Unsettled Questions

War & Peace | Week 37 | Contains spoilers for Volume 3 Book 3 Chapters 26-32

Welcome! This is Week 37 of a year-long chapter-by-chapter reading of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. We do this every year, and it’s called Whisky and Perseverance. For some reason. To join, subscribe to my main newsletter and select Whisky and Perseverance from the manage subscription page. This post takes us up to Volume 3 Book 3 Chapter 32.

First Thoughts

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 laughter. 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 crows the 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, the 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 find the 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.

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Below, I talk more about our first glimpse of the fire of Moscow, the return of Pierre’s comet, Natasha’s dark night and Andrei’s strange visions. This additional content is for paid subscribers, who support my writing and help keep the rest of my work free.