Marya's World

War and Peace Week 29: Book 3, Part 2, Chapters 9–15

Welcome to week 29 of War and Peace 2024. This week, we have read Book 3, Part 2, Chapters 9–15.

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• Plot summaries for each character.

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This week’s theme: Marya’s World

I've been living in Marya's head this week. It's a place laden with sorrow and mired in confusion.

But Marya's thoughts feel familiar to me. In many ways, Marya is us, and her world is ours. No one escapes grief and everyone everywhere will be at some point a carer or cared for.

We will all know regret. Doors that stayed shut we should have opened. Words not said. One's we'd give our time again to take back. Words that will haunt us till we have no words left: Dearest.

Self-reproach will hit hard. Some days, we'll feel too broken to pray. To pray to whatever we still believe in.

When we head out into the world, we'll try to make it right, try to understand the mess, and summon all our ghosts to put magic on our tongues.

But some days our words aren't right. We can't make ourselves understood. And others' worlds remain a mystery: wells of feeling too deep for us to fathom.

And then the world is all eyes on us, and the nerve of us, and the wrong of us. And we retreat. Into our rooms and into our minds. The place we misunderstand the least.

And when a stranger holds out a hand. A rare joy in their eyes. And lifts us up from sorrow... Whatever it be, whatever it means... It feels and wants to be love.

The execution of Pugachev in Moscow in 1775. Source.

Chapter 9: The Wizard

The serfs of Bogucharovo are in revolt. With the Cossacks pillaging the countryside, the peasants decide to welcome the French and refuse to help Marya leave for Moscow. Alpatych remonstrates with Dron, the village Elder and warns of his wizarding powers. The serfs dig in, and Alpatych unloads his own cart to provide the princess with horses.

Alpatych • Dron

• What do you think of Dron and Alpatych? What are the similarities and differences between their positions and roles on the estate?

The peasants are revolting

There were very few resident landlords in the neighbourhood and also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among others.

Our world just became a hundred times bigger. This chapter follows on from our visit to Smolensk with Alpatych last week: a shift in perspective from society’s upper echelons to the mysterious, unknowable mass of humanity. It is as though we have been observing the world through a telescope and a microscope, and Tolstoy has now handed us a wide-angle lens.

Tolstoy lists ‘various obscure rumours’ that circulated among the people at Bogucharovo. One is the return of Pyotr Fyodorovich, or Tsar Peter III. The emperor died in mysterious circumstances in 1762; he was widely believed to have been murdered with the approval of his wife, who succeeded him and became Catherine the Great. At least four pretenders to the throne led uprisings, claiming to be Peter escaped from captivity. The most famous was Yemelyan Pugachev of the Ural Cossacks. His popular rebellion promised the end of serfdom and captured territory between the Volga and the Ural mountains.

Napoleon’s proclamations against serfdom were translated into Russian, and during the invasion, revolts broke out against masters and landowners, especially around Smolensk and territory captured by the French. In Moscow, Napoleon consulted material on Pugachev’s rebellion but made no move to liberate the serfs. And rather than supporting the peasants, the French army subdued revolts to restore order and protect supplies.

Further reading:

• Napoleon in Russia: Saviour or Anti-Christ?

The Sister’s Grave by Thomas Brooks (1857). Source.

Chapter 10: The Demands of Life

After her father’s funeral, Marya shuts herself away. She thinks of her ‘own spiritual baseness’ at desiring her father’s death and her sense of freedom now he is gone. When Mademoiselle Bourienne comes to comfort her, she lets her, and they are briefly partners in sorrow. But Bourienne’s advice to ask for French protection inflames her Bolkonsky spirit. She summons Dron, who tells her there are no horses and the peasants are dying of hunger. She authorises him to distribute their reserves, and Dron pleads to be discharged from her service.

Marya • Mademoiselle Bourienne • Alpatych • Dron • Mikhail Ivanovich • Tikhon

• How does Marya’s grief affect her response to the peasants’ grievances?

• Is Dron telling the truth?

Doing nothing, doing something

Look at the subtle symmetries running through this chapter:

Marya: ‘I can do nothing. I understand nothing.’
Dron: ‘We've nothing, we've been ruined.’

In her grief, Marya chastises herself for enjoying the evening. Feeling helpless, she decides to do something. ‘I'll do all I can.’

Dron has always been a loyal man of action. He has ‘done no wrong’ these past 23 years. But now he wishes to do nothing: to be discharged, perhaps because he does not want to be forced to choose between the masters and the serfs.

