The Unsettled Question
The Unsettled Question
War and Peace Week 37: Book 3, Part 3, Chapters 26–32
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Welcome to Week 37 of War and Peace 2024
This week, we have read Book 3, Part 3, Chapters 26–32.
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This week’s theme: The Unsettled Question
It's getting late. It's getting dark. The sickle moon is in the sky.
There's a fire in the distance. Small against the night. But growing glowing brighter, spreading faster in the night.
Above it all, the memory of a comet. Of the days before the war. Friends on a ferry and fresh shoots on an old oak tree. An open window, a perfect moon. First dance, second chance. The mummers and the balilaika.
You have finished the wine the stranger brought. The enemy who called you ‘friend’. And spoke of love as conquest, as a glittering game of consequence, while you sat in the silence of your thought.
A growing, glowing silence, that somewhere finds a woman standing at a window. As she did before.
Back then, you didn't know him. You loved the night for its own sake. Below, he was listening, not understanding, building bridges to your joy. Seeking in that night a means to live and be at peace, in a world of weary war.
Tonight, he's somewhere dying. Beneath the cricket's call and tavern clink. Beneath your beating heart and your mother's even breathing slumber. Dying, never knowing, that you loved him for his own sake. Loved him then and love him now. In the growing glowing silence.
A cricket chirps, a cock somewhere calls morning in. Though it's getting late, and the sickle moon is in the sky.
The lofty sky he once knew has gone; he could never make it hold. The cruelty that his father taught him, drowned every happy thought. His mind, his enemy, would never give him peace.
But now it's getting darker. There's a gateway up ahead. A sphinx, a riddle, an unsettled question. And little time left to answer.
Without a book or bolster, he must let his thoughts give way, to the sounds and silence of the night. To the world that moves without him. To the fly upon his face. To the structures growing glowing brighter, giving answers in the night.
We have always been here, says the cricket to the cockroach. We are the world he seeks. Though cities burn and men may die, the night will always, always be.
Chapter 26: Moscow Marauders
The French army enters Moscow without resistance. A few unknown men briefly make a stand to defend the Kremlin but are killed by Murat’s troops. The army disperses into the city and becomes a mob of marauders. With no one to care for the city, its destruction becomes inevitable.
The mundane horror of maurading
Tolstoy doesn’t disguise the fact that the French marauders are doing terrible things to the inhabitants left behind in the city. Civilisation is mesmerised by stories of ‘rape and pillage’, but perhaps because of this, the writing here refuses to be pornographic. Its very ordinariness makes it even more chilling, as women and children are – in the same breath – amused and abused, while soldiers bake bread and light fires:
In cellars and store-rooms similar men were busy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open coach-house and stable doors; lighting fires in kitchens and kneading and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening, amusing, or caressing women and children.
In praise of cities
The fire of Moscow broke out the day the French entered the city. Over the next five days, the fire destroyed three-quarters of Moscow. Napoleon was reported as saying:
‘What a terrible sight! And they did this themselves! So many palaces! What an incredible solution! What kind of people!’
As Tolstoy says: ‘the French attributed the Fire of Moscow to the ferocious patriotism of Rastopchin.’ One source says he set fire to his estates, and we know from last week that he ordered the fire engines to be disassembled. In exile in Paris, he put out a pamphlet denying his part in the city’s destruction. But later, he admitted responsibility.
But Tolstoy doesn’t blame the French, Rastopchin or the Russians. He says the city burned because it was made of wood and was abandoned by its citizens. The French soldiers do not burn the houses deliberately; they are cooking, smoking, and keeping warm.
A town built of wood where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house-owners are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke pipes, make camp-fires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and cook themselves meals twice a day.
I am not especially interested in the historical accuracy of Tolstoy’s account. What captivates me is how his explanation fits with the philosophy of the book: life is preserved by the love and care of those who possess it. A home vacated is a place without love and is likely to fall into ruin and burn. Moscow is a metaphor for our three main characters, as they succeed and fail to love themselves and each other.
I read this chapter as a celebration of cities. They don't burn, because their inhabitants won’t let them burn. A city is nothing without those who call it home. And when they abandon it, it ceases to be a place anyone can live.
Tolstoy's Napoleon may have known this. He wanted to be loved by the Muscovites. But the Muscovites have gone. And so has the French army. Neither citizens nor soldiers, but marauders. Sealing Moscow’s fate, and their own.
Are you convinced by Tolstoy's explanation for why Moscow burned?
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Chapter 27: The Madness of Men
Pierre had fled to his benefactor’s house to escape the turmoil. He finds peace and calm in the study, and he resolves to assassinate Napoleon. This takes hold of him like a madness. His thoughts are interrupted by Makar Alexeevich, who grabs his pistol. He, too, has a ‘heroic fantasy in his head.’ At that moment, there is a knocking on the front door.
