War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (section 8)

[00:00:00] First epilogue Chapter I of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude 1813-1827 years have passed. The storm tossed sea of European history had subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. [00:00:23] But the mysterious forces that move humanity, mysterious because the laws of their motion are unknown to us, continue to operate. [00:00:32] Though the surface of the Sea of History seemed motionless, the movement of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. [00:00:41] Various groups of people formed and dissolved. The coming formation and dissolution of kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation. [00:00:51] The Sea of History was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as previously it was seething in its depths. [00:01:00] Historic figures were not borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. [00:01:05] They now seemed to rotate on one spot. [00:01:08] The historical figures at the head of armies, who formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars, campaigns and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political and diplomatic combinations, laws and treaties. [00:01:24] The historians call this activity of the historical figures the reaction. [00:01:29] In dealing with this period, they sternly condemn the historical personages who in their opinion, caused what they describe as the reaction. [00:01:39] All the well known people of that period, from Alexander and Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or condemned according to whether they induced to progress or to reaction. [00:01:58] According to their accounts, a reaction took place at that time in Russia also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who, according to them, was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement of his reign, being the savior of Russia. [00:02:15] There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for things he did wrong at this period of his reign. [00:02:27] He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. [00:02:30] In this case he did well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to Poland, forming the Holy alliance, entrusting power to Erekchayev, favoring Golitsyn and his mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius. [00:02:52] He also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and disbanding the Semenov regiment. [00:03:00] It would have taken a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for humanity. [00:03:09] What do these reproaches mean, do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I, the liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813, flow from the same sources, the circumstances of his birth, education and life that made his personality what it was, and from which the actions for which they blame him, the Holy alliance, the restoration of Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later also flowed. [00:03:43] In what does the substance of those reproaches lie? [00:03:47] It lies in the fact that an historical character like Alexander I, standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power, with the blinding light of history focused upon him, a character exposed to those strongest of all influences, the intrigues, flattery and self deception inseparable from power, a character who at every moment of his life felt a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe. [00:04:13] And not a fictitious, but a live character, who, like every man, had his personal habits, passions and impulses toward goodness, beauty and truth. [00:04:23] That this character, though not lacking in virtue, the historians do not accuse him of that, had not the same conception of the welfare of humanity 50 years ago as a present day professor who from his youth upwards has been occupied with learning, that is, with books and lectures, and with taking notes from them. [00:04:44] But even if we assume that 50 years ago Alexander I was mistaken in his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that the historian who judges Alexander will also, after the lapse of some time, turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity. [00:05:03] This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because watching the movement of history which we see that every year, and with each new writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes, so that what once seemed good 10 years later seems bad and vice versa. [00:05:21] And what is more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to what is bad and what is good in history. [00:05:29] Some people regard giving a constitution to Poland and forming the Holy alliance as praiseworthy in Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy. [00:05:39] The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful. [00:05:50] If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not agree with his limited understanding of what is good. [00:05:58] Whether the preservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the freedom of Poland, or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called progress appeared to me to be good or bad. I must admit that besides these things, the action of every historic character has other more general purposes inaccessible to me. [00:06:26] But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by which to try historic characters and events. [00:06:38] Let us say that Alexander could have done everything differently. Let us say that with guidance from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the programme his present accusers would have given him of nationality, freedom, equality and progress. These, I think, cover the ground. [00:07:00] Let us assume that this programme was possible and had then been formulated and that Alexander had acted on it. [00:07:07] What would then have become of the activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in the government, an activity that, in the opinion of the historians, was good and beneficent. [00:07:19] Their activity would not have existed. There would have been no life. There would have been nothing. [00:07:25] If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is Destroyed. [00:07:34] End of first epilogue Chapter 1. [00:07:43] First epilogue Chapter 2 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maud if we assume, as the historians do, that great men lead humanity to the attainment of certain ends, the the greatness of Russia or of France, the balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the revolution, general progress, or anything else, then it is impossible to explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of chance and genius. [00:08:18] If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the 19th century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. [00:08:30] If the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained without the revolution and without the empire. [00:08:37] If the aim was the dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that much better than warfare. [00:08:45] If the aim was the progress of civilization, it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives. [00:08:57] Why did it happen in this and not some other way? [00:09:01] Because it happened so. [00:09:03] Chance created the situation, genius utilized it, says history. [00:09:09] But what is chance? What is genius? [00:09:13] The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and therefore cannot be defined. [00:09:21] These words only denote a certain stage of understanding of phenomena. [00:09:25] I do not know why a certain event occurs. I think that I cannot know it, so I do not try to know it. And I talk about chance. [00:09:34] I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies. I do not understand why this occurs. And I talk of genius to a herd of rams. The ram the herdsman drives each evening Into a special enclosure to feed. And that becomes twice as fat as the others must seem to be a genius. [00:09:55] And it must appear an astonishing conjunction of genius With a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, who, instead of getting into the general fold every evening, Goes into a special enclosure where there are oats, this very ram, swelling with fat, is killed for meat. [00:10:14] But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims. [00:10:21] They need only admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken. And they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to the ram that was fattened. [00:10:32] Even if they do not know for what purpose they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the ram did not happen accidentally. And will no longer need the conceptions of chance or genius. [00:10:45] Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately intelligible to us the and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic characters. And perceive the cause of the effect they produce, incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities. And then the words chance and genius become superfluous. [00:11:09] We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European convulsions. And that we know only the facts, that is, the murders, first in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain and in Russia. [00:11:23] And that the movements from the west to the east and from the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events. And not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to be anything but like other men. And we shall not be obliged to have recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made these people what they were. [00:11:48] But it will be clear that all those small events were inevitable. [00:11:53] By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfil than Napoleon and Alexander, with all their antecedents. [00:12:20] End of First Epilogue, Chapter 2. [00:12:28] First epilogue Chapter 3 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maud the fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the beginning of the 19th century lies in the movement of the mass of the European peoples from west to east and afterward words from east to West. [00:12:52] The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to East. [00:12:56] For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement to Moscow, it was necessary that they should form themselves into a military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike military group of the east. [00:13:09] 2. That they should abandon all established traditions and customs and that during their military movement they they should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them the deceptions, robberies and murders which would have to be committed. During that movement and beginning with the French Revolution, the old inadequately large group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions. And step by step a group was formed of larger dimensions, with new customs and traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done. [00:13:50] A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a name, and not even a Frenchman emerges by what seem the strangest chances from among all the seething French parties, and without joining any one of them is borne forward to a prominent position. [00:14:09] The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and self confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army. [00:14:22] The brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his opponent's reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self confidence secure him military fame. [00:14:35] Innumerable so called chances accompany him everywhere. [00:14:39] The disfavor into which he falls with the rulers of France turns to his advantage. [00:14:44] His attempts to avoid his predestined path are unsuccessful. [00:14:49] He is not received into the Russian service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. [00:14:56] During the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction, and each time is saved in an unexpected manner. [00:15:04] Owing to various diplomatic considerations, the Russian armies, just those which might have destroyed his prestige, do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there. [00:15:16] On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out and destroyed. [00:15:27] And by chance an escape from this dangerous position presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to Africa. [00:15:36] Again, so called chance accompanies him. [00:15:40] Impregnable Malta surrenders without a shot. His most reckless schemes are crowned with success. [00:15:47] The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat pass, allows his entire army to elude it. [00:15:55] In Africa, a whole series of outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. [00:16:02] And the men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves that this is admirable. This is glory. It resembles Caesar and Alexander the Great and is therefore good. [00:16:15] This ideal of glory and grandeur, which consists not merely in considering nothing wrong that one does, but in priding oneself on every crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural significance. [00:16:30] That ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates, has scope for its development in Africa. [00:16:37] Whatever he does succeeds. The plague does not touch him. [00:16:42] The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not imputed to him as a fault. [00:16:46] His childishly rash, uncalled for and ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is set down to his credit. And again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip past. [00:17:01] When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully, he reaches Paris. The dissolution of the republican government, which a year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit. [00:17:14] And his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements, can only serve to exalt him. And though he himself has no plan, he is quite ready for his new role. [00:17:26] He had no plan. He was afraid of everything. But the party snatched at him and demanded his participation. [00:17:35] He alone, with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and Egypt, his insane self adulation, his his boldness in crime and frankness in lying, he alone could justify what had to be done. [00:17:49] He is needed for the place that awaits him. And so, almost apart from his will, and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan and all his mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power. And the conspiracy is crowned with success. [00:18:06] He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature in alarm. He wishes to flee, Considering himself lost, he pretends to fall into a swoon and says senseless things that should have ruined him. [00:18:20] But the once proud and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are even more bewildered than he and do not say the words they should have said to destroy him and retain their power. [00:18:33] Chance, millions of chances give him power. And all the men, as if by agreement, co operate to confirm that power. [00:18:42] Chance forms the characters of the rulers of France. Who submit to him. Chance forms the character of Paul I of Russia, who recognizes his government. [00:18:52] Chance contrives a plot against him which not only fails to harm him, but confirms his power. [00:18:59] Chance puts the Duc d' Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly causes him to kill him, thereby convincing the mob, more forcibly than in any other way, that he had the right, since he had the might. [00:19:11] Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an expedition against England which would inevitably have ruined him, he never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. [00:19:28] Chance and genius give him the victory at Austerlitz, and by chance, all men, not only the French, but all Europeans except England, which does not take part in the events about to happen, despite their former horror and detestation of his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given himself, and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and reasonable to them all. [00:19:54] As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the Western forces pushed toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807 and 1809, gaining strength and growing. [00:20:08] In 1811, the group of people that had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central Europe. [00:20:15] The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. [00:20:23] During the 10 year preparatory period, this man had formed relations with all the crowned heads of Europe. [00:20:30] The discredited rulers of the world can oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory and grandeur. [00:20:39] One after another, they hasten to display their insignificance before him. [00:20:44] The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek the great man's mercy. The Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed. [00:20:55] The Pope, the guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the aggrandizement of the great man. [00:21:03] It is not Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is happening and has to happen. [00:21:16] There is no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once represented as a great deed. [00:21:26] The most suitable fete the Germans can devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. [00:21:32] Not only is he great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his brothers in law. [00:21:40] Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. [00:21:46] And when he is ready, so too are the forces. [00:21:51] The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal, Moscow. [00:21:57] That city is taken. [00:21:58] The Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing armies had suffered in the former war, from Austerlitz to Wagram. [00:22:06] But suddenly, instead of those chances, and that genius which hitherto had so consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur. From the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on fire and the frosts. And instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable baseness become evident. [00:22:32] The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now not for Napoleon, but always against him. [00:22:41] A counter movement is then accomplished from east to west, with a remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east. [00:22:50] Attempted drives from east to west, similar to the contrary movements in 1805, 1807 and 1809, precede the great Western movement. There is the same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions, the same adhesion of the people of central Europe to the movement, the same hesitation midway and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached. [00:23:14] Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army are destroyed. [00:23:21] Napoleon himself is no longer of any account. [00:23:24] All his actions are evidently pitiful and mean. But again an inexplicable chance occurs. [00:23:32] The Allies detest Napoleon, whom they regard as the cause of their sufferings. [00:23:37] Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared 10 years previously and one year later, an outlawed brigand. [00:23:49] But by some strange chance, no one perceives this. [00:23:53] His part is not yet ended. [00:23:56] The man who 10 years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand is sent to an island two days sail from France, which for some reason is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him, and millions of money are paid him. [00:24:14] End of First Epilogue Chapter 3. [00:24:23] First epilogue Chapter 4 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude the flood of nations begins to subside. Into its normal channels the waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are formed, in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have caused the floods to abate. [00:24:48] But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. [00:24:51] The diplomatists think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure of natural forces. [00:24:57] They anticipate war between their sovereigns. The position seems to them insoluble. [00:25:03] But the wave they feel to be rising does not come from the quarter they expect. [00:25:08] It rises again from the same point as before Paris. [00:25:13] The last backwash of the movement from the west occurs, a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of history. [00:25:26] The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any conspiracy and without soldiers. [00:25:33] Any guard might arrest him, but by strange chance, no one does so, and all rapturously greet the man they cursed the day before and will curse again a month later. [00:25:45] This man is still needed to justify the final collective act. [00:25:50] That act is performed. [00:25:52] The last rle is played. [00:25:54] The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his powder and paint. He will not be wanted any more. [00:26:01] And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an unseen hand directed his actions. [00:26:22] The manager, having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor, shows him to us. [00:26:28] See what you believed in. This is he. [00:26:31] Do you now see that it was not he but I who moved you? [00:26:36] But dazed by the force of the movement. It was long before people understood this. [00:26:43] Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the counter movement from east to West. [00:26:53] What was needed for him, who overshadowing others, stood at the head of that movement from east to West. [00:27:00] What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European affairs, but a remote sympathy, not dulled by petty interests, a moral superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co operated with him, a mild and attractive personality, and a personal grievance against Napoleon. [00:27:21] And all this was found in Alexander I. [00:27:24] All this had been prepared by innumerable so called chances in his life, his education, his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by Austerlitz and Tilsit and Erfert during the national war. He was inactive because he was not needed. [00:27:43] But as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself, he appeared in his place at the given moment, and uniting the nations of Europe led them to the goal. [00:27:54] The goal was reached after the final war of 1815. Alexander possesses all possible power. [00:28:02] How does he use it? [00:28:04] Alexander I, the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years had striven only for his People's welfare, the originator of the liberal innovations in his fatherland, now that he seemed to possess the utmost power, and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the welfare of his peoples, at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy had he retained power. Power. [00:28:34] Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance of that supposed power, turns away from it and gives it into the hands of contemptible men whom he despises, saying, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name. [00:28:56] I too am a man like the rest of you. [00:28:59] Let me live like a man, and think of my soul and of God as the sun. And each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to comprehend. [00:29:15] So each individual has within himself his own aims, and yet has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man. [00:29:24] A bee settling on a flower has stung a child, and the child is afraid of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. [00:29:33] A poet admires the bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the fragrance of flowers. [00:29:41] A bee keeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. [00:29:49] Another beekeeper, who has studied the life of the hive more closely, says that the bee gathers pollen, dust to feed the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. [00:30:01] A botanist notices that the bee, flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil, fertilizes the latter and sees in this the purpose of the bee's existence. [00:30:12] Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work and may say that in this lies the purpose of the bee. [00:30:22] But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. [00:30:31] The higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the more obvious it becomes that the ultimate purpose is beyond our comprehension. [00:30:41] All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to other manifestations of life. [00:30:48] And so it is with the purpose of historic characters and nations. [00:30:56] Chapter 4. [00:31:04] First epilogue Chapter 5 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last happy event in the family of the old Rostovs Count Ilya Rostov died that same year, and as always happens after the father's death, the family group broke up. [00:31:29] The events of the previous year, the burning of Moscow and the flight from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natacha's despair, Petya's death, and the old count's grief fell blow after blow on the old Count's head. [00:31:43] He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these events and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense, as if expecting and inviting further blows which would finish him. [00:31:54] He seemed now frightened and distraught, and now unnaturally animated and enterprising. [00:32:01] The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while. [00:32:04] He ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful. [00:32:09] But his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be. [00:32:13] On the contrary, it evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him. [00:32:18] When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to complain of depression. [00:32:24] A few days later he fell ill and took to his bed. [00:32:28] He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite the doctor's encouragement. [00:32:33] The Countess passed a fortnight in an armchair by his pillow without undressing. [00:32:38] Every time she gave him his medicine, he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. [00:32:44] On his last day, sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having dissipated their property, that being the chief fault of which he was conscious, after receiving communion and unction, he quietly died. And next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. [00:33:06] All these acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house, and had so often laughed at him, now said with a common feeling of self reproach and emotion, as if justifying themselves, well, whatever he may have been, he was a most worthy man. [00:33:22] You don't meet such men nowadays. [00:33:25] And which of us has not weaknesses of his own? [00:33:29] It was just when the Count's affairs had become so involved that it was impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he unexpectedly died. [00:33:39] Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris. When the news of his father's death reached him. [00:33:44] He at once resigned his commission and, without waiting for it to be accepted, took leave of absence and went to Moscow. [00:33:52] The state of the Count's affairs became quite obvious a month after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts, the existence of which no one had suspected it. The debts amounted to double the value of the property. [00:34:07] Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance but he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing, and accepted the inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts. [00:34:24] The creditors, who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the Count's careless, doubtless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. [00:34:37] As always happens in such cases, rivalry sprang up as to which should get paid first, and those who, like Mitenka, held promissory notes, given them as presents, now became the most exacting of the creditors. [00:34:50] Nicholas was allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the old man the cause of their losses, if they were losses, now remorselessly pursued. The young heir, who had voluntarily undertaken the debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them. [00:35:07] Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded. The estate was sold by auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid. [00:35:16] Nicholas accepted 30,000 roubles offered him by his brother