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War and Peace: Book 2, Part 3, Chapter 16
May. 26th, 2016 09:31 pmWe are at the ball! We are at the ball with Natasha Rostova - her first ball, and she's practically floating with excitement - and Dramatic Happenings are in the air, although I'm not yet sure what they will be.
Natasha's older sister Vera has gotten engaged to the most boring man in the whole Russian army, but it's beginning to look like the family finances may keep the engagement from coming off. Poor Vera. No one seems to like Vera that much - even her prospective fiance is willing to throw her over if the money doesn't come through - which makes me sad for her, even though at the same time I don't really blame them for not feeling close to her. She's always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and never notices or cares if it hurts people.
Poor Pierre continues to be a failboat at everything. He tries to modernize his estates and liberate his serfs, but he's so befuddled by business affairs that he doesn't make any headway; and then he takes his wife back, and I am pretttttty sure that she's cheating on him again and he's never going to notice because he's so taken up with Freemasonry.
Although he seems to be growing ever so slowly disenchanted with the Masons, so perhaps he is due for another conversion? Although unless it's a conversion to the mysteries of double-entry bookkeeping and the joys of intense management of one's own estates, I'm not sure that it's going to help him in his heartfelt but wholly inept desire to help his serfs.
He did manage to convert Prince Andrei, not to Freemasonry, but to the idea of trying to do some good for his serfs, and Prince Andrei (a much more practical fellow than poor Pierre) has already emancipated the serfs of one estate. I have become fond of him despite everything; of course it doesn't hurt that he feels simply terrible about the way he treated his poor wife.
Natasha's older sister Vera has gotten engaged to the most boring man in the whole Russian army, but it's beginning to look like the family finances may keep the engagement from coming off. Poor Vera. No one seems to like Vera that much - even her prospective fiance is willing to throw her over if the money doesn't come through - which makes me sad for her, even though at the same time I don't really blame them for not feeling close to her. She's always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and never notices or cares if it hurts people.
Poor Pierre continues to be a failboat at everything. He tries to modernize his estates and liberate his serfs, but he's so befuddled by business affairs that he doesn't make any headway; and then he takes his wife back, and I am pretttttty sure that she's cheating on him again and he's never going to notice because he's so taken up with Freemasonry.
Although he seems to be growing ever so slowly disenchanted with the Masons, so perhaps he is due for another conversion? Although unless it's a conversion to the mysteries of double-entry bookkeeping and the joys of intense management of one's own estates, I'm not sure that it's going to help him in his heartfelt but wholly inept desire to help his serfs.
He did manage to convert Prince Andrei, not to Freemasonry, but to the idea of trying to do some good for his serfs, and Prince Andrei (a much more practical fellow than poor Pierre) has already emancipated the serfs of one estate. I have become fond of him despite everything; of course it doesn't hurt that he feels simply terrible about the way he treated his poor wife.