Pierre • Gerasim • Makar Alexeevich
Fear of foolishness
If he were now to leave Moscow like everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow, would all become not merely meaningless, but contemptible and ridiculous, and to this Pierre was very sensitive.
Pierre's fear of being ridiculous mirrors Rastopchin's own anxieties a few chapters earlier. And like Rastopchin, Pierre's thoughts are dangerous and ‘border on insanity.’ Like Rastopchin, Pierre is shadowed by a ‘mad man’: Makar Alexeevich would also take the gun and shoot Napoleon. He, too, is possessed by ‘some heroic fantasy.’
Pierre looks at this unkempt man with ‘pity and repulsion,’ not realising he's looking into some kind of mirror.
Pierre is sensitive to looking ridiculous because the world has made up its mind about him. Few characters in the novel see him otherwise. It is our privilege and responsibility as readers to take him seriously.
Anyway, Pierre is striding into a world of paradox: he wants peace, so he buys himself a pistol. He would rather die than look ridiculous. And in searching for meaning, he has lost his senses.
Is there a pattern to Pierre’s bad decisions?
Chapter 28: Pierre, The Frenchman
Two Frenchmen enter the house. The officer interrogates Gerasim while Pierre hides, not wanting to reveal his identity. But when Makar Alexeevich raises the pistol at the officer, Pierre saves the Frenchman’s life. Captain Ramballe calls Pierre a Frenchman and agrees to pardon Makar Alexeevich. He orders up some mutton and plenty of wine.
Pierre • Gerasim • Makar Alexeevich • Captain Ramballe
Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest of human appellations he could not renounce it.
Pierre, L'russe, has all these lofty ideals: to conceal his identity and kill Napoleon. But he forgets all this in an instant to save a stranger's life. Pierre’s instincts are far wiser than his intellectual ruminations. Once again, Tolstoy shows us how quickly plans fall apart when met with reality.
And in return, Ramballe makes Pierre a Frenchman, undermining the cabalistic significance of L'russe Besuhof.
The jovial Ramballe meets morose Pierre and offers him friendship. Pierre's been drinking vodka and sleeping on the sofa. Ramballe calls for food and wine. It is as though fate has handed our Pierre a second chance.
What are your first impressions of Ramballe? Do you trust him? Pierre saves two lives in this chapter. How do his actions contrast with his intentions?
Chapter 29: A Terrible Thing Called Love
Pierre and Ramballe eat and drink, then drink some more. Ramballe is an amiable stranger who tells stories of his romantic conquests. He is irresistible, and he knows it. Pierre is drawn in and forgets his ‘concentrated gloom’: he knows he will not kill Napoleon. As Ramballe talks of his kind of love, something different becomes clear in Pierre’s mind: that he has only loved one woman and that she can never be his. He tells this stranger his whole story, and then they go out into the street. Pierre sees the comet and the first of the fires that will destroy Moscow.
There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense city.
There's so much to talk about in this chapter: How we confide in strangers. How amiable company unwinds our strange solitary notions. How no one can agree on what we mean by love.
But it's that final tableau that gets me: Pierre looking at the fire that will destroy his home city. And the comet that represents his love. And knowing that only one of these matters.
Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. ‘There now, how good it is, what more does one need?’
How many times do our characters get caught off-guard by the ‘lofty skies’ – reminding them of how small they are and how close they are to peace?
Ramballe rambles on. Pierre is silent. But inside him, there is a great conversation, spoken in neither French nor Russian, that connects a bright comet with a human heart.
Have you ever told your whole story to a stranger? How truthful were you, and did it impact the way you saw your life?
Pierre’s phantom comet?
There’s something a bit odd here. You will remember Pierre looking up at the Great Comet of 1811 at the end of Volume Two:
It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.
The comet was visible to the naked eye for 260 days. By January 1812, it had faded, and the last sightings by telescope were in August. So, I’m not sure how Pierre could have seen it above Moscow in September:
To the right, and high up in the sky, was the sickle of the waning moon and opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre’s heart with his love.
Was this a mistake on Tolstoy’s part, or just a bit of poetic license? If anyone finds anything, do let us know. I like to think that the comet burns bright in Pierre’s imagination and memory.
In terms of the story, the important detail is that the light of the comet is more consequential to Pierre than the fire of Moscow: ‘There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense city.’
Over food and wine with Ramballe, his thoughts have returned from a murderous mania and fantasies about fate to the idea of constant love and the image of Natasha.
