believed that their personal intentions are in perfect agreement with what is really the simple result of the force of circumstances, the will of subordinates, and the caprices of chance.” The advantage of surrendering to the hand of Destiny! The happiness of simple action, a sane and normal state… The troubled spirits regain their poise. Prince Andrei breathes, begins to live… And while in the far distance, remote from the life-giving breath of the holy tempest, Pierre and the Princess Marie are threatened by the contagion of their world and the deception of love, Andrei, wounded at Austerlitz, has suddenly, amid the intoxication of action brutally interrupted, the revelation of the serene immensity of the universe. Lying on his back, “he sees nothing now, except, very far above him, a sky infinitely deep, wherein light, greyish clouds go softly wandering.”
“What peacefulness! How calm!” he was saying to himself; “it was not like this when I was running by and shouting… How was it I did not notice it before, this illimitable depth? How happy I am to have found it at last! Yes, all is emptiness, all is deception, except this. And God be praised for this calm!…”
But life resumes him, and again the wave falls. Left once more to themselves, in the demoralising atmosphere of cities, the restless, discouraged souls wander blindly in the darkness. Sometimes through the poisoned atmosphere of the world sweep the intoxicating, maddening odours of nature, love, and springtime; the blind forces,