in law, Bezukhov, to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value received and to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder as the creditors threatened, he re entered the government service. [00:35:33] He could not rejoin the army, where he would have been made a colonel at the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on life. And so, despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service, he accepted a post in Moscow. In that service, doffed the uniform of which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonia to a small house on the Sivtsev. Rajok, Natacha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no clear idea of Nicola's circumstances. [00:36:10] Having borrowed money from his brother in law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him. [00:36:16] His position was the more difficult because with his salary of 1200 roubles, he had not only to keep himself, his mother and Sonia, but had to shield his mother from the knowledge of their poverty. [00:36:28] The Countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she had been used to from childhood, and, unable to realize how hard it was for her son, kept demanding now a carriage, which they did not keep, to send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or Sonia or for Nicholas himself. [00:36:54] Sonia kept house attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her whims, and secret ill will and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty from the old countess. [00:37:05] Nicolas felt himself irredeemably indebted to Sonia for all she was doing for his mother, and greatly admired her patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her. [00:37:16] He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and because there was nothing to reproach her with. [00:37:23] She had all that people are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. [00:37:29] He felt that the more he valued her, the less he loved her. [00:37:33] He had taken her at her word when she wrote giving him his freedom, and now behaved as if all that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in any case be renewed. [00:37:44] Nikola's position became worse and worse. [00:37:47] The idea of putting something aside out of his salary proved a dream. [00:37:52] Not only did he not save anything, but to comply with his mother's demands. He even incurred some small debts. [00:37:59] He could see no way out of this situation. [00:38:02] The idea of marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female relations, was repugnant to him. [00:38:09] The other way out. His mother's death never entered his head. [00:38:13] He wished for nothing and hoped for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern satisfaction. In an uncomplaining endurance of his position, he tried to avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive offers of assistance. [00:38:30] He avoided all distraction and recreation, and even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. [00:38:40] He seemed carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him to endure his position. [00:38:51] Chapter 5. [00:38:59] First epilogue Chapter 6 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maud at the beginning of winter, Princess Mary came to Moscow. [00:39:13] From reports current in town, she learned how the Rostovs were situated and how the son has sacrificed himself for his mother, as people were saying. [00:39:22] I never expected anything else of him, said Princess Mary to herself, feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. [00:39:30] Remembering her friendly relations with all the Rostovs, which had made her almost a member of the family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. [00:39:38] But remembering her relations with Nicholas and Veronese, she was shy about doing so, making a great effort. She did, however, go to calling them A few weeks after her arrival in Moscow. [00:39:51] Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the Countess room could only be reached through his. [00:39:56] But instead of being greeted with pleasure, as she had expected, at his first glance at her, his face assumed A cold, stiff, proud expression she had not seen on it before. [00:40:07] He inquired about her health, led the way to his mother and having sat there for five minutes, left the room. [00:40:15] When the Princess came out of the Countess room, Nicholas met her again, and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom. [00:40:24] To her remarks about his mother's health, he made no reply. [00:40:28] What's that to you? [00:40:30] Leave me in peace. His look seemed to say. [00:40:34] Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? [00:40:38] I can't bear these ladies and all these civilities, said he aloud in Sonia's presence, evidently unable to repress his vexation after the Princess carriage had disappeared. [00:40:50] Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that? Cried Sonia, hardly able to conceal her delight. [00:40:57] She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her. [00:41:00] Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the Princess any more. [00:41:05] But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a day. [00:41:10] She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill humoured when she began to talk about her. [00:41:20] Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the Princess, but his silence irritated her. [00:41:27] She is a very admirable and excellent young woman, said she, and you must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody. And I think it must be dull for you only seeing us. [00:41:40] But I don't in the least want to, Mamma. [00:41:43] You used to want to and now you don't. Really, I don't understand you, my dear. One day you are dull and the next you refuse to see any one. [00:41:54] But I never said I was dull. [00:41:57] Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very admirable young woman and you always liked her. But now suddenly you have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from me. [00:42:11] Not at all, Mamma. [00:42:13] If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now, but I only ask you to return a call, one would think mere politeness required it. [00:42:23] Well, I have asked you and now I won't interfere any more, since you have secrets from your mother. [00:42:30] Well then, I'll go if you wish. [00:42:33] Doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake. [00:42:38] Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache and laid out the cards for a patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic. [00:42:46] The same conversation was repeated next day, and the day after, and the day after that. [00:42:52] After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by Nicholas. [00:42:57] Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in not wishing to be the first to call. [00:43:03] I expected nothing else, she told herself, calling her pride to her aid. [00:43:09] I have nothing to do with him, and I only wanted to see the old lady who is always kind to me and to whom I am under many obligations. [00:43:19] But she could not pacify herself with these reflections. [00:43:23] A feeling akin to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. [00:43:27] Though she had firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. [00:43:36] And when she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her relation to Rostov. [00:43:42] His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling for her, she knew that, but it concealed something. [00:43:49] And until she could discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at ease. [00:43:56] One day in midwinter, when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. [00:44:03] With a firm resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent for Mademoiselle Bourrienne and went with her to the drawing room. [00:44:13] Her first glance at Nicola's face told her that he had only come to fulfil the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain the tone in which he addressed her. [00:44:24] They spoke of the Countess health, of their mutual friends, of the latest war news, and when the 10 minutes required by propriety had elapsed, after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good bye. [00:44:37] With Mademoiselle Bourrienne's help, the Princess had maintained the conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose, she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind was so full of the question why. She alone was granted so little happiness in life that in a fit of absentmindedness, she sat still, her luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen. [00:45:04] Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourrienne and then again looked at the Princess. [00:45:14] She still sat motionless, with a look of suffering on her gentle face. [00:45:19] He suddenly felt sorry for her and was vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face expressed. [00:45:26] He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could think of nothing to say. [00:45:33] Good bye, Princess, said he. [00:45:36] She started, flushed, and sighed deeply. [00:45:39] Oh, I beg your pardon, she said, as if waking up. [00:45:43] Are you going already, Count? [00:45:45] Well, then, good. By oh, but the cushion for the Countess. [00:45:50] Wait a moment, I'll fetch it, said Mademoiselle Bourrienne, and she left the room. [00:45:55] They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another. [00:46:00] Yes, Princess, said Nicholas at last, with a sad smile. [00:46:05] It doesn't seem long ago since we first met at Boga Charovo. But how much water has flowed since then? [00:46:13] In what distress we all seem to be then. Yet I would give much to bring back that time. [00:46:19] But there's no bringing it back. [00:46:23] Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones. As he said this, she seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of his words, which would explain his feeling for her. Her? [00:46:35] Yes, yes, said she. But you have no reason to regret the past, Count. [00:46:41] As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it with satisfaction. Because the self sacrifice that fills it now. [00:46:50] I cannot accept your praise, he interrupted her hurriedly. [00:46:55] On the contrary, I continually reproach myself. [00:46:59] But this is not at all an interesting or cheerful subject. [00:47:04] His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. [00:47:08] But the princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it was to him that she now spoke. [00:47:15] I thought you would allow me to tell you this, she said. [00:47:19] I had come so near to you and to all your family that I thought you would not consider my sympathy misplaced. But I was mistaken. [00:47:29] And suddenly her voice trembled. [00:47:32] I don't know why, she continued, recovering herself, but you used to be different, and there are a thousand reasons why. Laying special emphasis on the why. [00:47:44] Thank you, Princess, he said softly. Sometimes it is hard. [00:47:51] So that's why. That's why, a voice whispered in Princess Mary's soul. [00:47:57] No, it was not only that gay, kind and frank look, not only that handsome exterior that I loved. In him I divined his noble, resolute self. Sacrificing spirit too, she said to herself. [00:48:10] Yes, he is poor now and I am rich. [00:48:14] Yes, that's the only reason. [00:48:16] Yes, Were it not for that, and remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness. [00:48:29] But why, Count? Why? [00:48:31] She almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to him. [00:48:35] Why? [00:48:36] Tell me. You must tell me. [00:48:40] He was silent. [00:48:42] I don't understand your why, Count, she continued. But it's hard for me. I confess it. [00:48:49] For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former friendship, and that hurts me. [00:48:55] There were tears in her eyes and in her voice. [00:48:59] I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard for me to bear. [00:49:05] Excuse me. Good bye. And suddenly she began to cry and was hurrying from the room. [00:49:11] Princess, for God's sake. He exclaimed, trying to stop her. [00:49:17] Princess. [00:49:18] She turned round. [00:49:20] For a few seconds they gazed silently into one another's eyes, and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly became possible, inevitable and very near. [00:49:34] Chapter. [00:49:42] First epilogue Chapter VII of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude in the winter of 1813, Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonia. [00:50:01] Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small inheritance of on the death of a cousin, he paid his debt to Pierre as well in another three years. By 1820 he had so managed his affairs that he was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating to buy back Otradno, that being his pet dream. [00:50:26] Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. [00:50:35] Nicholas was a plain farmer. He did not like innovations, especially the English ones then coming into vogue. [00:50:43] He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any particular part of the work on his estate. [00:50:57] He always had before his mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. [00:51:04] The chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made, the peasant laborer. [00:51:21] When Nicholas first began farming and began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially attracted his attention. [00:51:29] The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. [00:51:37] At first he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders, while in reality learning from them their methods, their manner of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad. [00:51:54] Only when he had understood the peasants tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to them, did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward them the duties demanded of him and Nicholas management produced very brilliant results. [00:52:14] Guided by some gift of insight on taking up the management of the estates, he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff and village elder and delegate. The very Men the serfs would themselves have chosen, had they had the right to choose. And these posts never changed hands before analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and credit, as he ironically called it, he found out how many cattle the peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. [00:52:44] He kept the peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing the family groups to divide into separate households. [00:52:53] He was hard alike on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled from the Commune. [00:53:00] He was very careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants, hay and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return as did Nicholas. [00:53:15] He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs, the drones, as he called them, and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. [00:53:24] When a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in the house. [00:53:35] But when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted instead of a land worker, he did so without the least hesitation. [00:53:43] He never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. [00:53:47] He knew that his every decision would be approved by them all, with very few exceptions. [00:53:53] He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined to do so. [00:54:04] He could not have said by what standard he judged what he should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in his own mind. [00:54:13] Often speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would say, what can one do with our Russian peasants? [00:54:21] And imagined that he could not bear them. [00:54:25] Yet he loved our Russian peasants and their way of life with his whole soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one way and manner of farming which produced good results. [00:54:39] Countess Mary was jealous of this passion, of her husband's, and regretted that she could not share it. [00:54:45] But she could not understand the joys and vexations he derived from that world to her, so remote and alien. [00:54:54] She could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well to do peasant Matthew Ermician. Who with his family had carded corn all night, or of the fact that his Nicholas sheaves were already stacked before anyone else had his harvest in. [00:55:28] She did not understand why he stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under her his moustache and winked so joyfully when warm, steady rain began to fall on the dry and thirsty shoots of the young oats. [00:55:41] Or why, when the wind carried away a threatening cloud during the hay harvest, he would return from the barn flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and gentian in his hair, and gleefully rubbing his hands, would say, well, one more day and my grain and the peasants will all be under cover. [00:56:03] Still less did she understand why he, kind hearted and always ready to anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to be excused some work. [00:56:18] Why he, that kind Nicholas should obstinately refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her business. [00:56:27] She felt he had a world apart which he loved passionately and which had laws she had not fathomed. [00:56:36] Sometimes, when trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he was doing for his serfs. He would be vexed and reply, not in the least. [00:56:46] It never entered my head, and I wouldn't do that for their good. [00:56:50] That's all. Poetry and old wives talk, all that, doing good to one's neighbor. [00:56:56] What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that, order and strictness are essential. That's all about it, said he, clenching his vigorous fist. [00:57:13] And fairness, of course, he added, for if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he can do no good either for himself or for me. [00:57:25] And all Nicholas did was fruitful, probably just because he refused to allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's sake. [00:57:34] His means increased rapidly. Serfs from neighboring estates came to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his administration was devoutly preserved. Among the serfs he was a master, the peasants affairs first, and then his own. Of course, he was not to be trifled with either. In a word, he was a real master. [00:58:09] First epilogue, Chapter 8 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and that was his quick temper, together with his old hussar habit of making free use of his fists. [00:58:28] At first he saw nothing reprehensible in this, but in the second year of his marriage, his view of that form of punishment suddenly changed. [00:58:37] Once in the summer, he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a man who had succeeded to the post when drawn died, and who was accused of dishonesty and various irregularities. [00:58:48] Nicolas went out into the porch to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies, the sound of cries and blows were heard. [00:58:58] On returning to lunch, Nicholas went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery frame, and as usual, began to tell her what he had been doing that morning. [00:59:09] Among other things, he spoke of the Boga Charvo elder. [00:59:12] Countess Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and lips compressed, and gave her husband no reply. [00:59:22] Such an insolent scoundrel. He cried, growing hot again at the mere recollection of him. If he had told me he was drunk and did not see. [00:59:31] But what is the matter with you, Mary? [00:59:33] He suddenly asked. [00:59:35] Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked down again and her lips puckered. [00:59:42] Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest? [00:59:46] The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in tears. [00:59:50] She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or pity. And when she wept, her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm. [01:00:01] The moment Nicholas took her hand, she could no longer restrain herself and began to cry. [01:00:06] Nicholas, I saw it. He was to blame. [01:00:10] But why did you. [01:00:12] Nicholas. [01:00:14] And she covered her face with her hands. [01:00:17] Nicolas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up and down the room. [01:00:24] He understood what she was weeping about, but could not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded from childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. [01:00:34] Is it just sentimentality, old wives tales? Or is she right? He asked himself. [01:00:42] Before he had solved that point, he glanced again at her face filled with love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he had long been sinning against himself. [01:00:55] Mary, he said softly, going up to her, it will never happen again, I give you my word. [01:01:02] Never, he repeated in a trembling voice, like a boy asking for forgiveness. [01:01:08] The tears flowed faster still from the countess eyes. [01:01:12] She took his hand and kissed it. [01:01:15] Nicolas, when did you break your cameo? [01:01:19] She asked, to change the subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of Lakoan's head. [01:01:26] Today it was the same affair. [01:01:29] Oh, Mary, don't remind me of It. [01:01:32] And again he flushed. [01:01:34] I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again, and let this always be a reminder to me. And he pointed to the broken ring. [01:01:44] After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards, the blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the man who was making him angry. [01:01:58] But he did forget himself once or twice within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife and would again promise that this should really be the very last time. [01:02:10] Mary, you must despise me, he would say. I deserve it. [01:02:17] You should go. Go away at once if you don't feel strong enough to control yourself, she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband. [01:02:28] Among the gentry of the province, Nicholas was respected but not liked. He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. [01:02:41] The whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work on his farm. [01:02:47] In autumn he gave himself up to hunting, with some business like seriousness, leaving home for a month or even two with his hunt. [01:02:55] In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time reading. [01:03:00] The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he spent a certain sum. Every year he was collecting, as he said, a serious library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought. [01:03:13] He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading, a task he first imposed upon himself as a duty but which afterwards became a habit, affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of being occupied with serious matters. [01:03:29] In winter, except for business excursions, he spent most of his time at home, making himself one with his family and entering into all the details of his children's relations with their mother. [01:03:41] The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and closer, and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her. [01:03:49] From the time of his marriage, Sonia had lived in his house. [01:03:53] Before that, Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and Sonia, the blaming himself and commending her, he had asked Princess Mary to be gentle and kind to his cousin. [01:04:05] She thoroughly realized the wrong he had done. Sonia felt herself to blame toward her and imagined that her wealth had influenced Nicola's choice. [01:04:14] She could not find fault with Sonia in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill will toward her, which she could not overcome. [01:04:25] Once she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonia and about her own injustice toward her. [01:04:32] You know, said Natasha, you have read the Gospels a great deal. There is a passage in them that just fits Sonia. [01:04:40] What? Asked Countess Mary, surprised. [01:04:44] To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath shall not be taken away. [01:04:51] You remember, she is the one that hath not. [01:04:55] Why? I don't know. [01:04:57] Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know. But from her is taken away, and everything has been taken away. [01:05:05] Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her. [01:05:08] Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a sort of presentiment that it would not come off. [01:05:15] She is a sterile flower, you know, like some strawberry blossoms. [01:05:20] Sometimes I'm sorry for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would. [01:05:27] Though Countess Mary told Natasha that those words in the Gospel must be understood differently. Yet looking at Sonia, she agreed with Natasha's explanation. [01:05:37] It really seemed that Sonia did not feel her position trying and had grown quite reconciled to her her lot as a sterile flower. [01:05:46] She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a whole. [01:05:52] Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people, but to the home. [01:05:57] She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children, was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift, and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient gratitude. [01:06:10] The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same scale as under the old prints. [01:06:17] The buildings begun under straitened circumstances were more than simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood, plastered only inside. [01:06:27] It had bare deal floors and was furnished with very simple hard sofas, arm chairs, tables and chairs made by their own servants, carpenters out of their own birchwood. [01:06:38] The house was spacious and had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. [01:06:43] Whole families of the Rostovs and Bolkonskys relations sometimes came to Bald Hills with 16 horses and dozens of servants, and stayed for months besides that. Four times a year, on the name days and birthdays of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day or two. [01:07:01] The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine, with its ordinary occupations and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners and suppers provided out of the produce of the estate. [01:07:15] End of first epilogue Chapter 8. [01:07:24] First epilogue Chapter 9 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude it was the eve of St Nicholas, 5 December 1820. [01:07:37] Natasha had been staying at her brother's with her husband and children since early autumn. [01:07:43] Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three weeks, as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was expected back every minute. [01:07:52] Besides the Bazukhov family, Nicholas old friend the retired general Vasily Dmitritch Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this 5th of December. [01:08:02] On the 6th, which was his name day, when the house would be full of visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his tartar tunic for a tail coat and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to the new church he had built and then receive visitors who had come to congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections of the nobility. [01:08:24] But he considered himself entitled to spend the eve of that day in his usual way. [01:08:29] He examined the bailiff's accounts of the village in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and stables before dinner, having taken precautions against the general drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saints day, he returned to dinner and without having time for a private talk with his wife, sat down at the long table laid for 20 persons at which the whole household had assembled. [01:08:58] At that table were his mother, his mother's old lady companion, Belova, his wife, their three children with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonia Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael Ivanovitch, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement at Bald Hills. [01:09:20] Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table when her husband took his place. She concluded from the rapid manner in