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Chapter 30: Tears of Flames
Fourteen miles from Moscow, the Rostovs stop at Mytishchy. The countess cannot sleep for the moaning of a wounded adjutant. The servants notice a fire on the horizon and wonder if it is Moscow. Someone says ‘they’ll put it out.’ But the count’s old valet says no one will, and he begins to cry. Then, everyone understands the significance of the glow they are watching.
What is the significance of this short chapter?
Chapter 31: Reunion
The old valet tells the Rostovs of the fire, and they go out to see Moscow burning. When Natasha is told, she does not seem to notice. That morning, Sonya had told her that Andrei was with them and wounded. Now, she is preparing herself to see him. When everyone else has fallen asleep, she goes to him, terrified of what she might find. He smiles and holds out his hand.
Natasha • Countess Rostova • Count Rostov • Sonya • Andrei • Timokhin
As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a crack in the wall.
What does that cricket know, or not know, of the turning world?
Its chirp is part of a soundscape that includes a moaning officer, who is not Andrei. The countess moves to a worse hut, just to escape the sound.
I can hear this chapter. Natasha's beating heart, sinking in terror, overflowing in love; shouts from the tavern; the sound of her mother sleeping in the dark.
Natasha listens to the moans of the adjutant from an open window. It was at another window that Andrei first heard her and thought only of her happiness.
Once upon a time, Andrei marvelled at how this young woman could be so happy, gazing at the ‘enchanting moon’ in the ‘glorious night’. Now, on a different night, she cries for his suffering and, we suppose, her sense of guilt for the manner of their parting.
When she finds him, she imagines a ‘terrible body’ but meets a ‘childlike look.’ He was the same as ever, but his eyes were such as she had never seen before.
‘He smiled and held out his hand to her.’
Why does the sound of the moaning officer transfix Natasha? If, instead, Natasha had heard Andrei’s moans, how would that have changed the impact of their reunion?
Chapter 32: The Unsettled Question
Seven days had passed since Borodino. Andrei’s doctor believes his wound is fatal, but he lingers on in life. He becomes more lucid and asks for the Gospels to bolster him in bed. He thinks of the nature of divine love and forgiveness and sees visions. Natasha appears and asks for forgiveness. From then on, Natasha cared for Andrei and never left his side.
Natasha • Andrei • Timokhin • Countess Rostova
Some strange airy structure was being erected out of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music.
Crickets, cockroaches and a big fly buzzing around a candle. Is this Heaven on Earth?
Note the shift in Andrei's perspective since the lofty skies of Austerlitz. The paradise growing in his mind is no longer the infinite heavens, but the flopping of an insect against his skin.
This mystical experience offers him a ‘vigour, clearness, and depth’ unattainable in health. He has valued control over thoughts and feelings, but now they are out of his control and building something new in his mind.
This is a chapter about ‘the unsettled question of life and death’ – the heart of the matter of War and Peace. He sees two sphinxes, his shirt and Natasha, and he wrestles with the riddle of love and cruelty.
In the last chapter, a cricket chirped in victory. Here, we begin to understand why.
Can you make sense of the sphinxes, the buzzing fly and the ‘airy structure’? Have you ever hallucinated or seen visions? What did they mean to you?
Two Sphinxes
Andrei’s visions include two sphinxes: ‘my shirt on the table’ and Natasha, with a ‘pale face and shining eyes.’
It’s probably coincidental, but there are two sphinxes opposite each other at the quays at Saint Petersburg. They arrived there in Russia in 1832 at the height of Egyptomania. Tolstoy would have known about them, but I have no reason to think they were on his mind here.
Sphinxes appear in Greek and Egyptian mythology, often as guardians flanking entrances. What gateway do these two guard?
The Sphinx that guarded the entrance to Thebes asked travellers the following riddle:
What has one voice but goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?
Oedipus solves the riddle: it is, of course, man as a baby, an adult and an elderly person with a stick.
I think it is worth thinking about what riddle Andrei’s sphinx is asking him:
‘Yet how many people have I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did her.’
He is caught between his ethereal thoughts and his dying body, his hate and his love of life, and ‘the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over Bolkonsky but over all Russia.’
Which brings us back to burning Moscow. These questions facing Pierre, Natasha and Andrei are existential: life and death; love and hate; the meaning of things. Now, we readers find ourselves chasing our characters through a burning city in search of answers.
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 love to read your thoughts in the comments and the chat threads. Have a great week, and I’ll see everyone here next Sunday for more War and Peace 2024.
This book! ❤️
Thank you for this slow read. It would never have occurred to me to read Tolstoy, but I’m so glad to be on this journey with everyone in this group.
Thanks, Simon. My favourite line: “Pierre is silent. But inside him, there is a great conversation, spoken in neither French nor Russian, that connects a bright comet with a human heart.” 🥰