The mark of grief

Besides Marya, Tolstoy contrasts the grief of two other characters: Mademoiselle Bourienne and the old valet Tikhon. Bourienne is wearing ‘weepers’: a strip of white linen or muslin worn over the sleeves to wipe one’s eyes when weeping. Her crying touches Marya, who lets Bourienne become ‘a partner’ in her sorrow. But how genuine is that grief? We may never know.

There is no question about the authenticity of Tikhon’s emotions. Here is a man who knew and loved the old prince much more than we ever could. Here, his unspoken feelings smudge the page:

The old valet, Tikhon, with sunken emaciated face that bore the stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: ‘Yes Princess’ to all Princess Marya’s questions, and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.

Fisherman, braiding nets by Rostislav Felitsin. Source.

Chapter 11: Uncommon Misfortune

Marya’s maid, Dunyasha, tells her that the peasants have assembled and wish to speak with her. Her maid and her nanny tell her not to see them, but she goes with Dron to the barn. She tells them the grain is not a bribe to stay and that they will have food and housing near Moscow. The peasants say they do not want her grain and will not leave. Defeated, Marya returns to her room and her thoughts.

Marya • Dron • Dunyasha

• Why do the peasants avoid eye contact with Marya?

• What do you think would have happened if Andrei was here?

The unknown of other people’s lives

All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She could not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude or apprehension and distrust – but the expression on all the faces was identical.

It is interesting to compare Marya’s thoughts with Andrei’s at Bald Hills, watching the two girls running from the hothouse. He felt ‘a new sensation of comfort and relief’ in the unknowable (but equally legitimate) lives of others. Marya feels lost; she is disturbed by her lack of knowledge of the world of these peasants.

Tolstoy has given us a reason to root for her: she has been recalled to life, possessed with purpose and the ghost of her father. We want to embolden her spirit and see her transform herself and the world.

But the repeated phrase ‘common misfortune’ betrays her naivety. She is hardly unique: she belongs to a social group and historical period with scant interest in the lives of serfs. This chapter makes that gulf feel vast and insurmountable.

I think it is significant that this happens now. Had the peasants confronted Andrei, or the old prince, or Marya in different circumstances, I think we may have had a hard time sympathising with these out-of-touch aristocrats. But we have been immersed in Marya’s tragedy, absorbing her grief and misfortune. And now this!

We, the readers, are made aware of multiple misfortunes we only half understand, but certainly not (in Marya’s words) a ‘common misfortune’ that can be solved by ‘the gift’ of grain and a new ‘home’ in Moscow.

Interior with Young Woman Seen from the Back by Vilhelm Hammershøi. Source.

Chapter 12: The Silence

Alone in the silence of the house, Marya broods over her last moments with her father. She refuses to think about his dead body. She regrets not being with him on that final night and thinks of what he might have said. She asks herself, what is he thinking now? This thought summons the image of her father’s corpse, and in the silence of the night, she screams out.

Marya • Dunyasha

• How can you relate Marya’s ‘what-if’ moment to your own life?

• How accurate is Tolstoy’s depiction of grief?

The doors we do not open

‘Why didn’t I enter the room?’ she thought… He wanted to see me, and I was standing close by, outside the door.

This theme ties Marya to her brother Andrei. When Liza was giving birth to their son Nikolai, Andrei sat in the room outside. ‘Piteous, helpless, animal moans came through the door. Prince Andrei got up, went to the door, and tried to open it. Someone was holding it shut.’

Behind both doors, a loved one died. For both siblings, it is a source of regret that they did not open the door sooner; it represents a relationship ruined by the miscommunication of feelings.

Marya’s believes ‘he had always thought what he said then’, but the reconciliation is complicated by that closed door and the knowledge that he called for her all night and she did not come. We know why she didn’t, but that is no consolation now.

With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows, expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the silence brooding over the house within it held her fast.

Marya’s scream is an inversion of Natasha's primal scream of joy – now a distant memory. Both women express emotions beyond words. Marya’s scream not only breaks the silence of the house, but cuts across other silences: her father’s silent body and her own silence that night when she could have spoken to him.

We will return to unopened doors later in the novel.

Peasants' Revolt by Ivan Alexeyevich Vladimirov. Source.

Chapter 13: Shining Armour

Nikolai Rostov is camped ten miles from Bogucharovo and rides out with Ilyin and Lavrushka to take the estate’s provisions before the French arrive. The soldiers encounter drunk peasants, Alpatych, and the maids from the house. Alpatych tells Rostov that the peasants won’t let Marya leave. He goes to her and offers his protection. She tries not to evoke pity; he tries to remain deferential — but it is a moment torn from a picture book of old.

