke of paralysis silenced him.”

Line break after “the Princess Mariya fell onto the arms of the doctor, who was there to catch her” in Dole. Line break in the same place in Wiener, Maude, Mandelker, Edmonds, Dunnigan, and Briggs.
Gibian: Chapter 8: line break after "doctor, who held her up."

Fuller: Chapter is preserved and followed by a line break.

Komroff: Probably the biggest cut is Mademoiselle Bourienne’s section where Marya wanders around before being called back in after he has died. End of chapter is followed by a line break.

Kropotkin: Chapter 5: We cut from the second and final stroke directly to “Under the supervision of Tikhon”, removing Marya receiving the death news itself.

Bromfield: We saw some of this chapter in the post for Chapter 192. In Chapter 5 of Bromfield: The actual freeing of Lavrushka serves as the intro paragraph and connection to Bogucharovo not being entirely safe. The last conversation and death of Bolkonsky plays out similarly, though Marya isn’t in denial when she is called again and Bourrienne doesn’t make an appearance until after the death where she calls him “benefactor” and emphasis is placed on her crossing herself in a Catholic manner. We then get an expansive view of the funeral, including an appearance by Telyanin and a focus on Alpatych’s reaction to the death. Marya then gets the letter from Julie that she got earlier in the novel in the later version. “Princess Marya did not know Russian any better than her friend Julie, but her Russian intuition told her that something in this letter was not right.” No break.
Simmons: Chapter 8: The beginning of the chapter, which sets up Bolkonsky's attitude as to staying at Bald hills and the fight with his daughter, is shortened, getting to his stroke faster. The delay before taking the prince to Bogucharovo is removed almost entirely. The chapter ends after the prince's death, removing everything after the line break, which is the prince's funeral.

Additional Notes:

Crankshaw: Page 212: (Elizabeth Gunn): Dostoevsky and Chekhov, unlike Tolstoy, do not fear the unknown; they do not fear to see their questions glimmer, flicker a moment and die, since nothing can be known. Whereas Tolstoy is frightened of the dark. He does not want to know, since nothing can be known...But at the same time he wants it both ways. He not only asks: What is the meaning of life, not only does he ask, he actually, in the bargain, wants to determine the answer in advance.”...this, he says, is all. It is his supreme achievement to make us see the colour and wonder of the physical world with a heightened consciousness far transcending our normal awareness, and, at the same time, to bring us, to keep us unremittingly, face to face with death.”

Kaufman: Page 184: “Tolstoy’s contemporaries, raised on romantic literary fare, would have been used to deathbed scenes with fulsome professions of love, tender tours down memory lane, maybe even a bit of hysterical wailing. But Tolstoy gives us none of that. No, he is here to tell all of us that death is never what we think it is, neither for the person dying nor the people witnessing it. Death, like life itself, is infinitely more surprising and mysterious than our rational mind may ever fathom…"

Three Deaths: Just as the soldiers late in War and Peace are quarreling but working rather merrily and enjoying the meaningfulness of the work (an important Tolstoyan principle that has a strong Eastern Philosophy vibe to it), they are the ones that are doing the work and while others have the luxury of contemplating death, they throw themselves into their work and enjoy simpler pleasures (a sort of metaphor for the history of humanity, as earlier humans were unable to contemplate the meaning of life because they were too focused on survival, while later, especially upper class, humans began to question what life was all about, leading to both a deeper understanding of life and a seemingly unconquerable existential angst).