War And Peace
War And Peace: Epilogue 2 CHAPTER III
A STEAM-ENGINE moves. The question is asked, How is it moved? A peasant answers, It is the devil moving it. Another man says, The steam-engine moves because the wheels are going round. A third maintains that the cause of the motion is to be found in the smoke floated from it by the wind. The [...]
War And Peace: Epilogue 1 CHAPTER IX
IT was on the eve of St. Nikolay’s day, the 5th of December, 1820. That year Natasha with her husband and children had been staying at Bleak Hills since the beginning of autumn. Pierre was in Petersburg, where he had gone on private business of his own, as he said, for three weeks. He had [...]
War And Peace: Book 15 CHAPTER VI
THE 5TH of November was the first day of the so-called battle of Krasnoe. Many had been the blunders and disputes among the generals, who had not reached their proper places, many the contradictory orders carried to them by adjutants, but towards evening it was clear that the enemy were everywhere in flight, and that [...]
War And Peace: Epilogue 1 CHAPTER X
NATASHA was married in the early spring of 1813, and by 1820 she had three daughters and a son. The latter had been eagerly desired, and she was now nursing him herself. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was hard to recognise in the robust-looking young mother the slim, mobile Natasha of [...]
War And Peace: Book 14 CHAPTER XV
THE CAVALRY TRANSPORT, and the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage-train, halted at the village of Shamshevo. All crowded together round the campfire. Pierre went up to a fire, ate some roast horse-flesh, lay down with his back to the fire, and at once fell asleep. He fell into the same sort of sleep that he [...]
War And Peace: Book 14 CHAPTER IX
PETYA AND DOLOHOV, after dressing up in French uniforms and shakoes, rode to the clearing from which Denisov had looked at the French camp, and coming out of the wood, descended into the hollow in the pitch darkness. When they had ridden downhill, Dolohov bade the Cossacks accompanying him to wait there, and set off [...]
War And Peace: Book 14 CHAPTER XIX
WHAT RUSSIAN READER has not known an irksome feeling of annoyance, dissatisfaction, and perplexity, when he reads the accounts of the latter period of the campaign of 1812? Who has not asked himself: How was it all the French were not captured or cut to pieces, when all the three Russian armies were surrounding them [...]
War And Peace: Book 13 CHAPTER XIX
WHEN A MAN finds himself in movement, he always invents a goal of that movement. In order to walk a thousand versts, a man must believe that there is some good beyond those thousand versts. He needs a vision of a promised land to have the strength to go on moving. The promised land for [...]
War And Peace: Book 11 CHAPTER II
THE ARMED FORCES of twelve different nationalities of Europe invade Russia. The Russian army and population fall back, avoiding a battle, to Smolensk, and from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army moves on to Moscow, its goal, with continually increasing impetus. The impetus of its advance is increased as it approaches its goal, just as [...]
War And Peace: Book 12 CHAPTER V
WITH A SMILE that never left his lips, Nikolay sat bent a little forward on a low chair, and stooping close over his blonde beauty, he paid her mythological compliments. Jauntily shifting the posture of his legs in his tight riding-breeches, diffusing a scent of perfume, and admiring his fair companion and himself and the [...]