which after taking up his table napkin, he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing before him that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when he came in to dinner straight from the farm, especially before the the soup. [01:09:41] Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in a good frame of mind, quietly waited till he had had his soup and then began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his ill humour. [01:09:55] But to day she quite forgot that, and was hurt that he should be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. [01:10:03] She asked him where he had been, he replied. She again inquired whether everything was going well on the farm. [01:10:10] Her unnatural tone made him wince unpleasantly and he replied hastily. [01:10:16] Then I'm not mistaken, thought Countess Mary. [01:10:20] Why is he cross with me? [01:10:22] She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished to end the conversation. [01:10:28] She knew her remark sounded Unnatural, but could not refrain from asking some more questions. [01:10:35] Thanks to Denisov, the conversation at table soon became general and lively, and she did not talk to her husband. [01:10:42] When they left the table and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her hand and kissed her husband and asked him why he was angry with her. [01:10:52] You always have such strange fancies. I didn't even think of being angry, he replied, but the word always seemed to her to imply, yes, I am angry, but I won't tell you why. [01:11:06] Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sonia and the old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree, could find nothing to reproach them with. [01:11:17] But even they had their moments of antagonism occasionally, and it was always just after they had been happiest together. They suddenly had a feeling of estrangement and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary's pregnancies. And this was such a time. [01:11:35] Well, messieurs and Madame, said Nicholas loudly and with apparent cheerfulness, it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to vex her. [01:11:44] I have been on my feet since 6 this morning. [01:11:47] To morrow I shall have to suffer so to day I'll go and rest. [01:11:53] And without a word to his wife, he went to the little sitting room and lay down on the sofa. [01:11:59] That's always the way, thought Countess Mary. He talks to everyone except me. [01:12:05] I see. [01:12:06] I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I am in this condition. [01:12:12] She looked down at her expanded figure and in the glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face, in which her eyes now looked larger than ever. Her and everything annoyed her. Denisov's shouting and laughter, Natacha's talk, and especially a quick glance Sonia gave her. [01:12:30] Sonia was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling irritated. [01:12:35] Having sat a while with her visitors without understanding anything of what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery. [01:12:44] The children were playing at going to Moscow in a carriage made of chairs and invited her to go with them. [01:12:50] She sat down and played with them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable crossness worried her. [01:12:57] She got up and, walking on tiptoe with difficulty, went to the small sitting room. [01:13:02] Perhaps he is not asleep. I'll have an explanation with him, she said to herself. [01:13:08] Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother, followed her on tiptoe. [01:13:14] She did not notice him. [01:13:16] Mary, dear, I think he is asleep. He was so tired, said Sonia, meeting her in the large sitting room. It seemed to Countess Mary that she crossed her path everywhere. [01:13:28] Andrew may wake him. [01:13:30] Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that Sonia was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident difficulty refrained from saying something, something harsh. [01:13:42] She made no reply, but to avoid obeying, Sonia beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went to the door. [01:13:49] Sonia went away by another door. [01:13:53] From the room in which Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. [01:14:01] As she listened to it, she saw before her his smooth, handsome forehead, his moustache and his whole face as she had so often seen it. In the stillness of the night when he slept, Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat, and at that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door, papa, Mamma's standing here. [01:14:23] Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs to the boy. He grew silent and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to Countess Mary. [01:14:33] She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked up. [01:14:36] Then through the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and his voice said, I can't get a moment's peace. Mary, is that you? Why did you bring him here? [01:14:49] I only came in to look and did not notice. [01:14:52] Forgive me. [01:14:53] Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the door and took the boy back to the nursery. [01:15:01] Five minutes later, little black eyed three year old Natasha, her father's pet, having learned from her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran to her father unobserved by her mother. [01:15:13] The dark eyed little girl boldly opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand which lay under his head. [01:15:29] Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his face. [01:15:33] Natasha. Natasha. Came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from the door. Papa wants to sleep. [01:15:41] No, mama, he doesn't want to sleep, said little Natasha with conviction. He's laughing. [01:15:47] Nicholas lowered his legs, rose and took his daughter in his arms. [01:15:53] Come in, Mary, he said to his wife. [01:15:56] She went in and sat down by her husband. [01:15:59] I did not notice him following me, she said timidly. I just looked in, holding his little girl with one arm. Nicholas glanced at his wife and seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed her hair. [01:16:15] May I kiss Mamma? He asked Natasha. [01:16:18] Natasha smiled bashfully. [01:16:21] Again she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot where Nicholas had placed the kiss. [01:16:28] I don't know why you think I am cross, said Nicholas, replying to the question he knew was in his wife's mind. [01:16:37] You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely I feel when you are like that. [01:16:43] It always seems to me. [01:16:45] Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, he said gaily. [01:16:52] It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain always and now in this con. Oh how absurd you are. It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty. [01:17:08] It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who are loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? [01:17:14] I don't love her, but I don't know how to put it without you or when something comes between us like this. I seem lost and can't do anything. [01:17:26] Now do I love my finger? [01:17:28] I don't love it, but just try to cut it off. [01:17:32] I am not like that myself, but I understand. [01:17:37] So you're not angry with me? [01:17:39] Awfully angry, he said, smiling and getting up and smoothing his hair. He began to pace the room. [01:17:47] Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking? [01:17:50] He began immediately thinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had made it up. [01:17:56] He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. [01:18:00] A thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. [01:18:05] He told her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring. [01:18:10] Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in her turn began thinking aloud. [01:18:16] Her thoughts were about the children. [01:18:20] You can see the woman in her already, she said in French, pointing to little Natasha. [01:18:26] You reproach us women with being illogical. [01:18:30] Here is our logic. [01:18:31] I say Papa wants to sleep, but she says no, he's laughing. And she was right, said Countess Mary with a happy smile. [01:18:42] Yes, yes. [01:18:44] And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand, lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs and paced the room with her. [01:18:52] There was an expression of care free happiness on the faces of both father and daughter. [01:18:59] But you know, you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one, his wife whispered in French. [01:19:06] Yes, but what am I to do? [01:19:08] I try not to show. [01:19:11] At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in the hall and anteroom as if someone had arrived. [01:19:19] Somebody has come. [01:19:20] I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see, said Countess Mary and left the room. [01:19:27] In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a gallop round the room, out of breath. He took the laughing child quickly from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. [01:19:38] His capers reminded him of dancing, and looking at the child's round, happy little face, he thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter. [01:19:55] It is he, it is he, Nicholas, said Countess Mary, re entering the room a few minutes later. [01:20:01] Now our Natacha has come to life. You should have seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long. [01:20:09] Well, come along now, quick, quick, it's time you two are parted, she added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father. [01:20:18] Nicholas went out, holding the child by the hand. [01:20:21] Countess Mary remained in the sitting room. [01:20:24] I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy, she whispered to herself. [01:20:31] A smile lit up her face, but at the same time she sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness, as though she felt through her happiness that there is another sort of happiness unattainable in this life, and of which she involuntarily thought at that instant. [01:20:50] End of First Epilogue, Chapter 9. [01:21:00] First epilogue, Chapter 10 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude Natasha had married in the early spring of 1813 and in 1820 already had three daughters. Besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was now nursing, she had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of former days. [01:21:30] Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and serene expression in her face. There was none of the ever glowing animation that had former formerly burned there and constituted its charm. [01:21:42] Now her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was not visible at all. [01:21:48] All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and fertile woman. [01:21:53] The old fire very rarely kindled in her face. Now that happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home, or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of Prince Andrew. [01:22:07] She never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined was jealous of Prince Andrew's memory, or on the rare occasions when something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite abandoned since her marriage. [01:22:20] At the rare moments when the old fire did kindle in her handsome, fully developed body, she was even more attractive than in former days. [01:22:29] Since their marriage, Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to say, in Nicola's house, the young Countess Bezukhova was not often seen in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her and found her neither attractive nor amiable. [01:22:50] Not that Natasha liked solitude. She did not know whether she liked it or not. She even thought that she did not. But with her pregnancies, her confinements, the nursing of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's life, she had demands on her time, which could be satisfied only by renouncing society. [01:23:09] All who had known Natasha before her marriage wondered at the change in her as at something extraordinary. [01:23:16] Only the old countess, with her maternal instinct, had realized that all Natacha's outbursts had been due to her need of children and a husband, as she herself had had once exclaimed at a trodno, not so much in fun as in earnest. [01:23:30] And her mother was now surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never understood Natasha. And she kept saying that she had always known that Natasha would make an exemplary wife and mother. [01:23:43] Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all bounds, said the countess, so that it even becomes absurd. [01:23:53] Natasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk, especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her husband. [01:24:14] Natasha, on the contrary, had at once abandoned all her witchery, of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. [01:24:23] She gave it up just because it was so powerfully seductive. [01:24:27] She took no pains with her manners, or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilette, or to show herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid inconveniencing him by being too exacting. [01:24:41] She acted in contradiction to all those rules. [01:24:45] She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up entirely, that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden from him. [01:25:01] She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something else, indefinite but firm, warm as the bond between her own body and soul. [01:25:14] To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic songs. To fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn herself, to attract herself. [01:25:25] To adorn herself or others might Perhaps have been agreeable. She did not know. But she had no time at all for it. [01:25:33] The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress or. Or to choosing her words. Was that she really had no time to spare for these things. [01:25:44] We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject, however trivial it may be. And that there is no subject so trivial. That it will not grow to infinite proportions. If one's entire attention is devoted to it. [01:25:59] The subject which wholly engrossed Natasha's attention. Was her family. [01:26:03] That is, her husband, Whom she had to keep so that he should belong entirely to her and to the home and the children. Whom she had to bear, bring into the world, nurse and bring up. [01:26:15] And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only. But with her whole soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her. The larger did that subject grow. And the weaker and more inadequate did her powers appear. [01:26:29] So that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing. And yet was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary. [01:26:37] There were then, as now, conversations and discussions about women's rights. The relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights. Though these themes were not yet termed questions, as they are now. [01:26:50] But these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha. She positively did not understand them. [01:26:57] These questions, then as now, Existed only for those who see nothing in marriage. But the pleasure married people get from one another. [01:27:05] That is, only the beginnings of marriage. And not its whole significance which lies in the family. [01:27:11] Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the questions of how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner. Did not then and do not now exist. For those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the nourishment it affords. And the purpose of marriage is the family. [01:27:28] If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body. A man who eats two dinners at once. May perhaps get more enjoyment. But will not attain his purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners. [01:27:41] If the purpose of marriage is the family. The person who wishes to have many wives or husbands. May perhaps obtain much pleasure. But in that case will not have a family. [01:27:53] If the purpose of food is nourishment. And the purpose of marriage is the family. The whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one can digest. And not having more wives or husbands than are needed for the family. That is, one wife or one husband. [01:28:09] Natasha needed a husband. [01:28:11] A husband was given her, and he gave her a family. [01:28:15] And she not only saw no need of any other. Or better husband. But as all the powers of her soul were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not imagine, and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were different. [01:28:30] Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the society of her relativescountess, Mary and her brother, her mother and Sonya. [01:28:40] She valued the company of those to whom she could come striding dishevelled from the nursery in her dressing gown and with joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on Baby's napkin, and from whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that Baby was much better. [01:28:57] To such an extent had Natasha let herself go, that the way she dressed and did her hair, her ill chosen words and her jealousy. [01:29:05] She was jealous of Sonia, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain, were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. [01:29:15] The general opinion was that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really true. [01:29:21] From the very first days of their married life, Natasha had announced her demands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's view to him a perfectly novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and to the family. [01:29:35] His wife's demands astonished him, but they also flattered him and he submitted to them. [01:29:42] Pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to any other woman, did not dare dine at the club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time except on business, in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits which she did not in the least understand, but to which she attributed great importance. [01:30:10] To make up for this, at home, Pierre had the right to regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. [01:30:18] At home, Natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband and the whole household went on tiptoe. When he was occupied, that is, was reading or writing in his study, Pierre had but to show a partiality for anything, to get just what he liked done. Always he had only to express a wish and Natacha would jump up and run to fulfil it. [01:30:42] The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders, that is, by his wishes, which Natasha tried to guess. [01:30:51] Their way of life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natacha's occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natacha, from the thoughts he expressed in conversation, supposed his wishes to be, and she deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once arrived at them, clung to them tenaciously. [01:31:16] When Pierre himself wanted to change his mind, she would fight him with his own weapons. [01:31:22] Thus, in a time of trouble ever memorable to him, after the birth of their first child, who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse three times, and Natacha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse is unnatural and harmful. [01:31:42] When her next baby was born, despite the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband himself, who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself, a thing then unheard of and considered injurious, she insisted on having her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself. [01:32:02] It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre, to his surprise and delight, would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous, that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his opinion. [01:32:25] After seven years of marriage, Pierre had the joyous and firm consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this perhaps because he saw himself reflected in his wife. [01:32:37] He felt that the good and bad within himself inextricably mingled and overlapping, but only what was really good in him was reflected in his wife. All that was not quite good was rejected, and this was not the result of logical reasoning, but was a direct and mysterious reflection. [01:32:57] End of first epilogue Chapter 10. [01:33:06] First epilogue Chapter 11 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude Two months previously, when Pierre was already staying with the Rostovs, he had received a letter from Prince Theodore asking him to come to Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal founders. [01:33:32] On reading that letter, she always read her husband's letters. Natasha herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel his absence very acutely. [01:33:43] She attributed immense importance to all her husband's intellectual and abstract interests, though she did not understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such matters. [01:33:55] To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter, she replied by asking him to go. But to fix a definite date for his return, he was given four weeks leave of absence. [01:34:09] Ever since that leave of absence had expired more than a fortnight before, Natasha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression and irritability. [01:34:19] Denisovan, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. [01:34:28] He looked at Natacha with sorrow and surprise, as at a bad likeness of a person once dear. [01:34:35] A dull, dejected look, random replies and talk about the nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress. [01:34:43] Natacha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother, her brother Sonia, or Countess Mary, in their efforts to console her, tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning. [01:34:58] It's all nonsense, all rubbish, those discussions which lead to nothing, and all those idiotic societies, natasha declared of the very affairs in the immense importance of which she firmly believed. [01:35:13] And she would go to the nursery to Nurse Petya, her only boy. [01:35:17] No one else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this little three month old creature when he lay at her breast and she was conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little nose. [01:35:32] You are angry, you are jealous, you would like to pay him out. You are afraid. [01:35:38] But here am I and I am he. [01:35:41] And that was unanswerable. It was more than true. [01:35:46] During that fortnight of anxiety, Natacha resorted to the baby for comfort so often and fussed over him so much that she overfed him and he fell ill. [01:35:57] She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just what she needed. [01:36:02] While attending to him, she bore the anxiety about her husband more easily. [01:36:08] She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard at the front door, and the old nurse, knowing how to please her mistress, entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming face. [01:36:20] Has he come? Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest she should rouse the dozing baby. [01:36:27] He's come, ma', am, whispered the nurse. [01:36:30] The blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet involuntarily moved, but she could not jump up and run out. [01:36:37] The baby again opened his eyes and looked at her. [01:36:40] You're here, he seemed to be saying, and again lazily smacked his lips, cautiously withdrawing her breast. Natasha rocked him a little, handed him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. [01:36:54] But at the door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. [01:37:03] The nurse, with raised elbows, was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot. [01:37:08] Go, ma', am, don't worry. Go, she whispered, smiling with the kind of familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress. [01:37:16] Natasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom. Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his pipe, now for the first time recognized the old, old Natasha. A flood of brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face. [01:37:32] He's come. She exclaimed as she ran past, and Anisov felt that he too was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned. [01:37:43] On reaching the vestibule, Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat unwinding his scarf. [01:37:49] It's he. It's really he. He has come, she said to herself, and rushing at him, embraced him, pressed his head to her breast and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face covered with hoar frost. [01:38:04] Yes, it is he. Happy and contented. [01:38:09] Then, all at once, she remembered the tortures of suspense she had experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face vanished. [01:38:19] She frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of reproaches and angry words. [01:38:24] Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good time. But what about me? [01:38:31] You might at least have shown consideration for the children I am nursing. And my milk was spoiled. Petya was at death's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying. [01:38:46] Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner. [01:38:51] He knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two. [01:38:56] Above all, he knew that he himself was bright and happy. [01:39:00] He wanted to smile, but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous, frightened face and bent down. [01:39:08] I could not, on my honour. [01:39:11] But how is Petya? [01:39:14] All right. Now come along. I wonder you're not ashamed. [01:39:18] If only you could see what I was like without you. How I suffered. [01:39:24] You are well. [01:39:26] Come, come, she said, not letting go of his arm, and they went to their rooms. [01:39:33] When Nicolas and his wife came to look for Pierre, he was in the nursery holding his baby son, who was again awake on his huge right palm and dandling him. A blissful, bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face with its toothless, open mouth. [01:39:49] The storm was long since over and there was bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha's face as she gazed tenderly at her husband and child. [01:39:59] And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore? She asked. [01:40:04] Yes, capitally. [01:40:06] You see, he holds it up. She met the baby's head. [01:40:11] But how he did Frighten me. [01:40:13] You've seen the princess. Is it true she's in love with that? [01:40:18] Yes. Just fancy. [01:40:21] At that moment, Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. [01:40:25] Pierre, with the baby on his hand, stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. [01:40:31] But in spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his attention. [01:40:41] How sweet, said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby. [01:40:47] Now, Nicholas, she added, turning to her husband, I can't understand how it is you don't see the charm of these delicious marvels. [01:40:56] I don't and can't, replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby, a lump of flesh. [01:41:03] Come along, Pierre. [01:41:05] And yet he's such an affectionate father, said Countess Mary, vindicating her husband, but only after they are a year old or so. [01:41:15] Now Pierre nurses them splendidly, said Natasha. He says his hand is just made for a baby seat. [01:41:23] Just look. [01:41:25] Only not for this. [01:41:28] Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and shifting the baby, he gave him to the nurse. [01:41:37] Chapter 11. [01:41:44] First epilogue Chapter 12 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maud as in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. [01:42:09] Every event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve over that occurrence independently of the others. [01:42:22] For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event, and they all felt it to be so. [01:42:28] The servants, the most reliable judges of their masters, because they judged not by their conversation or expressions of feeling, but by their acts and way of life, were glad of Pierre's return because they knew that when he was there, Count Nicholas would cease going every day to attend to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and also because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays. [01:42:55] The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return because no one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did. [01:43:03] He alone could play on the clavichord that echoes his only piece to which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt sure he had brought presents for them all. [01:43:16] Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of 15, delicate and intelligent, with curly light brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because Uncle Pierre, as he called him, was the object of his rapturous and passionate affection. [01:43:33] No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre, whom he saw only occasionally. [01:43:38] Countess Mary, who had brought him up, had done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him. And little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of contempt. [01:43:50] Pierre, however, he adored. [01:43:53] He did not want to be a hussar or a knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas. [01:43:58] He wanted to be learned, wise and kind, like Pierre. [01:44:02] In Pierre's presence his face always shone with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to him. [01:44:10] He did not miss a single word he uttered and would afterwards, with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of everything Pierre had said. [01:44:20] Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior to 1812, of which Young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from some words he had overheard. His adventures in Moscow, his captivity, Platon Karataev, of whom he had heard from Pierre his love for Natacha, of whom the lad was also particularly fond, and especially Pierre's friendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember. [01:44:46] All this made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint. [01:44:51] From broken remarks about Natacha and his father, from the emotion with which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent tenderness with which Natacha spoke of him, the boy who was only just beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had loved Natasha and, when dying, had left her to his friend. [01:45:13] But the father, whom the boy did not remember, appeared to him a divinity who could not be pictured and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and tears of sadness and rapture. [01:45:25] So the boy also was happy that Pierre had arrived. [01:45:29] The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite any company he was in, the grown up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly and peacefully. [01:45:46] The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and especially that Natasha would now be herself again. [01:45:53] Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made haste to satisfy all their expectations. [01:46:01] Though the most absent minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting his mother and brother in law's commissions, nor the dress material for a present to Bulova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. [01:46:19] In the early days of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy. And he had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he forgot everything. [01:46:34] But in time he grew used to this demand, knowing that Natasha asked nothing for herself and gave him commissions for others only when he himself had offered to undertake them. He now found an unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. [01:46:53] If he now incurred Natasha's censure, it was only for buying too many and too expensive things to her other defects, as most people thought them, but which to Pierre were qualities of untidiness and neglect of herself. She now added stinginess. [01:47:12] From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs, which had been in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts, had begun to improve. [01:47:31] Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed. That most expensive luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no longer his, nor did he wish for it. [01:47:43] He felt that his way of life had now been settled once for all, till death, and that to change it was not in his power, and so that way of life proved economical. [01:47:54] With a merry smiling face, Pierre was sorting his purchases. [01:47:59] What do you think of this? Said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a shopman. [01:48:05] Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he showed her. [01:48:14] That's for Belova. Excellent. [01:48:17] She felt the quality of the material. [01:48:19] It was a rouble in arshin, I suppose, Pierre told her. The price too dear, Natasha remarked how pleased the children will be, and mamma too. [01:48:32] Only you need not have bought me this, she added, unable to suppress a smile, as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls of a kind, then just coming into fashion. [01:48:45] Adele tempted me. She kept on telling me to buy it, returned Pierre, when am I to wear it? And Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair. [01:48:56] When I take little Masha into society, perhaps they will be fashionable again by then. [01:49:03] Well, let's go now. [01:49:05] And collecting the presents, they went first to the nursery and then to the old countess rooms. [01:49:10] The Countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room with parcels under their arms. [01:49:20] The Countess was now over 60, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a frill that surrounded her face. [01:49:28] Her face had shriveled, her upper lip had sunk in, and her eyes were dim after the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world world and left without aim or object for her existence. [01:49:45] She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live. [01:49:50] Life gave her no new impressions. [01:49:53] She wanted nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death could give her. [01:49:59] But until death came, she had to go on living, that is, to use her vital forces. [01:50:06] A peculiarity one sees in very young children and very old people was particularly evident in her. [01:50:14] Her life had no external aims. Only a need to exercise. Her various functions and inclinations was apparent. [01:50:22] She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves and a liver. [01:50:33] She did these things not under any external impulse, as people in the full vigor of life do, when behind, the purpose for which they strive, that of exercising their functions, remains unnoticed. [01:50:45] She talked only because she physically needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. [01:50:50] She cried as a child does, because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. [01:50:56] What for people in their full vigor is a name, was for her evidently merely a pretext. [01:51:03] Thus, in the morning, especially if she had eaten anything rich the day before, she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest pretext Belova's deafness. [01:51:15] She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end of the room. [01:51:20] It seems a little warmer today, my dear, she would murmur, and when Bulova replied, oh yes, they've come, she would mutter angrily, oh Lord, how stupid and deaf she is. [01:51:35] Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp or not rubbed fine enough. [01:51:43] After these fits of irritability, her face would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova would again be deaf, the snuff damp and the countess face yellow. [01:51:55] Just as she needed to work off her spleen, so she had sometimes to exercise her still existing faculty of thinking. And the pretext for that was a game of patience. [01:52:06] When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be the pretext. [01:52:10] When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health would be the pretext. And when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the pretext would be Countess Mary. [01:52:20] When her vocal organs needed exercise, which was usually toward 7 o', clock, when she had had an after dinner rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same stories over and over again. To the same audience. [01:52:35] The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household, though no one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy her needs. [01:52:45] Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between Nicholas, Pierre, Natacha and Countess Mary was the common understanding of her condition expressed. [01:52:55] But those glances expressed something more. [01:52:59] They said that she had played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self, that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being, formerly as full of life as themselves themselves, but now so much to be pitied. [01:53:19] Memento mori, said these glances. [01:53:24] Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household and the little children failed to understand this and avoided her. [01:53:33] End of First Epilogue, Chapter 12. [01:53:43] First epilogue Chapter 13 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room, the Countess was one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of playing patience. And so, though by force of habit she greeted him with the word she always used when Pierre or son return after an absence. High time, my dear, high time. We were all weary of waiting for you. Well, thank God. [01:54:15] And received her presence with another customary remark. It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that you give it to me, an old woman. [01:54:25] Yet it was evident that she was not pleased by Pierre's arrival. At that moment, when it diverted her attention from the unfinished game, she finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents. [01:54:39] They consisted of a box for cards of splendid workmanship, a bright blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with the lid, and a gold snuff box with the Count's portrait on the lid, which Pierre had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. [01:54:55] The Countess had long wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then, she glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to the box for cards. [01:55:07] Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up, said she, as she always did. [01:55:13] But best of all, you have brought yourself back, for I never saw anything like it. You ought to give your wife a scolding. What are we to do with her? [01:55:24] She is like a mad woman when you are away. [01:55:26] Doesn't see anything, doesn't remember anything. [01:55:30] She went on, repeating her usual phrases. [01:55:34] Look, Anna Timofievna, she added to her companion, see what a box for cards my son has brought us. [01:55:42] Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material, though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess. Not that anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her presence, they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to repeat what they had already told her many timesthat so and so was dead and so and so was married, which she would again be unable to remember. [01:56:18] Yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from habit, and Pierre answered the countess questions as to whether Prince Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexievna had sent greetings and still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and to which she herself was indifferent. [01:56:37] Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one, yet unavoidable, continued all through tea time. [01:56:45] All the grown up members of the family were assembled near the round tea table at which Sonia presided beside the samovar. The children, with their tutors and governesses, had had tea, and their voices were audible from the next room. [01:56:58] At tea all sat in their accustomed places, Nicholas beside the stove at a small table where his tea was handed to him. Milka, the old grey Borzoi bitch daughter of the first Milka, with a quite gray face and large black eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside him. Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half gray, sat beside the Countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned. Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. [01:57:29] He spoke of what he knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. [01:57:35] He told her of external social events and of the people who had formed the circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real living and distinct group, but who were now, for the most part scattered about the world and, like herself, were garnering the last ears of the harvest they had sown in earlier years. [01:57:55] But to the old countess, those contemporaries of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. [01:58:01] Natacha saw by Pierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had much to tell them, but dare not say it before the old Countess. [01:58:11] Denisov, not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution and being as a malcontent much interested in what was occurring in Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in the Semenov's regiment, then about Erichayev, and then about The Bible Society. [01:58:31] Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of these things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to the health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexievna. [01:58:43] Well, and all this idiocy, Gosner and Tatawanova Denisov asked, is that really still going on? [01:58:52] Going on? Pierre exclaimed. Why, more than ever. The Bible Society is the whole government. Now what is that, mon cher ami? Asked the countess, who had finished her tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. [01:59:10] What are you saying about the government? [01:59:12] I don't understand. [01:59:15] Well, you know, mamma, nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate things into his mother's language, Prince Alexander Golitsyn has founded a society and in consequence has great influence. They say Ericcheyev and Golitsyn, incautiously, remarked Pierre, are now the whole government. [01:59:35] And what a government. They see treason everywhere and are afraid of everything. [01:59:42] Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? [01:59:45] He is a most estimable man. I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's, said the countess, in an offended tone, and still more offended that they all remained silent. She went on, nowadays every one finds fault a gospel society. Well, and what harm is there in that? [02:00:04] And she rose. Everybody else got up too, and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting room. [02:00:13] The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the children's voices and laughter from the next room. [02:00:20] Evidently some jolly excitement was going on there. [02:00:24] Finished, finished. Little Natasha's gleeful yell rose above them all. [02:00:30] Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas Natasha he never lost sight of, and smiled happily. [02:00:38] That's delightful music, said he. [02:00:42] It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking, said Countess Mary. [02:00:48] Oh, I'll go and see, said Pierre, jumping up. [02:00:52] You know, he added, stopping at the door, why, I'm especially fond of that music. [02:00:58] It is always the first thing that tells me all is well. [02:01:02] When I was driving here to day, the nearer I got to the house, the more anxious I grew. [02:01:08] As I entered the ante room, I heard andrushius peals of laughter, and that meant all was well. [02:01:14] I know. I know that feeling, said Nicholas. But I mustn't go there. Those stockings are to be a surprise for me. [02:01:24] Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still louder. [02:01:28] Come, Anna Makarovna, pierre's voice was heard saying, come here into the middle of the room, and at the word of command, 1, 2, and when I say 3, you stand here, and you in my Arms. [02:01:41] Well now. One. Two, said Pierre, and a silence followed. [02:01:47] Three. [02:01:48] And a rapturously breathless cry of children's voices filled the room. [02:01:52] Two. Two. They shouted. [02:01:55] This meant two stockings, which, by a secret process known only to herself, Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew one out of the other in the children's Presence. [02:02:14] End of First Epilogue Chapter 13. [02:02:23] First epilogue Chapter 14 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude soon after this the children came in to say good night. [02:02:37] They kissed everyone. The tutors and governesses made their bows and they went out. [02:02:42] Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the boy to come downstairs. [02:02:49] No, Monsieur Dessalles, I would ask my aunt to let me stay, replied Nicholas Bolkonski, also in a whisper. [02:02:56] Ma tante, please let me stay, said he, going up to his aunt. [02:03:02] His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary glanced at him and turned to Pierre. [02:03:10] When you are here, he can't tear himself away, she said. [02:03:15] I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night, said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young Nicolas with a smile. [02:03:25] You and I haven't seen anything of one another yet. [02:03:29] How like he is growing, Mary, he added, addressing Countess Mary. [02:03:35] Like my father? Asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes. [02:03:42] Pierre nodded and went on with what he had been saying. When the children had interrupted, Countess Mary sat down doing wool work. Natacha did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov rose, asked for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sonia, who sat weary but resolute at the samovar, and questioned Pierre. [02:04:04] The curly headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting every now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head, with his thin neck exposed by his turn down collar, toward the place where Pierre sat. [02:04:24] The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. [02:04:32] Denisov, dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments in the service, service heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg, which seemed to him stupid and made forcible and sharp comments on what Pierre told them. [02:04:47] One used to have to be a German. [02:04:49] Now one must dance with Tatawonova and Madame Kudner and Weed Eckarthausen and the Bwin oh, they should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose. He'd knock all this nonsense out of them. [02:05:01] Fancy giving the command of the Semenov regiment to a fellow like that, Schwartz. He cried. [02:05:08] Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed Minister of this, and B Governor General of that, and that the Emperor had said so and so, and his Minister so and so seemed to him very important, and so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these things, and to question Pierre. [02:05:34] The questions put by these two kept the conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the higher government circles. [02:05:42] But Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had long been wishing, but had been unable to divert the conversation to another channel and express his own deeply felt idea, for the sake of which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince Theodore had gone. [02:06:05] What was it about? Asked Nicholas. [02:06:08] Always the same thing, said Pierre, looking round at his listeners. [02:06:13] Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be allowed to go on so, and that it is the duty of all decent men to counteract it as far as they can. [02:06:24] What can decent men do? Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. What can be done? [02:06:31] Why this? [02:06:32] Come into my study, said Nicholas. [02:06:35] Natasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. [02:06:43] Countess Mary followed her. [02:06:45] The men went into the study, and little Nicholas Bolkonski followed them, unnoticed by his uncle, and sat down at the writing table in a shady corner by the window. [02:06:56] Well, what would you do? Asked Denisov. [02:07:00] Always some fantastic schemes, said Nicolas. [02:07:04] Why this? Began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room, sometimes stopping short, gesticulating and lisping. [02:07:13] The position in Petersburg is the Emperor does not look into anything. [02:07:18] He has abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism. [02:07:22] Pierre could not tolerate mysticism in anyone. Now he seeks only for peace, and only these people sans froid ne loi, without faith or law, can give it him. [02:07:34] People who recklessly hack at and strangle everything Magnitsky, Arakcheev, and Tutti quanti. [02:07:41] You will agree that if you did not look after your estates yourself, but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was, the more readily your object might be attained, he said to Nicolaus. [02:07:54] Well, what does that lead up to? Said Nicholas. [02:07:58] Well, everything is going to ruin. [02:08:01] Robbery in the Law courts in the army, nothing but flogging, drilling and military settlements. The people are tortured, enlightened men are suppressed. [02:08:10] All that is young and honest is crushed. [02:08:13] Everyone sees that this cannot go on. [02:08:17] Everything is strained to such a degree that it will certainly break, said Pierre, as those who examine the actions of any government have always said, since governments began. [02:08:27] I told them just one thing in Petersburg. [02:08:30] Told whom? [02:08:32] Well, you know whom, said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under his brows. [02:08:37] Prince Theodore and all those to encourage culture and philanthropy is all very well, of course, the aim is excellent, but in the present circumstances something else is needed. [02:08:50] At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. [02:08:54] His face darkened and he went up to the boy. [02:08:58] Why are you here? [02:09:00] Why? Let him be, said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and continuing. [02:09:06] That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed. [02:09:10] When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment, when every one is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general calamity. [02:09:24] Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and depraved. [02:09:28] One is lured by women, another by honours, a third by ambition or money, and they go over to that camp. [02:09:36] No independent men such as you or I are left. [02:09:41] What I say is widen the scope of our society. Let the modordre be not virtue alone, but independence and action as well. [02:09:50] Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat down in it and listened to Pierre coughing discontentedly and frowning more and more. [02:10:01] But action. With what aim? He cried. And what position will you adopt toward the government? [02:10:08] Why, the position of assistants? [02:10:11] The society need not be secret if the government allows it. [02:10:15] Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it is a society of true conservatives, a society of gentlemen, in the full meaning of that word. [02:10:26] It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other from killing my children and yours and Ericchaya from sending me off to some military settlement. [02:10:34] We join hands only for the public welfare and the general safety. [02:10:40] Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one which can only cause harm. [02:10:47] Why did the tugenbund which saved Europe? [02:10:51] They did not even venture to suggest that Russia had saved Europe do any harm. [02:10:57] The tugenbund is an alliance of virtue. It is love, mutual help. It is what Christ preached on the cross. [02:11:06] Natascha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at her husband. [02:11:11] It was not what he was saying that pleased her, that did not even interest her. For it seemed to her that was all extremely simple, and that she had known it for a long time. It seemed so to her because she knew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul. [02:11:26] But it was his animated and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad. [02:11:32] The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn down collar, whom everyone had forgotten, gazed at Pierre with even greater and more rapturous joy. [02:11:42] Every word of Pierre's burned into his heart and with a nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle's table. [02:11:54] It is not at all what you suppose, but that is what the German tugenbund was and what I am proposing. [02:12:02] No, my fwend, the tugenbund is all very well for the sausage eaters, but I don't understand it and can't even pronounce it, interposed Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. [02:12:14] I agree that everything here is rotten and horrible, but the tugenbund I don't understand. [02:12:20] If we're not satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own that's all white. Je suis vot homme. I'm your man. [02:12:30] Pierre smiled. Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brow still more, more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his imagination. [02:12:45] Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. [02:12:53] This made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning, but by something within him, stronger than reason, of the justice of his opinion. [02:13:04] I will tell you this, he said, rising and trying with nervously twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally abandoning the attempt. [02:13:14] I can't prove it to you. You say that everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming. I don't see it. [02:13:22] But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional matter, and to that I reply. [02:13:28] You are my best friend, as you know. But if you formed a secret society and began working against the government, be it what it may, I know it is my duty to obey the government, and if Eric Chaya ordered me to lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I should not hesitate an instant, but should do it, and you may argue about that as you like. [02:13:53] An awkward silence followed these words. [02:13:56] Natasha was the first to speak, defending her husband and attacking her brother. [02:14:01] Her defence was weak and inapt, but she attained her object. [02:14:05] The conversation was resumed and no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas last remark. [02:14:13] When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski went up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes. [02:14:21] Uncle Pierre, you. [02:14:23] No. [02:14:24] If Papa were alive, would he agree with you? He asked. [02:14:30] And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in this boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said, he regretted that the lad should have heard him. [02:14:46] He had, however, to give him an answer. [02:14:49] Yes, I think so, he said reluctantly, and left the study. [02:14:55] The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he had done to the things on the table. [02:15:02] He flushed and went up to Nicholas. [02:15:04] Uncle, forgive me. I did that unintentionally, he said, pointing to the broken sealing waxen pens. [02:15:13] Nicholas started angrily. [02:15:16] All right, all right, he said, throwing the bits under the table and evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away from the boy. [02:15:26] You ought not to have been here at all, he said. [02:15:33] Chapter 14. [02:15:41] First epilogue Chapter 15 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude the conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but turned upon the subject Nicholas liked best, recollections of 1812. [02:16:01] Denisov started these, and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing about them. [02:16:07] The family separated on the most friendly terms. [02:16:11] After supper, Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her table, writing. [02:16:23] What are you writing, Mary? Nicholas asked. [02:16:26] Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would not be understood or approved by her husband. [02:16:34] She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same time was glad he had surprised her at it, and that she would now have to tell him. [02:16:44] A diary, Nicholas, she replied, handing him a blue exercise book filled with her firm, bold writing. [02:16:51] A diary, Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the book. [02:16:56] It was in French, December 4th today when Andrusha, her eldest boy, woke up. He did not wish to dress, and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. [02:17:08] He was naughty and obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. [02:17:14] Then I took the matter in hand. I left him alone and began with Nurse's help to get the other children up, telling him that I did not love him. [02:17:23] For a long time he was silent, as if astonished. Then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time. [02:17:33] It was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me. [02:17:38] Afterwards, in the evening, when I gave him his ticket, he again began crying piteously and kissing me. [02:17:44] One can do anything with him by tenderness. [02:17:49] What is a ticket? Nicholas inquired. [02:17:52] I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how they have behaved. [02:17:58] Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him and continued to turn over the pages and read. [02:18:05] In the diary was set down everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on educational methods. [02:18:16] They were for the most part quite insignificant trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either. Now that he read this diary about his children for the first time, under the date five was entered, Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were eating. [02:18:41] I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only develops their greediness. [02:18:46] Must tell Nicholas this. [02:18:49] Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. [02:18:52] The radiant eyes gazed at him questioningly. Would he approve or disapprove of her diary? [02:18:58] There could be no doubt, not only of his approval, but also of his admiration for his wife. [02:19:05] Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort, of which the sole aim was the children's moral welfare, delighted him. [02:19:17] Had Nicholas been able to analyze his feelings, he would have found that his steady, tender and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at her spirituality and at the lofty moral world almost beyond his reach in which she had her being. [02:19:34] He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own insignificance beside her in the spirit of spiritual world, and rejoiced all the more that she with such a soul, not only belonged to him, but was part of himself. [02:19:50] I quite, quite approve, my dearest, said he with a significant look, and after a short pause, he and I behaved badly today. [02:20:00] You weren't in the study. [02:20:02] We began disputing, Pierre and I, and I lost my temper. [02:20:07] But he is impossible, such a child. [02:20:11] I don't know what would become of him if Natacha didn't keep him in hand. [02:20:15] Have you any idea why he went to Petersburg? [02:20:18] They have formed. Yes, I know, said Countess Mary. Natacha told me. [02:20:25] Well, then you know, Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere recollection of their Discussion. [02:20:32] He wanted to convince me that it is every honest man's duty to go against the government and that the oath of allegiance and duty. [02:20:40] I am sorry you weren't there. [02:20:43] They all fell on me, Denisov and Natacha. Natacha is absurd how she rules over him and yet there need only be a discussion. And she has no words of her own, but only repeats his sayings, added Nicholas, yielding to that irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge the those nearest and dearest to us. [02:21:05] He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife. [02:21:12] Yes, I have noticed that, said Countess Mary. [02:21:16] When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he started proving goodness knows what a pity you were not there. [02:21:27] What would you have said? [02:21:30] As I see it, you are quite right. And I told Natasha so. [02:21:34] Pierre says everybody is suffering, tortured and being corrupted and that it is our duty to help our neighbour. [02:21:42] Of course he is right there, said Countess Mary. [02:21:46] But he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us, duties indicated to us by God himself, and that though we we might expose ourselves to risks, we must not risk our children. [02:21:59] Yes, that's it. That's just what I said to him. Put in Nicholas, who fancied he really had said it. [02:22:07] But they insisted on their own viewlove of one's neighbour and Christianity. And all this in the presence of young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things. [02:22:19] Ah, Nicholas. Do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas, said Countess Mary. [02:22:25] He is such an exceptional boy, I am afraid I neglect him in favour of my own. [02:22:33] We all have children and relations while he has no one. [02:22:37] He is constantly alone with his thoughts. [02:22:41] Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. [02:22:44] All that the fondest mother could do for her son, you have done and are doing for him. And of course I am glad of it. [02:22:52] He is a fine lad, a fine lad. [02:22:55] This evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance and fancy as we were going in to supper. I looked and he had broken everything on my table to bits. And he told me of it himself at once. [02:23:08] I never knew him to tell an untruth. [02:23:11] A fine lad, a fine lady, repeated Nicholas, who at heart was not fond of Nicholas Bolkonski, but was always anxious to recognize that he was a fine lad still. I am not the same as his own mother, said Countess Mary. [02:23:28] I feel I am not the same and it troubles me. [02:23:32] A wonderful boy, but I am dreadfully afraid for him. [02:23:36] It would be good for him to have companions. [02:23:40] Well, it won't be for long. [02:23:42] Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg, said Nicholas. [02:23:47] Yes. Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be. [02:23:51] He continued returning to the talk in the study, which had evidently disturbed him. [02:23:56] Well, what business is it of mine what goes on there, whether Arakcheev is bad and all that? [02:24:03] What business was it of mine when I married and was so deep in debt and that I was threatened with prison and had a mother who could not see or understand it? [02:24:12] And then there are you and the children and our affairs. [02:24:16] Is it for my own pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night? [02:24:21] No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not to leave the children such beggars as I was. [02:24:30] Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone and that he attached too much importance to these matters. [02:24:38] But she knew she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. [02:24:43] She only took his hand and kissed it. [02:24:46] He took this as a sign of approval and a confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes reflection continued to think aloud. [02:24:56] You know, Mary, to day, Elias Mitrafanitch, this was his overseer, came back from the Atambov estate and told me they are already offering 80,000 roubles for the forest. [02:25:08] And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of repurchasing Otradno before long, and added another 10 years of life and I shall leave the children in an excellent position. [02:25:23] Countess. Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told her. [02:25:27] She knew that when he thought aloud in this way, he would sometimes ask her what he had been saying and be vexed if he noticed that she had been thinking about something else. [02:25:37] But she had to force herself to attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. [02:25:43] She looked at him and did not think, but felt about something different. [02:25:48] She felt a submissive, tender love for this man who would never understand all. All that she understood. And this seemed to make her love for him still stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness besides this feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following the details of her husband's plans. Thoughts that had no connection with what he was saying flitted through her mind. [02:26:13] She thought of her nephew. Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was speaking struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive character recurred to her mind, and while thinking of her nephew, she thought also of her own children. [02:26:30] She did not compare them with him, but compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young Nicholas. [02:26:42] Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the difference in their ages. [02:26:47] But she felt herself to blame toward him and promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible in this life, to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all her neighbors. As Christ loved mankind, Countess Mary's soul always strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could therefore never be at peace. [02:27:11] A stern expression of the lofty, secret suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. [02:27:18] Nicholas gazed at her. [02:27:21] Oh God, what will become of us if she dies? As I always fear when her face is like that? [02:27:27] Thought he, and placing himself before the ikon, he began to say his evening prayers. [02:27:45] First epilogue Chapter 16 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude Natasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity, understanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary. Contrary to all rules of logic, without premises, deductions or conclusions. And in a quite peculiar way. [02:28:14] Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong between them. If Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning when he began proving anything or talking argumentatively and calmly, and she, led on by his example, began to do the same. [02:28:34] She knew that they were on the verge of a quarrel from the moment they were alone, and Natascha came up to him with wide open, happy eyes and quickly, seizing his head, pressed it to her bosom, saying, now you are all mine, mine. You won't escape. [02:28:51] From that moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic, and contrary to them, because quite different subjects, subjects were talked about at one and the same time. [02:29:02] This simultaneous discussion of many topics did not prevent a clear understanding, but on the contrary was the surest sign that they fully understood one another. [02:29:13] Just as in a dream, when all is uncertain, unreasoning and contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream. [02:29:21] So in this intercourse, contrary to all laws of reason, the the words themselves were not consecutive and clear, but only the feeling that prompted them. [02:29:31] Natasha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how she had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was fonder than ever of Mary and how Mary was in every way better than herself in saying this. Natacha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's superiority, but at the same time, by saying it, she made a demand on Pierre that he should all the same prefer her to Mary and to all other women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh. [02:30:07] Pierre, answering Natasha's words, told her how intolerable it had been for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg. [02:30:16] I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies, he said. It was simply dull. Besides, I was very busy. [02:30:25] Natasha looked intently at him and went on. [02:30:29] Mary is so splendid, she said, how she understands children. [02:30:34] It is as if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya was naughty. [02:30:41] How like his father he is, Pierre interjected. [02:30:45] Natasha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas. The recollection of his dispute with his brother in law was unpleasant, and he wanted to know what Natasha thought of it. [02:30:56] Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally accepted. [02:31:01] But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line, said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered. [02:31:10] No, the chief point is that to Nicholas, ideas and discussions are an amusement, almost a pastime, said Pierre. For instance, he is collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till he has read what he had already bought. Sismondi and Rousseau and Montesquieu, he added with a smile. [02:31:31] You know how much I. [02:31:33] He began to soften down what he had said, but Natasha interrupted him to show that this was unnecessary. [02:31:40] So you say ideas are an amusement to him? [02:31:44] Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. [02:31:47] All the time in Petersburg I saw everyone as in a dream. [02:31:52] When I am taken up by a thought, all else is mere amusement. [02:31:57] Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children, said Natasha, which was most delighted. Lisa, I'm sure. [02:32:07] Yes, Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. [02:32:12] Nicola says we ought not to think, but I can't help it. Besides, when I was in Petersburg, I felt, I can say this to you, that the whole affair would go to pieces without me. Everyone was pulling his own way, but I succeeded in uniting them all. And then my idea, so clear and simple, you see. I don't say that we ought to oppose this and that we may be mistaken. [02:32:40] What I say is join hands, you who love the right and let there be but one banner, that of active virtue. [02:32:48] Prince Sergei is A fine fellow and clever. [02:32:52] Natasha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea. But one thing disconcerted her. [02:32:59] Can a man so important and necessary to society be also my husband? [02:33:04] How did this happen? [02:33:07] She wished to express this doubt to him now. Who could decide whether he is really cleverer than all the others? [02:33:15] She asked herself, and passed in review all those whom Pierre most respected. [02:33:21] Judging by what he had said, there was no one he had respected so highly as Platon Karateev. [02:33:28] Do you know what I am thinking about? She asked. About Platon Karateev. [02:33:34] Would he have approved of you now, do you think? [02:33:37] Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. [02:33:40] He understood his wife's line of thought. [02:33:44] Platon Karataev, he repeated, and pondered evidently sincerely, trying to imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. [02:33:53] He would not have understood yet perhaps he would. [02:33:58] I love you awfully, Natasha suddenly said. Awfully, awfully. [02:34:04] No, he would not have approved, said Pierre after reflection. [02:34:09] What he would have approved of is our family life. [02:34:13] He was always so anxious to find seemliness, happiness and peace in everything. [02:34:18] And I should have been proud to let him see us. [02:34:21] There. Now you talk of my absence. But you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you after a separation. [02:34:30] Yes, I should think, Natasha began. [02:34:33] No, it's not that. [02:34:35] I never leave off loving you, and one couldn't love more. But this is something special. [02:34:42] Yes, of course. [02:34:45] He did not finish because their eyes meeting, said the rest. [02:34:50] What nonsense it is. Natasha suddenly exclaimed about honeymoons and that the greatest happiness is at first. [02:34:58] On the contrary, now is the best of all. If only you did not go away. [02:35:04] Do you remember how we quarreled? And it was always my fault, always mine. [02:35:10] And what we quarreled about, I don't even remember. [02:35:14] Always about the same thing, said Pierre with a smile. [02:35:19] Jella, don't say it. I can't bear it. Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered coldly and vindictively. [02:35:27] Did you see her? She added after a pause. [02:35:30] No, and if I had, I shouldn't have recognized her. [02:35:35] They were silent for a while. [02:35:38] Oh, do you know, while you were talking in the study, I was looking at you, Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had come over them. [02:35:49] You are as like him as two peas. Like the boy she met, her little son. [02:35:55] Oh, it's time to go to him. The milk's come. But I'm sorry to leave you. [02:36:02] They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly, turning to one another at the same time, they both began to speak, Pierre began with self satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile. [02:36:16] Having interrupted one another, they both stopped to let the other continue. [02:36:21] No. What did you say? Go on, go on. [02:36:25] No, you go on. I was talking nonsense, said Natasha. [02:36:30] Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent reflections on his success in Petersburg. [02:36:37] At that moment it seemed to him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian society and to the whole world. [02:36:46] I only wish to say that ideas that have great results are always simple ones. [02:36:52] My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. [02:37:00] Now that's simple enough. [02:37:02] Yes. [02:37:04] And what were you going to say? [02:37:06] I. Only nonsense. [02:37:08] But all the same. [02:37:10] Oh, nothing, only a trifle, said Natasha, smiling still more brightly. [02:37:17] I only wanted to tell you about Petya today. Nurse was coming to take him from me. And he laughed, shut his eyes and clung to me. I'm sure he thought he was hiding awfully sweet. [02:37:29] There, now he's crying. Well, good bye. And she left the room. [02:37:36] Meanwhile, downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom, a little lamp was burning as usual. [02:37:43] The boy was afraid of the dark, and they could not cure him of it. Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows, and his Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. [02:37:52] Little Nicholas, who had just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him with wide open eyes. [02:38:00] He had awaked from a terrible dream. [02:38:03] He had dreamed that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in his Plutarch York, were leading a huge army. [02:38:11] The army was made up of white slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in autumn, and which Dessalles called les filles de la Vierge. [02:38:22] In front was Glory, which was similar to those threads, but rather thicker. [02:38:27] He and Pierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their goal. [02:38:33] Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become entangled, and it grew difficult to move. [02:38:40] And Uncle Nicholas stood before them in a stern and threatening attitude. [02:38:45] Have you done this? He said, pointing to some broken seeding wax and pens. [02:38:51] I loved you, but I have orders from Erichayev and will kill the first of you who moves forward. [02:38:58] Little Nicholas turned to look at Pierre, but Pierre was no longer there. [02:39:02] In his place was his father, Prince Andrew, and his father had neither shape nor form, but he existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him, he grew faint with love. [02:39:13] He felt himself powerless, limp and formless. His father caressed and pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror seized young Nicholas, and he awoke my father, he thought. [02:39:28] Though there were two good portraits of Prince Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form. [02:39:35] My father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle Pierre. [02:39:42] Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. [02:39:45] Mucius Scaevola burned his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? [02:39:51] I know they want me to learn, and I will learn. But some day I shall have finished learning, and then I will do something. [02:40:01] I only pray God that something may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch's men. And I will act as they did. I will do better. [02:40:09] Everyone shall know me, love me, and be delighted with me. [02:40:14] And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and he began to cry. [02:40:20] Are you ill? He heard Dessalles voice asking. [02:40:24] No, answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow. [02:40:29] He is good and kind, and I am fond of him, he thought of Dessalles. [02:40:34] But Uncle Pierre, oh, what a wonderful man he is. And my father. Oh, Father, Father. [02:40:43] Yes, I will do something with which even he would be satisfied. [02:40:50] End of First Epilogue Chapter 16. [02:40:59] Second epilogue Chapter 1 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude History is the life of nations and of humanity. [02:41:13] To seize and put into words to describe directly the life of humanity, or even of a single nation, appears impossible. [02:41:22] The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe and seize the apparent elusive the life of a people. [02:41:30] They described the activity of individuals who ruled the people and regarded the activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole, whole nation. [02:41:40] The question how did individuals make nations act as they wished, and by what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? The ancients met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish ends that were predestined. [02:42:02] For the ancients, these questions were solved by a belief in the direct participation of of the Deity in human affairs. [02:42:09] Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles. [02:42:14] It would seem that, having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations are led. Modern history should study not the manifestations of power, but the causes that produce it. [02:42:29] But modern history has not done this, having in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them in practice, instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with extraordinary superhuman capacities, or simply men of various kinds, from monarchs to journalists who lead the masses. [02:42:58] Instead of the formerly divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aimsthe welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the people, temples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent. [02:43:28] Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without replacing them by a new conception. And the logic of the situation has obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine authority of the kings and the fate of the ancients, to reach the same conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize one nations guided by individual men and the existence of a known aim to which these nations and humanity at large are tending. [02:43:59] At the basis of the works of all the modern historians, from Gibbon to Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions. [02:44:13] In the first place, the historian describes the activity of individuals who, in his opinion, have directed humanity. One historian considers only monarchs, generals and ministers as being such men, while another includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers and poets. [02:44:33] Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led is known to the historians. [02:44:40] To one of them, this goal is the greatness of the Roman, Spanish, or French realm. To another, it is liberty, equality, and a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called Europe. [02:44:54] In 1789, a ferment arises in Paris. It grows, spreads, and is expressed by a movement of peoples from west to east. [02:45:04] Several times it moves eastward and collides with a counter movement from the east westward. [02:45:10] In 1812, it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow. And then, with remarkable symmetry, a counter movement occurs from east to west, attracting to it as the first movement had done the nations of middle Europe. [02:45:25] The counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the west, Paris, and subsides. [02:45:32] During that 20 year period, an immense number of fields were left untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction. Millions of men migrated, were impoverished or were enriched, and millions of Christian men, professing the law of love of their fellows, slew one another. [02:45:52] What does all this mean? Why did it happen? [02:45:56] What made those people burn houses and slay their fellow men? [02:46:00] What were the causes of these events? [02:46:02] What Force made men act so. [02:46:05] These are the instinctive, plain and most legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the monuments and tradition of that period. [02:46:15] For a reply to these questions, the common sense of mankind turns to the science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know themselves. [02:46:26] If history had retained the conception of the ancients, it would have said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and directed his will to the fulfilment of the divine ends. And that reply would have been clear and complete. [02:46:43] One might believe or disbelieve in the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it, there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that period, nor would there have been any contradiction. [02:46:56] But modern history cannot give that reply. [02:47:00] Science does not admit the conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers. [02:47:11] Modern history, replying to these questions, says, you want to know what this movement means? What caused it? And what force produced these events? Then listen. [02:47:22] Louis XIV was a very proud and self confident man. He had such and such mistresses and such and such ministers, and he ruled France badly. [02:47:32] His descendants were weak men, and they too ruled France badly. And they had such and such favorites and such and such mistresses. [02:47:41] Moreover, certain men wrote some books at that time. [02:47:45] At the end of the 18th century, there were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all men being free and equal. [02:47:53] This caused people all over France to begin to slash and drown one another. [02:47:58] They killed the king and many other people. [02:48:01] At that time there was in France a man of genius, Napoleon. [02:48:06] He conquered everybody everywhere. That is, he killed many people because he was a great genius. [02:48:13] And for some reason he went to kill Africans and killed them so well and was so cunning and wise, that when he returned to France, he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. [02:48:26] Having become an emperor, he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria and Prussia, and there too he killed a great many. [02:48:35] In Russia there was an Emperor Alexander, who decided to restore the order in Europe and therefore fought against Napoleon. [02:48:43] In 1807 he suddenly made friends with him. But in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many people. [02:48:52] Napoleon led 600,000 men into Russia and captured Moscow. [02:48:57] Then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to arm against the destroyers disturber of its peace. [02:49:08] All Napoleon's allies suddenly became his enemies, and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he raised the Allies, defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the title of emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand. [02:49:34] Then Louis xviii, who till then had been the laughing stock both of the French and the Allies, began to reign, and Napoleon, shedding tears before his old guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. [02:49:49] Then the skilful statesmen and diplomatists, especially Talleyrand, who managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and thereby extended the frontiers of France, talked in Vienna, and by these conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. [02:50:07] Suddenly the diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarrelled and were on the point of again ordering their armies to kill one another. But just then Napoleon arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating him immediately all submitted to him. [02:50:24] But the allied monarchs were angry at this and went to fight the French once more, and they defeated the genius Napoleon, and suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him to the island of St. Helena and the exile, separated from the beloved France, so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock, and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. [02:50:49] But in Europe a reaction occurred, and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their subjects. [02:50:57] It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic, a caricature of the historical accounts. [02:51:03] On the contrary, it is a very mild expression of the contradictory replies not meeting the questions which all the historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of separate states, to the writers of general histories and the new histories of the culture of that period. [02:51:21] The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked, if the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples. The first question, in the absence of a reply, to which all the rest will be incomprehensible, is, what is the power that moves peoples to this? Modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. [02:52:00] All that may be so, and mankind is ready to agree with it. But it is not what was asked. [02:52:06] All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine power based on itself and always consistently directed, representing its nations through Napoleons, Louis and Reyders. But we do not acknowledge such a power. And therefore, before speaking about Napoleons, Louis and authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men and the movement of the nations. [02:52:30] If, instead of a divine power, some other force has appeared, it should be explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of history lies precisely in that force. [02:52:43] History seems to assume that this force is self evident and known to everyone, but in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really quite well known to everybody. [02:53:05] End of Second Epilogue, Chapter one. [02:53:14] Second epilogue Chapter 2 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude what force moves the nations? [02:53:26] Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand this force as a power inherent in heroes, heroes and rulers. [02:53:34] In their narration, events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, an Alexander, or in general of the persons they describe. [02:53:43] The answers given by this kind of historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event. [02:53:54] As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all meaning, for this force is understood by them all, not only differently, but often in quite contradictory ways. [02:54:10] One historian says that an event was produced by Napoleon's power another that it was produced by Alexanders a third that it was due to the power of some other person besides this. Historians of that kind contradict each other even in their statement as to the following force on which the authority of some particular person was based. [02:54:30] Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's power was based on his virtue and genius. [02:54:36] Lanfray, a republican, says it was based on his trickery and deception of the people. [02:54:42] So the historians of this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no reply to history's essential question. [02:54:55] Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to recognize how erroneous is the specialist historian's view of the force which produces events. [02:55:05] They do not recognize it as a power inherent in heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously directed forces. [02:55:14] In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a general historian looks for the cause of the the event not in the power of one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the event. [02:55:27] According to this view, the power of historical personages, represented as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded as a force that itself produces events. [02:55:40] Yet in most cases, universal historians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself itself produces events and treat it as their cause. [02:55:50] In their exposition. An historical character is first the product of his time and his power only the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force producing events. [02:56:03] Gervinus, Schlosser and others, for instance, at one time proved Napoleon to be a product of the revolution, of the ideas of 1789, and so forth, forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812 and other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon's misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their development by Napoleon's caprice. [02:56:29] The ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of the age produced Napoleon's power, but Napoleon's power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of the age. [02:56:42] This curious contradiction is not accidental. [02:56:45] Not only does it occur at every step, but the universal historian's accounts are all made up of a chain of such contradictions. [02:56:53] This contradiction occurs because, after entering the field of analysis, the universal historians stop half way to find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force. [02:57:06] The sum of the components must equal the resultant. [02:57:09] This condition is never observed by the universal historians. And so to explain the resultant forces, they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action. [02:57:25] Specialist historians describing the Campaign of 1813 or the Restoration of the Bourbons, plainly asserted that these events were produced by the will of Alexander. [02:57:35] But the universal historian, Gervinus, refuting this opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that The Campaign of 1813 and the Restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside Alexander's will, such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand and others. [02:57:57] The historian evidently decomposes Alexander's power into the components components, Talleyrand, Chateaubriand and the rest. [02:58:05] But the sum of the components, I.e. the interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael and the others, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely, the phenomenon of millions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons that Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael, and others spoke certain words to one another, only affected their mutual relations, but does not account for the submission of millions. [02:58:30] And therefore, to explain how from these relations of theirs, the submission of millions of people resulted, that is, how component forces equal to 1A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times a. The historian is again obliged to fall back on power, the force he had denied, and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he has to admit, an unexplained force acting on the resultant. [02:58:56] And that is just what the universal historians do. And consequently they not only contradict the specialist historians, but contradict themselves. [02:59:06] Peasants, having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to whether they want rain or fine weather, the wind has blown the clouds away, or the wind has brought up the clouds. [02:59:19] And in the same way, the universal historians, sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with their theory, say that power is the result of events. And sometimes, when they want to prove something else, say that power produces events. [02:59:35] A third class of historians, the so called historians of culture, following the path laid down by the universal historians, who sometimes accept writers and ladies as forces producing events, events again take that force to be something quite different. [02:59:50] They see it in what is called culture, in mental activity. [02:59:55] The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their progenitors, the writers of universal histories. [03:00:02] For if historical events may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one another in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that such and such people wrote such and such books? [03:00:15] Of the immense number of indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is the cause. [03:00:27] But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the the movement of peoples. And in no case can one admit that intellectual activity controls people's actions. For that view is not confirmed by such facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting from the doctrine of the equality of man, or from the very cruel wars and executions resulting from the preaching of love. [03:00:59] But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with which these histories are filled, world admitting that nations are governed by some undefined force called an idea, history's essential question still remains unanswered. [03:01:14] And to the former power of monarchs and to the influence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal historians, another newer force, the idea, is added, the connection of which with the masses needs explanation. [03:01:28] It is possible to understand that Napoleon had power, and so events occurred with some effort. One may even conceive that Napoleon, together with other influences, was the cause of an event. [03:01:41] But how a book, le contra social, had the effect of making Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event. [03:01:55] Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously, and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce, handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. [03:02:14] But why intellectual activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. [03:02:24] Only the following considerations can have led the historians to such a conclusion. [03:02:30] 1. That history is written by learned men, and so it is natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers do not Write history and 2. That spiritual activity, enlightenment, civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any theory. [03:03:13] But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind, which may possibly even be of use to some one one for something. The histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an actual historic event, such as the campaign of 1812, for instance, they involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power. Power, and say plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will speaking. So the historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves and show that the new force they have devised does not account for what happens in history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power which they apparently do not recognize. [03:04:09] End of Second Epilogue, Chapter two. [03:04:18] Second Epilogue, Chapter three OF War and Peace Volume four by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude A locomotive is moving. [03:04:30] Someone asks what moves it. [03:04:32] A peasant says, the devil moves it. Another man says, the locomotive moves because its wheels go round. [03:04:39] A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in the smoke which the wind carries away. [03:04:45] The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation to refute him. Someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil, but a German who moves the locomotive. [03:05:03] Only then, as a result of the contradiction, will they See that they are both wrong. [03:05:10] But the man who says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself. For having once begun to analyze, he ought to go on and explain further why the wheels go round. [03:05:22] And till he has reached the ultimate cause of the movement of the locomotive in the pressure of the steam in the boiler, he has no right to stop in his search for the cause. [03:05:32] The man who explains the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the first sign that occurs to him, and in his turn has offered that as an explanation. [03:05:48] The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is that of a force commensurate with the movement observed observed. [03:05:57] The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples. [03:06:06] Yet to supply this conception, various historians take forces of different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement observed. [03:06:16] Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the peasant does the devil in the locomotive. Others as a force resulting from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels. [03:06:29] Others, again as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away. [03:06:35] So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether Caesars, Alexanders, Luther's, or Voltaires, and not the histories of all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end. [03:06:58] And the only such conception known to historians is that of power. [03:07:03] This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with. [03:07:11] And anyone who breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one possible way of dealing with it. [03:07:23] The necessity of the conception of power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they professedly reject that conception, but inevitably have recourse to it at every step in dealing with humanity's inquiry. The science of history up to now is like money in circulation, paper money and coin. [03:07:49] The biographies and special national histories are like paper money. [03:07:54] They can be used and can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone, and even advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them. [03:08:05] You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events. And such histories as thiers will be interesting and instructive, and may perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. [03:08:17] But just as doubts over the real value of paper money arise, either because being easy to make too much of it gets made, or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise, either because too many of them are written, or because in his simplicity of heart someone inquires, by what force did Napoleon do this, that is, was to exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual comprehension. [03:08:48] The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to substitute it for money made of metal that has not the specific gravity of gold. [03:09:02] It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than that. [03:09:07] Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle as gold is gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use. [03:09:23] So universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to history's essential what is power? [03:09:32] The universal historians give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of culture evade it and answer something quite different. [03:09:42] And as counters of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of gold world. So universal historians and historians of culture, not answering humanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a taste for what they call serious reading. [03:10:12] Chapter 3. [03:10:20] Second epilogue Chapter IV of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maud Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man, and the subjection of that man's will to the deity, history cannot, without contradictions take a single step till it has chosen one of two things. [03:10:47] Either a return to the former belief in the direct intervention of the deity in human affairs, or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing historical events and termed power. [03:11:01] A return to the first is impossible. The belief has been destroyed, and so it is essential to explain what is meant by power. [03:11:11] Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. [03:11:14] We are so accustomed to that idea, and have become so used to it, that the question, why did 600,000 men go to fight? When Napoleon uttered certain words seems to us senseless. [03:11:26] He had the power, and so what he ordered was done. [03:11:30] This reply is quite satisfactory. If we believe that the power was given him by God. [03:11:36] But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to determine what is this power of one man over others. [03:11:44] It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one, a domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like the power of Hercules. [03:11:55] Nor can it be based on the effect of moral force, as in their simplicity, some historians think, who say that the leading figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special strength of soul and mind called genius. [03:12:10] This power cannot be based on the predominance of moral strength, for not to mention heroes such as Napoleon, about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely. History shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but, on the contrary, were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they ruled over. [03:12:36] If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for elsewhere in the relation to the people of the man who wields the power. [03:12:50] And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence, that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's understanding of power for true gold. [03:13:02] Power is the collective will of the people, transferred by expressed or tacit consent to their chosen rulers. [03:13:10] In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be arranged, it is all very clear. [03:13:22] But when applied to history, that definition of power needs explanation. [03:13:28] The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients regarded fire, namely, as something existing absolutely. [03:13:36] But for history, the state and power are merely phenomena. Just as for modern physics, fire is not an element, but a phenomenon. [03:13:46] From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and and that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell minutely how, in its opinion, power should be constituted, and what power existing immutably outside time is. But to history's questions about the meaning of the mutations of power in time, it can answer nothing if power be the collective will of the people transferred to their ruler. Was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? [03:14:18] If not, then why was Napoleon I why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was taken prisoner at Boulogne? And why later on were those criminals whom he arrested do palace revolutions, in which sometimes only two or three people take part, transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? [03:14:38] In international relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their conqueror? [03:14:45] Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to Napoleon in 1806 was the will of the Russian people transferred to Napoleon in 1809, when our army, in alliance with the French, went to fight the Austrians. [03:15:00] To these questions three answers are possible either to assume 1. That the will of the people is always unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an infringement of the real power or two, that the will of the people is transferred to the rulers conditionally under definite and known conditions and to show that all limitations, conflicts and even destructions of power result from a non observation observance by the rulers of the conditions under which their power was entrusted to them or that the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance of several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely from the greater or lesser fulfilment by the rulers of these unknown conditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some people to others. [03:16:04] And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the relation of the people to their rulers. [03:16:12] Some historians, those biographical and specialist historians already referred to in their simplicity, failing to understand the question of the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons and therefore, when describing some single state, they assume that particular power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force opposing this is not a power, but a violation of power, mere violence. [03:16:44] Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history, has the inconvenience in application to complex and stormy periods in the life of nations, during which various powers arise simultaneously and struggle with one another. [03:16:58] That a legitimist historian will prove that the National Convention, the Directory and Bonaparte were mere infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will prove the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the real power and that all the others were violations of power. Power. [03:17:18] Evidently, the explanations furnished by these historians, being mutually contradictory, can only satisfy young children. [03:17:27] Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. [03:17:47] But what this program consists in, these historians do not say, or if they do. They continually contradict one another. [03:17:56] Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. [03:18:09] But not to mention the historian's contradictions as to the nature of this programme, or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions exists, the facts of history almost always contradict that theory. [03:18:22] If the conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the wealth, freedom and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis XIV and Yvonne the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI and Charles I are executed by their people? [03:18:39] To this question, historians reply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on Louis XVI. [03:18:48] But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis xv? Why should it react just on Louis xvi? [03:18:57] And what is the time limit for such reactions? [03:19:00] To these questions? There are and can be no answers. [03:19:05] Equally little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective will is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then suddenly, during a period of 50 years, is transferred to the Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis xviii, to Napoleon again, to Charles X, to to Louis Philippe, to a republican government, and to Napoleon iii. [03:19:31] When explaining these rapid transfers of the people's will from one individual to another, especially in view of international relations, conquests and alliances, the historians are obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations of the people's will, but are accidents dependent on cunning, on mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler or a party leader, so that the greater part of the events of history, civil wars, revolutions and conquests, are presented by these historians not as the result of free transferences of the people's will, but as results of the ill directed will of one or more individuals, that is, once again as usurpations of power. [03:20:17] And so these historians also see and admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory. [03:20:25] These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer resemble two two leaves, are deviations from the theory. [03:20:46] Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people is transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the conditions are unknown to us. [03:20:57] They say that historical personages have power only because they fulfil the will of the people, which has been delegated to them. [03:21:05] But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the historic law leaders, but in the nations themselves, what significance have those leaders? [03:21:16] The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people. [03:21:20] The activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people. [03:21:25] But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the leaders serves as an expression of the people's will, or only some part of it. [03:21:35] If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of the people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of the court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident nonsense. [03:21:52] But if it is only some particular side of the activity of an historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other so called philosophical historians believe, then to determine which side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have first of all to know in what the nation's life consists. [03:22:12] Met by this difficulty, historians of that class devise some most obscure, impalpable and general abstraction which can cover all conceivable occurrences and declare this abstraction to be the aim of humanity's movement. [03:22:27] The most usual generalizations adopted by almost all the historians are are freedom, equality, Enlightenment, progress, civilization and culture. [03:22:38] Postulating some generalization as the goal of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the greatest number of monuments have remained kings, ministers, generals, authors, reformers, popes and journalists, to the extent to which, in their opinion, these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction. [03:22:59] But as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in freedom, equality, enlightenment or civilization. [03:23:06] And as the connection of the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is always transferred to the men whom we have noticed. It happens that the activity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture and destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the activity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practise agriculture, or slay their fellow creatures. [03:23:35] History proves this at every turn. [03:23:38] Is the ferment of the peoples of the west at the end of the 18th century, and their drive eastward, explained by the activity of Louis XIV, 15th and 16th, their mistresses and and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot, Beaumarchais and others. [03:23:55] Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and Siberia expressed by the details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible and by his correspondence with Kurbsky is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louise and their ladies. [03:24:15] For us, that movement of the peoples from west to east, without leaders, with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains incomprehensible. [03:24:25] And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade, the deliverance of Jerusalem, had been clearly defined by historic leaders. [03:24:37] Popes, kings and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land, but the people did not go. For the unknown cause which had previously impelled them to go, no longer existed. [03:24:49] The history of the Godfreys and the minnesingers can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. [03:24:55] And the history of the Godfreys and the menasingers has remained the history of the Godfreys and the menasingers, but the history of the life of the peoples and their impulses has remained unknown. [03:25:07] Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the life of the peoples. [03:25:13] The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of life and thought of a writer or reformer. We learn that Luther had a hot temper and said such and such things. [03:25:25] We learn that Rousseau was suspicious and wrote such and such books. [03:25:29] But we do not learn why after the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why, during the French Revolution they guillotined one another. [03:25:39] If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not the history of the life of the peoples. [03:25:53] Chapter 4. [03:26:01] Second epilogue Chapter 5 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude the life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for the connection between those men and the nations has not been found. [03:26:19] The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history. [03:26:31] The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence and be essential for its purposes. But in its application to history, as soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur, that is, as soon as history, history begins, that theory explains nothing. [03:26:52] The theory seems irrefutable, just because the act of transference of the people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred. [03:27:01] Whatever