After her father’s funeral, Mary lies in her bedroom until
Mademoiselle Bourienne suggests that they ask the invading French
forces for protection. But there are no horses to take her away,
and the peasants are starving. Mary offers the peasants the grain
stored at Bogucharovo and urges them to leave with her. They refuse
her offer, however, thinking she wants to trick them back into serfdom.
Book Ten, Chapters 13–24
Nicholas and two comrades ride to Bogucharovo by chance,
not knowing it is a Bolkonski residence. Nicholas finds Mary stranded there,
as the peasants refused to let her leave. He quickly brings order
to the rioting peasants. On her way to Moscow, Mary thinks of Nicholas
as her savior and wonders if she loves him. Nicholas too thinks
of marrying her, a wealthy heiress and attractive as well.
Andrew, summoned to serve General Kutuzov, meets Denisov, now
a lieutenant colonel, and reminisces privately about Natasha, whom
Denisov had courted. Kutuzov arrives, fatter than ever. Andrew greets
Kutuzov and tells him of Prince Bolkonski’s death. Denisov presents
to Kutuzov his plan for breaking the French lines of communication.
Andrew observes Kutuzov’s bored, faintly contemptuous seen-it-all
attitude toward the officers reporting to him. At his lodging, Kutuzov
interrupts his reading of a French novel to speak cordially with
Andrew about the late old Prince Bolkonski and to voice frustration
with military advisors. Andrew declines to serve the general at
headquarters.
As the French approach Moscow, the behavior of the Muscovites becomes
more frivolous. Violently anti-French publications are read throughout
the city, and aristocrats try hard not to lapse into their habit
of speaking French. Julie Drubetskaya, Boris’s wife, prepares to
flee. Pierre risks bankruptcy to finance his own regiment, but does
not himself prepare to fight. Julie teases Pierre that he is defending
Natasha’s reputation for personal reasons, and also tells him that
Mary is in town. Pierre is alarmed to realize that the French really
will invade Moscow. Seeing a French cook being flogged as a spy,
Pierre feels that he must leave the city. The thought of sacrificing his
belongings for his country thrills him.
The Russian and French troops clash at the Battle of Borodino. The
Russian forces are considerably weakened, though the narrator argues
that Borodino can be viewed as a Russian spiritual victory. The
narrator tells us that Russian historians have found a way to attribute
the victory to Kutuzov’s military genius, but these historians are
wrong. According to the narrator, there is nothing strategic about
the choice of Borodino as battle site; like everything else in history,
Borodino is the product of happenstance.
Leaving Moscow, Pierre comes upon a convoy of wounded
soldiers. An army doctor tells him they have less than a third of
the wagons they need to cart away the wounded from the next day’s battle.
At Borodino, Pierre sees the French and the Russian encampments
and watches a church procession in which Kutuzov kneels before a
holy icon. Pierre encounters Boris Drubetskoy and also Dolokhov,
who has weaseled his way into an important position. Dolokhov approaches
Pierre and asks his forgiveness for past wrongs. Andrew, meanwhile,
is miserable and disillusioned. He muses on his disillusionment
with his ideals: he has lost faith in love and honor, in his father’s
trust in his homeland, and in Natasha’s loyalty.
