Visiting his father’s manager, Mitenka, in an attempt
to put his family’s finances in order, Nicholas explodes in anger,
convinced that Mitenka has been embezzling. Nicholas’s father urges
him to calm down, and Nicholas agrees not to get involved in financial matters
again, turning his attention to the hunt instead. One bright fall
day, Nicholas and his huntsman, Daniel, are preparing to depart when
Natasha appears, expressing her resolve to go along. Despite Daniel’s
dismay, Natasha joins the hunting party, which sets out with over
a hundred dogs. She proves she can ride beautifully, while the count
earns the censure of one of his serfs for letting a wolf get away.
At his hunting post, Nicholas hopes to earn the prestige
of downing a wolf. Finally he sees a wolf ambling along and calls
for his hounds to pursue it. Nicholas’s favorite dog, Karay, nearly
kills the wolf, but it shakes itself free and continues on. Other
huntsmen’s dogs catch it. Bound, the wolf glares wildly at its captors.
Later, the huntsmen pursue a fox until a hound from another hunting
party catches it. Nicholas is irate, knowing the hound belongs to
their neighbor, Ilagin. To apologize, Ilagin invites the Rostovs
to hunt hares on his own property. They do so, and they catch a
hare. The party spends the night in a peasant village, where they
are regaled with home-cooked food and balalaika music. The peasant
huntsman sings so beautifully that Natasha decides to learn to play
the guitar. As Nicholas and Natasha ride home in a buggy, she declares that
she will never be so happy again.
The Rostovs’ financial problems become so acute that they
consider selling their family home, Otradnoe. The only solution
seems to be in marrying Nicholas off to a rich heiress like Julie
Karagina, whom the countess selects carefully. Julie’s parents are
willing, but Nicholas is unwilling, invoking his honor and arguing
that love should be more important than money. Meanwhile, Andrew
writes to Natasha, saying that his health has forced him to stay
abroad a bit longer. Natasha is bored and restless waiting for Andrew.
She, Sonya, and Nicholas philosophize about happiness, reminisce about
childhood, and put on costumes to entertain the Rostov household.
Sonya, Natasha, and Nicholas drive out to neighbors to
entertain them also. Nicholas is conscious of loving Sonya, disguised
now as a man. At the neighbor’s home, he dares to take her in his
arms and kiss her. Natasha congratulates Nicholas. Back at home,
the girls gaze in mirrors to see their fortunes. Sonya pretends
to see Andrew lying down and looking happy, and then something blue
and red, evoking the way Natasha once described Pierre as a blue
and red object. Nicholas’s parents criticize his decision to marry
Sonya, saying that he is free to marry whom he wishes, but that
they will never treat the gold-digger Sonya as a daughter. Nicholas
is saddened, but he remains firm in his resolve to marry Sonya.
He returns to the front.
Analysis: Books Six–Seven
The character of Natasha emerges gloriously in these chapters,
and acquires deep symbolic significance. Natasha is more than a
mere girl, though neither especially beautiful nor clever, and less
morally serious than women like Princess Mary. Natasha’s great power
lies not in specific attributes, but in her extraordinary vitality.
When she runs in a yellow dress alongside Andrew’s carriage, or
sings on the balcony, or swoons over a simple Russian folk song,
she is doing no more than living. Yet she is alive with a force
and an enthusiasm that no other character in the novel possesses.
It is almost a mystical power, which explains why none of the men
infatuated with her—including Andrew and Pierre—seem able to recognize
that Natasha is the cause of the spiritual changes within themselves
after they spend time with her. Andrew hears Natasha sing, but then
falls asleep unsure of where the youthful confusions in his heart
come from. Pierre is dejected after learning of Natasha’s engagement
to Andrew, but fails to recognize his dejection as disappointment. Natasha
works below the consciousness of these men, like a vital force beyond
rational understanding.
The Rostovs’ financial problems are an important element
in the novel, as they direct our attention to the changing social
and economic climate in Russia. The Rostovs’ simple and old-fashioned charms—their
hospitality, their love of the hunt, their largesse with gifts—are
a liability in the modern world. Their grace and friendliness contrast
sharply with the cool and calculating ways of Vasili Kuragin and
his hardhearted children. Yet, sadly, the Kuragins’ fortunes are
growing at an astonishing pace, as the children make brilliant matches
with wealthy spouses due largely to their father’s maneuverings.
By contrast, Berg very nearly rejects Vera Rostov as a consequence
of Count Rostov’s mismanagement of money affairs. The decline in
the Rostov fortunes is not due to overly luxurious living but to
simple obliviousness. Nicholas’s loss at cards illustrates this
obliviousness, as he squanders money not because of a weakness for
women or horses, but because he does not understand that his opponent
at cards is angry and jealous that Sonya prefers Nicholas. It is
this naïve good faith and carefree lifestyle that is costing the Rostovs
their wealth and standing.
The multiple marriages in War and Peace remind
us of the variety of motives for choosing a particular mate. Spouses
may be selected for reasons that are sentimental or practical, self-serving
or altruistic, self-deceiving or wise; Tolstoy, who suffered in
his own marriage, is aware of all of these possibilities. Pierre’s
disastrous decision to marry Helene is only an extreme form of the
blindness that frequently overtakes various individuals in the courtship
rituals we see in the novel. In Book Eight, Julie Karagina’s foolish
denial of Boris’s fortune hunting shows us how close Mary might
have come to a similar fate with the same suitor, as Mary feels
just as desperate for marriage as Julie. Andrew’s suitability as
a husband for Natasha is in doubt, despite the evidence of love
and affection on both sides. These doubts arise partly because we
know that Andrew was dissatisfied even with his angelic first wife,
Lise, whom all have described as a paragon of virtuous womanhood.
The only real hope for marriage at this point in the novel is in
Nicholas’s proposal to Sonya, which has arisen not out of a desire
for money, but out of sincere feeling.