happens, and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the Theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because the collective will was transferred to him. [03:27:13] The replies this theory gives to historical questions that are like the replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different parts of the field, or to the drive of the herdsman, should attribute the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head. [03:27:32] The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it, and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that leader. [03:27:41] This is what historians of the first first class say, those who assume the unconditional transference of the people's will if the animals leading the herd change. This happens because the collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to another according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in the direction selected by the whole herd. [03:28:04] Such is the reply. Historians who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers under conditions which they regard as known. [03:28:12] With this method of observation, it often happens that the observer, influenced by the direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the people's change of direction, are no longer in front but on one side or even in the rear. [03:28:29] If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because. Because in order to follow a given direction, the animals transfer their will to the animals that have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd, we must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all sides of the herd. [03:28:51] So say the third class of historians who regard all historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of their age. [03:29:01] The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic persons is merely a paraphrase, a restatement of the question. In other words, what causes historical events? Power. What is power? [03:29:15] Power is the collective will of the people transferred to one person. [03:29:20] Under what condition is the will of the people delegated to one person on condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people? [03:29:29] That is, power is power. [03:29:31] In other words, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand. [03:29:37] If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning, then, having subjected to criticism the explanation of power that juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely a word and has no real existence. [03:29:53] But to understand phenomena man has, besides abstract reasoning, reasoning, experience by which he verifies his reflections and experience, tells us that power is not merely a word, but an actually existing phenomenon. [03:30:08] Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity of men can do without the conception of power. [03:30:14] The existence of power is proved both by history and by observing contemporary events. [03:30:21] Whenever an event occurs, a man appears or men appear by whose will the event seems to have taken place. [03:30:29] Napoleon III issues a decree and the French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and an army enters Bohemia. [03:30:38] Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters Russia. [03:30:42] Alexander I gives a command, and the French submit to the Bourbons. [03:30:47] Experience shows us that whatever event occurs, it is always related to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it. [03:30:56] The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the expression of the will of someone endowed with power. But that supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience. [03:31:13] On the one side, reflection shows that the expression of a man's will, his words, are only part of the general activity expressed in an event, as, for instance, in a war or a revolution. [03:31:26] And so, without assuming an incomprehensible supernatural force, one cannot admit that words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men. [03:31:37] On the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause of events, history shows that that the expression of the will of historical personages does not in most cases produce any effect. That is to say, their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite of what they order occurs. [03:31:57] Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity, we cannot regard power as the cause of events. [03:32:04] Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of that will by others. [03:32:15] To explain the conditions of that relationship, we must first establish a conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the deity. [03:32:25] If the deity issues a command, expresses his will, as ancient history tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not caused by anything. [03:32:35] For the divinity is not controlled by an event. [03:32:39] But speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of commands with events we must the condition of all that takes place, the continuity of movement in time, both of the events and of the person who commands, and the inevitability of the connection between the person commanding and those who execute his Command. [03:33:06] End of Second Epilogue, Chapter 5. [03:33:15] Second epilogue Chapter 6 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maud Only the expression of the will of the deity, not dependent on time, can relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or centuries. [03:33:35] And only the deity, independent of everything, can by his sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement. [03:33:42] But man acts in time and himself takes part in what occurs. [03:33:48] Reinstating the first condition omitted that of time, we see that no command can be executed without some proceeding or order having been given, rendering the execution of the last command possible. [03:34:00] No command ever appears spontaneously or itself covers a whole series of occurrences. [03:34:06] But each command follows from another, and never refers to a whole series of events, but always to one moment only of an event. [03:34:15] When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we combine in one simultaneous expression. [03:34:22] A whole series of consecutive commands depended on one another. [03:34:27] Napoleon could not have commanded an invasion of Russia and never did so. [03:34:32] Today he ordered such and such papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg to Morrow. Such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the commissariat, and so on and so on. [03:34:45] Millions of commands which formed a whole series corresponding to a of series series of events which brought the French armies into Russia. [03:34:54] If, throughout his reign, Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion of England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort, and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that design, but undertook an expedition into Russia with which country he considered it desirable to be an alliance, a conviction he repeatedly expressed. This came about because his commands did not correspond to the course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the latter. [03:35:26] For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should order what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be executed is impossible. Not only in the case of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, in which military millions participated, but even in the simplest event. [03:35:44] For in either case, millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its execution. [03:35:50] Every order executed is always one of an immense number unexecuted. [03:35:55] All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of events remain unexecuted. [03:36:00] Only the possible ones get linked up with a consecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and are executed. [03:36:09] Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place, and out of thousands of others, those few commands which were consistent with that event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not executed because they could not be. [03:36:28] Apart from that the chief source of our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical accounts a whole series of innumerable diverse and petty events, such for instance, as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that series of events, and corresponding with this generalization, the whole series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will. [03:36:57] We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. [03:37:02] In reality, in all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an expression of that wish, but find a series of orders or expressions of his will very variously and indefinitely directed amid a long series of unexecuted orders of Napoleon's. One series, for the campaign of 1812 was carried out not because those orders differ in any way from the other unexecuted orders, but because they coincided with the course of events that led the French army into Russia. [03:37:35] Just as in stencil work, this or that figure comes out not because the colour was laid on from this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over the figure cut in the stencil. [03:37:48] So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events of we find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a certain definite dependence exists between the two. [03:38:00] To understand in what this dependence consists, it is necessary to reinstate another omitted condition of every command preceding not from the deity, but from a man, which is that the man who gives the command himself takes part in the event. [03:38:16] This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is called power. Power. [03:38:21] This relation consists in the for common action, people always unite in certain combinations in which, regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the relation between those taking part in it is always the same. [03:38:37] Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward one another that the larger number take a more direct share and the smaller number a less direct share in the collective action for which they have combined. [03:38:51] Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action, one of the most striking and definite examples is an army. [03:38:59] Every army is composed of lower grades of the service, the rank and file of whom there are always the greatest number of the next higher military rank, corporals and non commissioned officers of whom there are fewer, and of still higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and so on to the highest military command, which is concentrated in one person, a military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone of which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file. The next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex decks, the point of which will represent the commander in chief. [03:39:41] The soldiers of whom there are the most form the lower section of the cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking, burning and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions for men above him, he himself never gives an order. [03:39:57] The non commissioned officers, of whom there are fewer, perform the action itself less frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. [03:40:07] An officer still less often acts directly himself, but commands still more frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. [03:40:20] The commander in chief never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. [03:40:28] A similar relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men from for common activity in agriculture, trade, and every administration. [03:40:39] And so, without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any administrative or public business whatever, from the lowest to the highest, we see a law by which men to take associated action combine in such relations that the more directly they participate in performance performing the action, the less they can command, and the more numerous they are, while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more they command and the fewer of them there are, Rising in this way from the lowest ranks to the man at the top who takes the least direct share in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding. [03:41:19] This relation of the men who command to those they command is what constitutes the essence, essence of the conception called power. [03:41:28] Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we find that a command is executed only when it is related to a corresponding series of events, restoring the essential condition of relation between those who command and those who execute. We find that by the very nature of the case, those who command take the smallest part in the action itself, and that their activity is exclusively directed to commanding. [03:41:55] End of Second Epilogue Chapter six. [03:42:04] Second epilogue Chapter 7 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maud when an event is taking place, people express their opinions and wishes about it. And as the event results from the collective activity of many people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be fulfilled. If, but approximately when one of the opinions expressed is fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command preceding it. [03:42:38] Men are hauling a log. [03:42:40] Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and where to haul it, they haul the log away. [03:42:46] And it happens that this is done as one of them. [03:42:50] He ordered it. [03:42:52] There we have command and power in their primary form. [03:42:56] The man who worked most with his hands could not think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what would result from the common activity, while the man who commanded more would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater verbal activity. [03:43:14] When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim, there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work. [03:43:27] When a man works alone, he always has a certain set of reflections which, as it seems to him, directed his past activity, justify his present activity and guide him in planning his future actions. [03:43:40] Just the same is done by a concourse of people allowing those who do not take a direct part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications and surmises concerning their collective activity. [03:43:53] For reasons known or unknown to us, the French began to drown and kill one another. [03:43:58] And corresponding to the event, its justification appears in people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for liberty and for equality. [03:44:09] People ceased to kill one another, and this event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. [03:44:19] Men went from the west to the east, killing their fellow men, and the event was accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of England, and so on, on. [03:44:30] History shows us that these justifications of the events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights and the killing of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. [03:44:45] But these justifications have a very necessary significance. In their own day, these justifications release those who produce the events from moral responsibility. [03:44:56] These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front. They clear the men's moral responsibilities from their path. [03:45:06] Without such justification, there would be no reply to the simplest question that presents itself when examining each historical event. [03:45:14] How is it that millions of men commit collective crimes, make war, commit murder, and so on with the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe? Can any event that is not prescribed, decreed or ordered by monarchs, ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? [03:45:33] Is there any collective action which cannot find its justification in political unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? [03:45:43] So that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed wish? And receiving a justification presents itself as the result of the will of one man or of several men. [03:45:56] In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship, the movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion. [03:46:08] Only by watching closely, moment by moment, the movement of that floe and comparing it with the movement movement of the ship, do we convince ourselves that every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were imperceptibly moving. [03:46:26] We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical characters, that is, re establish the inevitable condition of all that occurs, the continuity of movement in time, and do not lose sight of the essential connection of historical persons with the masses. [03:46:43] When the ship moves in one direction, there is one and the same wave ahead of it. When it turns frequently, the wave ahead of it also turns frequently. [03:46:53] But wherever it may turn, there always will be the wave anticipating its movement. [03:46:59] Whatever happens, it always appears that just that event was foreseen and decreed. [03:47:04] Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water, which neither directs nor increases its movement, foams ahead of it and at a distance, seems to us not merely to move of itself, but to govern the ship's movement. Also, examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons, which, as commands were related to events, historians have assumed that the events depended on those commands. [03:47:29] But examining the events themselves and the connection in which the historical person stood to the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on events. [03:47:39] The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are other causes for it. But as soon as an event occurs, be it what it may, then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people, some will always be found, which, by their meaning and their time of utterance, are related as coming commands to the events. [03:48:03] Arriving at this conclusion, we can reply directly and positively to those two essential questions of what is power? [03:48:13] What force produces the movement of the nations? [03:48:18] Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions and justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is his participation in that action. [03:48:33] The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two, as historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the largest share in the event take on their themselves the least responsibility, and vice versa. [03:48:56] Morally, the wielder of power appears to cause the event. [03:49:00] Physically, it is those who submit to the power. [03:49:03] But as the moral activity is inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in the one nor in the other, but in the union of the two. [03:49:13] Or, in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the phenomena we are examining. [03:49:20] In the last analysis, we reach the circle of infinity, that final limit to which, in every domain of thought, man's reason arrives, if it is not playing with the subject. [03:49:31] Electricity produces heat, heat produces electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another. [03:49:40] Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we cannot say why this occurs. And we say that it is so because it is inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so, and that it is a law. [03:49:54] The same applies to historical events. [03:49:57] Why war and revolution occur, we do not know. [03:50:00] We only know that to produce the one or the other action, people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part. And we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise. Or, in other words, that it is a law. [03:50:19] Chapter 7. [03:50:26] Second epilogue Chapter 8 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude if history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this simple and obvious law would suffice, and we should have finished our argument. [03:50:44] But the law of history relates to man. [03:50:48] A particle of matter cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion, and that that law is untrue. But man, who is the subject of our history, says plainly, I am free and am therefore not subject to the law. [03:51:04] The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is felt at every step of history. [03:51:11] All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this question. [03:51:16] All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of a solution of that question. [03:51:26] If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents. [03:51:36] If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's, in violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity. [03:51:55] If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot exist, for then man's will is subject to that law. [03:52:04] In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most ancient times has occupied the best human minds, and from most ancient times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance. [03:52:18] The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation, from whatever point of view, theological, historical, ethical, or philosophic, we find a general law of necessity to which he, like all that exists, is subject. [03:52:33] But regarding him from within ourselves as what we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free. [03:52:40] This consciousness is a source of self cognition quite apart from and independent of reason. [03:52:48] Through his reason man observes himself, but only through consciousness does he know himself. [03:52:54] Apart from consciousness of self, no observation or application of reason is conceivable. [03:53:01] To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be conscious of himself as living. [03:53:08] A man is only conscious of himself as a living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his volition. [03:53:16] But his will, which forms the essence of his life, man recognizes and can but recognize as free. [03:53:24] If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by one and the same law. Whether he observes the necessity of taking food, using his brain or anything else, he cannot recognize this never varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. [03:53:42] Were it not free, it could not be limited. [03:53:45] A man's will seems to him to be limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free. [03:53:52] You say I am not free, but I have lifted my hand and let it fall. [03:53:57] Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable demonstration of freedom. [03:54:03] That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to to reason. [03:54:09] If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent source of self consciousness, it would be subject to reasoning and to experience. [03:54:18] But in fact such subjection does not exist and is inconceivable. [03:54:23] A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as an object of observation, is subject to certain laws. And man submits to them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he has become acquainted with them. [03:54:39] But the same series of experiments and arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him. [03:54:54] Yet man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments. [03:54:59] Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law that he has learned to be fulfilled. [03:55:10] But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does not and cannot believe this. [03:55:18] However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the same conditions and with the same character, he will do the same thing as before. [03:55:26] Yet when, under the same conditions and with the same character, he approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment that he can act as he pleases. [03:55:41] Every man, savage or sage, however incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is impossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the same conditions. [03:55:53] Feels that without this irrational conception which constitutes the essence of freedom, he cannot imagine life. [03:56:01] He feels that however impossible it may be, it is so. For without this conception of freedom, not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would be unable to live. For a single moment he could not live. Because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life are only efforts to increase freedom. [03:56:23] Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom. [03:56:40] A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life. [03:56:46] If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless contradiction, like the possibility of performing two actions at one and the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only proves that consciousness is not subject to reason. [03:57:02] This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone and without exception. This consciousness, without which no conception of man is possible, constitutes the other side of the question. [03:57:21] Man is the creation of an all powerful, all good and all seeing God. [03:57:26] What is sin? The conception of which arises from the consciousness of man's freedom? That is a question for theology. [03:57:34] The actions of men are subject to general, immutable laws expressed in statistics. [03:57:40] What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for jurisprudence. [03:57:49] Man's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting upon him. [03:57:54] What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong in actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? [03:58:00] That is a question for ethics. [03:58:03] Man, in connection with the general life of humanity, appears subject to laws which determine that life. [03:58:10] But the same man, apart from that connection, appears to be free. [03:58:15] How should the past life of nations and of humanity be regarded as the result of the free or as the result of the constrained activity of man. [03:58:25] That is a question for history. [03:58:28] Only in our self confident day of the popularization of knowledge, thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed matter, has the question of the freedom of will been put on a level on which the question itself cannot exist. [03:58:44] In our time, the majority of the so called advanced people, that is the crowd of ignoramuses, have taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one side of the question for a solution of the whole problem. [03:58:57] They say, and write in print, that the soul and freedom do not exist. For the life of man is expressed by muscular movements, and muscular movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves. [03:59:11] The soul and free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang from the apes. [03:59:18] They say this not at all suspecting that thousands of years ago that same law of necessity, which was with such ardor they are now trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology, was not merely acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never been denied. [03:59:35] They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of one side of it. [03:59:44] For the fact that, from the point of view of observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and that man, following the general law, may have developed from lower animals at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and philosophic theories, that from the point of view of reason, man is subject to the law of necessity, but it does not advance by a hair's breadth. The solution of the question which has another opposite outside, based on the consciousness of freedom. [04:00:20] If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a certain period of time. In the first case, the unknown quantity is the time. In the second case, it is the origin. [04:00:35] And the question of how man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative physiology and zoology. For in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity. [04:00:58] The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a church, who, availing them themselves of the absence of the chief superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal, plaster over the windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now