Nikolai Rostov • Ilyin • Lavrushka • Alpatych • Marya • Dunyasha

• Is Marya’s encounter with Nikolai Rostov credible?

Subverting romantic tropes

‘A helpless girl overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse rioting peasants! And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there is in her features and expression!’

Rostov to the rescue! Well, kind of.

At first glance, it looks like Tolstoy has gone all Mills and Boon on us. Dashing hussar rescues maiden in distress from revolting peasants. But if we look closely, there is much more going on.

This is no humanitarian mission. The Russian soldiers are raiding villages for supplies; it is a ‘scorched earth’ strategy designed to leave nothing behind for the advancing French army. And they hope ‘to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls’ along the way. This uncomfortably frames the chapter as something more than a romantic interlude.

When Nikolai meets Marya, they both recognise the romantic subtext of the scene. Rostov is ‘immediately struck’ by the literariness of the encounter. This is like Tolstoy’s knowing wink to the reader: yes, I know this looks cheesy. But what are we to do? Sometimes, life imitates bad art. Sometimes, realism results in romanticism. When it does, you just have to roll with it and play your part.

They tug against the narrative. Marya tries to make herself less pitiful. Nikolai achieves an astonishing level of delicacy; while the reader thinks only of faithful Sonya, waiting at home while Nikolai plays at being a knight in shining armour.

The revolt of the peasants on the estate of Prince Shahovskoy by Ivan Vladimirov. Source.

Chapter 14: Stuck in the middle

Pulsating with impetuous rage, Nikolai Rostov storms off to speak with the peasants. He has Karp, the ringleader, and Dron tied up. Marya gets Dron released to help get their possessions onto the carts. Rostov escorts Marya to Yankovo, where he respectfully takes leave of her. On the road to Moscow, Marya wonders whether she loves him. Meanwhile, Nikolai is angry because he knows she will make the perfect wife.

Nikolai Rostov • Ilyin • Lavrushka • Alpatych • Marya • Dron

• How serious was the uprising?

• What do you think of Marya and Nikolai as a potential match?

Nikolai reminds me of every policeman and peacemaker who runs in to sort out a conflict he knows nothing about.

We've spent a few chapters getting to know Alpatych and Dron and can fumble our way around their world. A bit like Marya, we know there's stuff going on here — wells of feeling — we will never understand. But Rostov hasn't time for that.

Dron taking off his own belt to help his fellow villagers tie him up and throw him in a cupboard. I'm not sure I'll ever get that image out of my head. He's hardly blameless. He's been part of this awful system. But the good intentions of Dron, Alpatych and Marya seem useless in this moment of drunkenness, war and revolt.

Meanwhile, Marya is experiencing a new feeling: love, mixed with joy and sorrow. And Nikolai is angry at his good fortune and his twice-sworn heart to Sonya. Oh, for a peaceful life where nothing ever happens!

‘Guwilla warfare!’ The real Denisov: Denis V. Davydov by George Dawe. Source.

Chapter 15: Cleverness and Knowledge

Kutuzov reviews the troops and summons Andrei to the headquarters. There, Andrei meets Denisov. The two men remember Natasha. Kutuzov commiserates with Andrei for the loss of his father and listens with boredom to Denisov’s plans for guerilla warfare. We learn that Kutuzov despises cleverness and knowledge. He says landowners will not be compensated for looting by Russian troops.

Kutuzov • Andrei • Denisov

• How happy are you to see Denisov again?

• Based on this chapter, do you like Kutuzov? Do you think he will make a good leader?

Guerrilla Warfare

Oh, Tolstoy, you old tease. First, the lisp, then the jangling spurs. It can’t be? It is! Denisov is back! Striding back into the book with a plan to save Russia: ‘guwilla warfare!’

In real life, this plan was proposed to Kutuzov by Denis Davydov, a soldier-poet who created his own ‘hussar style’ of verse, reinforcing the image of the hussar as a romantic hero.

Kutuzov agreed to his plan of attacking supply lines and raising a peasant militia against Napoleon’s army. They gave French weapons, food and supplies to local peasants, training them in guerilla warfare. This would become an important element in Kutuzov’s war of attrition.

From the Spanish for ‘a little war’, guerilla warfare had just entered the military lexicon. In the Peninsular War (1807–1814), Napoleon’s armies had been bogged down by Spanish and Portuguese partisans. The Russians were about to attempt something similar.

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading and joining me on this slow read of War and Peace.

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And that’s all for this week. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Have a great week, and I’ll see everyone here next Sunday for more War and Peace 2024.