which draw together Prince Andrei and the charming Natasha, to throw her, a moment later, into the arms of the first seducer to hand. So much poetry, so much tenderness, so much purity of heart, tarnished by the world! And always “the wide sky which broods above the outrage and abjectness of the earth.” But man does not see it. Even Andrei has forgotten the light of Austerlitz. For him the sky is now only “a dark, heavy vault” which covers the face of emptiness.
It is time for the hurricane of war to burst once more upon these vitiated minds. The fatherland, Russia, is invaded. Then comes the day of Borodino, with its solemn majesty. Enmities are effaced. Dologhov embraces his enemy Pierre. Andrei, wounded, weeps for pity and compassion over the misery of the man whom he most hated, Anatol Kuraguin, his neighbour in the ambulance. The unity of hearts is accomplished; unity in passionate sacrifice to the country and submission to the divine laws.
“To accept the frightful necessity of war, seriously and austerely… To human liberty, war is the most painful act of submission to the divine laws. Simplicity of heart consists in submission to the will of God.”
The soul of the Russian people and its submission to Destiny are incarnated in the person of the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov. “This old man, who has no passions left, but only experience, the result of the passions, and in whom intelligence,
