War and Peace

by Leo Tolstoy

her brother’s face was just the opposite – dim with imbecility, truculent and peevish – and his body was thin and feeble. His eyes, nose and mouth – all his features seemed to twist themselves into in a vague kind of obtuse snarl, while his arms and legs were always in an awkward tangle.

Haha älskar dessa oförskämdheter

My dear and excellent friend, What a terrible and awful thing absence is! I tell myself that half of my existence and happiness is in you, that for all the distance that divides us, our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, yet my own rebels against destiny, and in spite of the pleasures and distractions that surround me, I cannot overcome a certain secret sadness which I have sensed at the bottom of my heart ever since our separation. Why are we not together as we were last summer in your huge study, on that blue sofa, the ‘sofa of secrets’? Why can I not, as I did three months ago, draw new moral strength from those eyes of yours, so gentle, so calm, so penetrating, eyes that I have loved so well and seem to see before me even as I write.

Sweet

Closest of all to the commander-in-chief walked a handsome adjutant. It was Prince Andrey Bolkonsky.

‘we are asleep until we fall in love … we are the childwen of dust and ashes … but once you have loved you are a god, as pure as on the first day of cweation …

Prince Bagration nodded his head as a sign that this was just what he had wanted and planned for.

King

‘My God! I’d be so happy if he ordered me to go through fire here and now,’ thought Rostov.

Simp

‘Hey, Titus!’ said the groom. ‘What?’ answered the old man absent-mindedly. ‘Titus a drum!’ ‘Stupid idiot!’ said the old man, spitting angrily. For a few minutes they all moved on in silence, and then the same silly joke was repeated.

I don't get it.

On every side were loving eyes, glittering tears of joy and lips hungry for kisses.

Käften kärring

The speech

Was boring

‘No, I won’t get that kind of luck,’ thought Rostov. ‘And it would cost Him so little! No chance! I’m always unlucky – at cards, fighting in the war, everything.’ Clear visions of Austerlitz and Dolokhov flashed through his mind in rapid succession. ‘Just once in my life to kill an old wolf. It’s all I want!’ he thought,

Boring but this made it less so

‘Do you ever get that feeling,’ said Natasha to her brother once they were settled in the sitting-room, ‘that nothing’s ever going to happen to you again, nothing at all, and anything good is in the past? And you don’t feel bored exactly, but very, very sad?’

And Pierre pictured all men as soldiers like these, escaping from life through ambition, cards, law-making, women, little playthings, horses, politics, sport, wine, even government service. ‘Everything matters, nothing matters, it’s all the same. If I can only escape, one way or another!’ thought Pierre. ‘And not see it, the terrible it.’

And with the warm impulsiveness that can come over people at the moment of waking she hugged her friend.

They swam forward manfully, and although there was a crossing-place only a few hundred yards away they were proud to swim on and drown in the river under the eyes of that man sitting on the log who wasn’t even watching what they were doing.

This chapter illustrates his ageing mind quite well

She gave a sweet smile as she welcomed Pierre with the easy lapse into falsehood that comes naturally to women in high society.

That hand did come out, but rather than going off to join the army Pierre stayed on in a Moscow that was getting emptier by the day, and his mood was the same – a mixture of excitement, indecision and delicious dread of impending doom.

Oh Pierre

He rejoiced in a new awareness that everything that makes for happiness in life – comfort, wealth, even life itself – was nothing but trash to be thrown away with pleasure when you compare it with … well, something else …

the battle of Borodino

I can't be bothered sorry

CHAPTER 25

Pierre and Andrey before battle. Such a nice chapter.

Prince Andrey smiled now the same happy smile he had smiled then as he gazed into her eyes. ‘I did understand her,’ thought Prince Andrey. ‘It was more than understanding. That spiritual energy, that sincerity, that open-heartedness, the very soul of her that seemed to be bound up in her body, I loved the soul in her …

Really romantic actually

A cannonball ploughed the earth up a couple of paces from Pierre, spattering him with dirt. He looked round with a smile as he brushed it off his clothes.

Working on the basis of false reports like these, Napoleon issued a stream of instructions which had either been carried out already, or were not carried out at all, and never could have been.

So much roasting

It was all too much for Prince Andrey; he broke down in tears of love and tenderness for his fellow men, himself, his own silly misdoings and everybody else’s. ‘Sympathy and love, for our brothers, those who love us and those who hate us, for our enemies. Yes, the kind of love that God preached on earth, that Marie told me about and I could not understand

and perfecting the art of integration (the adding up of infinitesimals) can we have any hope of determining the laws of history.

A little poop needy if you ask me

Nikolay had been just like Princess Marya, blushing with embarrassment when he heard her name mentioned or even thought about her, but now he was with her he felt perfectly at ease; completely forgetting all his carefully prepared phrases, he felt able to blurt out the first thing that came into his head, and it was always the right thing to have said.

Platon Karatayev

I liked this chapter about Platon.

But one glance below the surface of any historical event, one glance at the actions of the mass of humanity involved in it, is enough to show that the will of the historical hero, far from controlling the actions of the masses, is itself subject to continual outside control.

Omg I get it already

The flanking manœuvre might well have brought no advantage; worse than that, it could easily have led to the destruction of the Russian army if other circumstances had prevailed.

You just said that…

the Napoleon who was active at this time was like a child in a carriage who pulls on the straps inside and thinks he is doing the driving.

So repetitive!

Greycoat, or sometimes Floppy. She was just a lavender-grey dog,

And the best character

‘No, wait!’ he cried. ‘You’re such a hero! Oh! How marvellous! How splendid! I like you so much!’

Pin

“I seen six men off,” says ’e (’e bein’ a real wrong ’un), “but I’m right sorry for this little old man.

Stop it

they were on depleted rations with no vodka,

XD

So why did things happen this way and not otherwise? Because this is how they happened.

Shut up

Natasha’s marriage to Bezukhov

hahaha

But that gives rise to another question: does all the activity of historical leaders represent the will of the masses, or only one particular aspect of it? If

Cp stupid chapter

Man acts within time, and is involved in events.

So fucking true

For an order to be properly carried out it is necessary for a man to issue an order that is capable of being carried out.

No bitch