Important Quotations Explained
1. “Well,
Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes.
But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you
still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that
Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you....”
2. Pierre,
who from the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him
with glad, affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before
he looked round Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance
with whoever was touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming
face he gave him an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.
3. This
black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life . . .
ran to hide her flushed face in the lace of her mother's mantilla—not
paying the least attention to her severe remark—and began to laugh.
She laughed, and in fragmentary sentences tried to explain about
a doll which she produced from the folds of her frock.
4. When
everything was ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the
table, filled a tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless
old man to whom he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness,
and the need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation
with this stranger.
5. When
he related anything it was generally some old and evidently precious
memory of his “Christian” life, as he called his peasant existence.
The proverbs, of which his talk was full, were . . . those folk
sayings which taken without a context seem so insignificant, but
when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance of profound
wisdom.
