Marya Bolkonskaya

Andrei's sister

BOOK ONE

Part One

Chapter 1

Our hostess, Anna Pavlovna, tells Prince Vasili that this “little person” is very unhappy, living with her clever but eccentric father, Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky. Anna Pavlovna suggests her as a potential match for the foolish and profligate Anatole Kuragin.

Chapter 22

Andrei’s sister lives under her father’s thumb at Bald Hills. She has a plain face but “large, deep, and luminous” eyes, radiating at times with shafts of warm light. She is devoted to “Christian simplicity” and desires to be a poor beggar. In her letter to Julie Karagin, she says Pierre has “an excellent heart”, and his inheritance is a great burden. She writes that she considers marriage a duty and a “divine institution”.

Chapter 23

She is practising her music when her brother arrives at Bald Hills. You can never be idle here. She greets Lise warmly and looks at Andrei with a “loving warm gentle look”. She speaks joyfully of her father’s “hours”, the routines and the lessons, although they may not, in fact, bring her much joy.

Chapter 24

Andrei respects and gently mocks their father. His sister finds this ambivalence difficult, almost provocative, since for her, “everything her father did inspired her with reverence and was beyond question.” Marya is mostly silent at dinner, but afterwards, she defends her father to a frightened Lise, telling her sister-in-law that the old prince “is so kind.”

Chapter 25

“We should enter into everyone’s situation”, she tells Andrei, “To understand everything is to forgive everything”. She expresses the heart and soul of War and Peace in these words. She also recognises Andrei’s “intellectual pride” that is standing in the way of his happiness. She gives him their grandfather’s icon and asks him to promise to never take it off.