so smooth and regular. [04:01:28] Chapter. [04:01:36] Second epilogue Chapter 9 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude for the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the question is dealt with that for history, this question does not refer to the essence of man's free will, but its manifestation in the past and under certain conditions. [04:02:04] In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as experimental science stands to abstract science. [04:02:12] The subject for history is not man's will itself, but our presentation of it. [04:02:18] As for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already taken place in actual life. Each historic event, each human action, is very clearly and definitely understood, without any sense of contradiction. Although each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory. [04:02:51] To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and what constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy of history can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other sciences. [04:03:05] Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life under those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the concept, conception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear dependent on these two elements. [04:03:28] Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual we may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man's free will and partly of the law of inevitability. [04:03:41] Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon iii, or of some one's action an hour ago, in choosing one direction out of several for his walk, we are conscious of any contradiction. [04:03:55] The degree of freedom and inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined. For us, our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and inevitability. [04:04:16] In every action we examine, we see a certain measure of freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. [04:04:22] And always the more freedom we see in any action, the less inevitability do we perceive, and the more inevitability, the less freedom. [04:04:31] The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases according to the point of view from which the action is regarded it. But their relation is always one of inverse proportion. [04:04:43] A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him, or a hungry mother exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals from food, or a man trained to discipline, who on duty at the word of command kills a defenceless man, seems less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of necessity to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man himself was drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks, and so on. [04:05:14] Similarly, a man who committed a murder 20 years ago and has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society, seems less guilty and his action more due to the law of inevitability to someone who considers his action after 20 years have elapsed than to one who who examined it the day after it was committed. [04:05:33] And in the same way every action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one who does not know it. [04:05:50] In all these cases the conception of freedom is increased or diminished, and the conception of compulsion is correspondingly decreased or increased according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, so that the greater the conception of necessity, the smaller the conception of freedom, and vice versa. [04:06:10] Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and freedom. [04:06:20] All cases without exception, in which our conception of freedom and necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations. [04:06:30] The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds, his relation to time, his relation to the causes leading to the action. [04:06:41] The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's relation to the the external world, and the greater or lesser clearness of our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in relation to everything co existing with him. [04:06:56] This is what makes it evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one bound by family, official, or business, business duties, seem certainly less free and more subject to necessity than Those of a man living in solitude and seclusion. [04:07:21] If we consider a man alone. Apart from his relation to everything around him, each action of his seems to us free. [04:07:28] But if we see his relation to anything around him, if we see his connection with anything whatever. With a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on which he is engaged. Even with the air he breathes. Or the light that falls on the things about him, we see that each of these circumstances has an influence on him. And controls at least some side of his activity. [04:07:50] And the more we perceive of these influences, the more our perception of his freedom diminishes. And the more our conception of the necessity that weighs on him increases. [04:08:01] The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of the man to the world. And the clearness of our perception of the place the man's action occupies in time. [04:08:12] That is, the ground which makes the fall of the first man. Resulting in the production of the human race. Appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. [04:08:22] It is the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago and are connected with me in time. Cannot seem to me as free as. As the life of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me. [04:08:37] The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability. Depends in this respect. On the greater or lesser lapse of time. Between the performance of the action and our judgment of it. [04:08:48] If I examine an act I performed a moment ago. In approximately the same circumstances as those I am in now. My action appears to me undoubtedly totally free. [04:08:58] But if I examine an act performed a month ago. Then, being in different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had not been committed, Much that resulted from it. Good, agreeable and even essential would not have taken place. [04:09:13] If I reflect on an action still more remote 10 years ago or more. Then the consequences of my action are still plainer to me. And I find it hard to imagine what would have happened had that action not been performed. [04:09:27] The farther I go back in memory, or what is the same thing. The farther I go forward in my judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my action. [04:09:37] In history we find a very similar progress of conviction. Concerning the part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. [04:09:45] A contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the known participants. [04:09:51] But with a more remote event we already see its inevitable results. Which prevent our considering anything else possible. [04:09:58] And the farther we go back in examining events, the less arbitrary do they appear. [04:10:04] The Austro Prussian War appears to us undoubtedly the result of the crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem to us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their hero hero's will. [04:10:17] But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite place in history, and without which we cannot imagine the modern history of Europe. [04:10:26] Though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared as merely due to the will of certain people in regard to the migration of the peoples. It does not enter anyone's head today to suppose that the renovation of the European world depended on Attila's caprice. [04:10:42] The farther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become, and the more manifest the law of inevitability. [04:10:54] The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that endless chain of causation, inevitably demanded by reason, in which each phenomenon comprehended and therefore man's every action must have its definite place as a result of what has gone on before before, and as a cause of what will follow. [04:11:13] The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled, and the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological, and historical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are observing, and the less complex the character and mind of the man in question, the more subject to inevitability, ability, and the less free do our actions and those of others appear. [04:11:40] When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a crime, a good action, or even one that is simply non moral, we ascribe a greater amount of freedom to it. [04:11:50] In the case of a crime we most urgently demand the punishment for such an act. [04:11:55] In the case of a virtuous act, we rate its merit most highly. [04:11:59] In an indifferent case we recognize in it more individuality, originality, and independence. [04:12:06] If even one of the innumerable causes of the act is known to us, we recognize a certain element of necessity, and are less insistent on punishment for the crime, or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom of the apparently original action. [04:12:22] That a criminal was reared among malefactors mitigates his fault. In our eyes, the self sacrifice of a father or mother, or self sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more comprehensible than gratuitous self sacrifice, and therefore seems less deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. [04:12:42] The founder of a sect or party, or an inventor impresses us less when we know how or by what the way was prepared for his activity. [04:12:51] If we have a large range of examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we connect the effects with the causes. [04:13:07] If we examined simple actions and had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of their inevitability would be still greater. [04:13:16] The dishonest conduct of the son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen into bad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on, are actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause. [04:13:31] If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton, then, knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so little free will, that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action, we can foretell the result. [04:13:55] On these three considerations alone is based the conception of irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted by all legislative codes. [04:14:05] The responsibility appears greater or less according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser understanding of the causes that led to the action. [04:14:29] Chapter 9, Second epilogue, Chapter 10 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes or increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we contemplate a man's life. [04:15:04] So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the external world is well known, where the time between the action and its examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a minimum of free will if we examine a man little dependent on external conditions, whose action was perpetual, performed very recently, and the causes of whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of inevitability and a maximum of freedom. [04:15:39] In neither case, however, we may change our point of view, however plain we may make it to ourselves. The connection between the man and the external world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of the action may be, can we ever conceive either complete freedom or complete necessity? [04:16:04] 1. To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom in space. [04:16:13] Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body. [04:16:19] I lift my arm and let it fall. [04:16:21] My action seems to me free. But asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was least obstruction to that action, either from things around me or from the construction of my own body, I choose one out of all possible directions, because in it there were fewest obstacles. [04:16:43] For my action to be free, it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. [04:16:48] To conceive of a man being free, we must imagine him outside space, which is evidently impossible. [04:16:57] 2 however much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. [04:17:05] For if I examine an action committed a second ago, I must still recognize it as not being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was committed. [04:17:16] Can I lift my arm? I lift it but ask myself, could I have abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? [04:17:25] To convince myself of this, I do not lift it the next moment. But I am not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I ask the question, time has gone by which I could not detain. [04:17:37] The arm I then lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting. Nor is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. [04:17:47] The moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that moment I could make only one movement. And whatever movement I made would be the only one. [04:17:57] That I did not lift my arm a moment later does not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. [04:18:04] And since I could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not have been any other. [04:18:10] To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future, that is, outside time, which is impossible. [04:18:23] 3. [04:18:24] However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be increased when we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an absence of cause, however inaccessible to us may be the cause of the expression of will in any action, our own or in others. [04:18:40] The first demand of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause. For without a cause no phenomenon is conceivable. [04:18:49] I raise my arm to perform an action independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a cause is the cause of my action. [04:18:59] But even if imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause, we were to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equals zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete freedom in man. [04:19:19] For a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing outside of time, and independent of cause, is no longer a man. [04:19:27] In the same way, we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability. [04:19:37] 1 however, we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in which man is situated. That knowledge can never be complete, for the number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. [04:19:50] And therefore, so long as not all the conditions influencing man are defined, there is no complete inevitability, but a certain measure of freedom remains. [04:20:00] 2 however, we may prolong the period of time between the action we are examining and the judgment upon it. That period will be finite while time is infinite. And so in this respect too, there can never be absolute inevitability, however accessible may be the chain of causation of any action. We shall never know the whole chain, since it is endless. And so again, we never reach absolute inevitability. [04:20:31] But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to equal 0, we assumed in some given case, as for instance, in that of a dying man, an unborn babe or an idiot, complete absence of freedom. By so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are examining. For as soon as there is no freedom, there is also no man. [04:20:56] And so the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of inevitability, without any element of freedom, is just as impossible as the conception of a man's completely free action. [04:21:10] And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of inevitability, without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time, and an infinite series of causes. [04:21:27] To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time, and free from dependence on cause in the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom, we should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of inevitability itself, that is a mere form without content. [04:21:53] In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability, we should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited, would be nothing or mere content without form. [04:22:10] We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man's whole outlook on the universe is constructed, the incomprehensible essence of life and the laws defining that essence. [04:22:22] Reason says 1. Space, with all the forms of matter that give it visibility, is infinite and cannot be imagined otherwise. [04:22:31] 2 Time is infinite motion without a moment of rest, and is unthinkable otherwise. [04:22:37] 3 the connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can have no end. [04:22:44] Consciousness, says one. I alone am, and all that exists is but me. Consequently I include space. [04:22:54] 2 I measure flowing time by the fixed moment of the present, in which alone I am conscious of myself as living. Consequently I am outside time. [04:23:05] 3 I am beyond cause, for I feel myself to be the cause of every manifestation of my life. [04:23:14] Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. [04:23:18] Consciousness gives expression to the essence of freedom. [04:23:22] Freedom, not limited by anything, is the essence of life in man's consciousness. [04:23:27] Inevitability without content is man's reason in its three forms. [04:23:33] Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. [04:23:38] Freedom is the content. [04:23:40] Inevitability is the form. [04:23:43] Only by separating the two sources of cognition related to one another as form, form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability. [04:23:56] Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life. [04:24:01] Apart from these two concepts, which in their union mutually define one another as form and content, no conception of life is possible. [04:24:09] All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free will to to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason. [04:24:19] All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain relation of the forces of nature to inevitability or of the essence of life to the laws of reason. [04:24:29] The great natural forces lie outside us, and we are not conscious of them. We call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal force, universe, and so on. But we are conscious of the force of life in man, and we call that freedom. [04:24:46] But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself, but felt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject. [04:24:59] From the first knowledge that all bodies have weight up to Newton's law. [04:25:03] So too, the force of free will, incomprehensible in itself, but of which everyone is conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject. [04:25:17] From the fact that every man dies up to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historical laws, all knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life. Under the laws of reason, man's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly conscious of of it. But in the eyes of reason, it in no way differs from any other force. [04:25:40] The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical affinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are differently defined by reason. [04:25:50] Just so, the force of man's free will is distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature. Only by the definition, reason gives it freedom. Apart from necessity, that is, apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from gravitation or heat or the force that makes things grow. [04:26:10] For reason. It is only a momentary, undefinable sensation of life. [04:26:16] And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies, the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the same way does the force of free will form the content of history. [04:26:37] But just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this unknown essence of life, while that essence itself can only be the subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will in human beings, in space, in time, and in dependence, dependence on cause, forms the subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of metaphysics. [04:27:00] In the experimental sciences, what we know we call the laws of inevitability. [04:27:05] What is unknown to us, we call vital force. [04:27:09] Vital force is only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know of the essence of life. [04:27:17] So also in history, what is known to us we call the laws of inevitability. What is unknown, we call free will. [04:27:25] Free will is, for history, only an expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of human life. [04:27:35] Chapter 10. [04:27:43] Second epilogue Chapter 11 of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy translated by Elmer Maude History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection with the external world, in time, and in dependence on cause. That is, it defines this freedom by laws of reason. And so history is a science only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws. [04:28:10] The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing historical events, that is as not subject to laws, is the same for history as the recognition of a free force moving in the heavenly bodies would be for astronomy. [04:28:25] That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws, that is, of any science whatever. [04:28:32] If there is even a single body moving freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negative and no conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. [04:28:42] If any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law can exist, nor any conception of historical events. [04:28:52] For history lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of which is hidden in the unknown, but at the other end of which a consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and dependence on cause. [04:29:07] The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more evident are the laws of that movement. [04:29:13] To discover and define those laws is the problem of history. [04:29:18] From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in man's free will, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible. [04:29:30] For however, man's free will may be restricted as soon as we recognize it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes impossible. [04:29:40] Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes. And then, instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as its problem. [04:29:58] The search for these laws has long been begun, and the new methods of thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously with the self destruction toward which ever dissecting and dissecting the causes of phenomena, the old method of history is moving. [04:30:14] All human sciences have traveled along that path, arriving at infinitesimals. Mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of unknown, infinitely small quantities. [04:30:31] Abandoning the conception of cause, mathematics seeks law, that is the property common to all unknown, infinitely small elements in another form, but along the same path of reflection the other sciences have proceeded. [04:30:47] When Newton enunciated the law of gravity, he did not say that the sun or the Earth had a property of attraction, he said that all bodies, from the largest to the smallest, have the property of attracting one another. That is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies, from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. [04:31:09] The same is done by the natural sciences, leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for laws. [04:31:16] History stands on the same path. [04:31:19] And if history has for its object the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity, and not the narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the inseparably interconnected, infinitesimal elements of free will. [04:31:40] End of Second Epilogue, Chapter 11. [04:31:49] Second epilogue, Chapter 12 of War and Peace Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maud from the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere recognition of the fact that it was not the sun, but the earth that moves sufficed to destroy the whole, whole cosmography of the ancients. [04:32:10] By disproving that law, it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the movements of the bodies. But without disproving it, it would seem impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. [04:32:23] But even after the discovery of the law of Copernicus, the Ptolemaic worlds were still studied for a long time, from the time the first person said and proved that the number of births or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode of government is determined by certain geographical and economic conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built were destroyed in their essence. [04:32:52] By refuting these new laws, the former view of history might have been retained, but without refuting them, it would seem impossible to continue studying history historical events as the results of man's free will. [04:33:05] For if a certain mode of government was established, or certain migrations of peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic, ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause. [04:33:26] And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology, and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions. [04:33:41] The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly fought out. In physical philosophy, theology stood on guard for the old views and accused the new of violating revelation. [04:33:53] But when truth conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new foundation, just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between the old and the new conception of history and theology. In the same way stands on guard for the old view and accuses the new view of subverting revelation. [04:34:14] In the one case, as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes passion and stifles truth. [04:34:21] On the one hand, there is fear and regret for the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages. On the other is the passion for destruction. [04:34:31] To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy, it seemed that if they admitted that truth, it would destroy faith in God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the Son of None. [04:34:45] To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to Voltaire, for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against religion. [04:34:59] Just so, it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of inevitability to destroy the conception of the soul of good and evil, and all the institutions of state and church parch that had been built up on those conceptions. [04:35:14] So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion. Though the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in astronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which the institutions of state and church are erected. [04:35:37] As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or non recognition of something absolute serving as the measure of visible phenomena. [04:35:50] In astronomy it was the immovability of the Earth. In history it is the independence of personality, free will. [04:36:00] As with astronomy, the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the Earth's fixity and of the motion of the planets. [04:36:10] So in history, the difficulty of recognizing the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time and cause lies in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's own personality. [04:36:22] But as in astronomy, the new view it is true that we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion, which we do not feel, we arrive at laws. [04:36:38] So also in history, the new view it is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause we arrive at laws. [04:36:56] In the first case, it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel. [04:37:06] In the present case, it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious. [04:37:17] End of Second Epilogue Chapter 12 ebook of War and Peace, Volume 4 by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Elmer Maude.