The avant-garde found this dithyrambic praise very offensive. "Stra- khov is the only one to believe that Tolstoy is a genius," said the St. Petersburg Gazette. And in the St. Petersburg News, Burenin affirmed that The Dawn must have been attempting to compete with the humorous newspapers when it said that Tolstoy's novel had "universal significance." Satirical verses were circulating, in which Tolstoy was qualified as the "world's greatest genius."7
Amused by this critical controversy raging over War and Peace, the novelist Leskov wrote, in the Stock Exchange News (1869-70), that "Long periods elapse between the publication of each volume of the scries, during which, as the saying goes, rccds are broken on the author's back: he is callcd this and that, a fatalist, an idiot, a madman, a realist, a troll; and he, in the following installment, remains what he is and intends to be. . . .He paces along, a massive charger borne up by solid legs, and iron-shod. . . ."
In general, Tolstoy paid no attention to the critics. "Pushkin was greatly troubled by critics," he said. "One is better off ignoring them."8 However, he could not resist the pleasure of reading and rereading Strakhov's flattering articles, and he was subsequently to say, with regal assurance, that in his study of War and Peace Strakhov had perceived "the lofty significance the book has acquired and can never lose again."
In a postscript to War and Peace Tolstoy said the book was not a novel, even less a poem, and still less a historical chronicle; it was a new form of expression, "designed to suit what the author had to say." Thus proclaiming his independence from every literary form, he invited his readers to abandon their old habits, too, and reach beyond the characters and plot to discover the overall structure of the work for themselves. And indeed, it is only when the eyes cease to focus on the thousand details in the picture that the grandeur of the whole becomes apparent. Then, far above the scramble and swarm of individual human destinies emerge the eternal laws that govern the universe. Birth, death, love, ambition, jealousy, anguish, vanity: the deep, calm respiration of mankind strikes us full in the face.
First we see the cream of Russian society in the last days of peace in 1805. Drawing-room conversations, fluttering of butterflies, pettiness of spcech and intention. Among this little menagerie of insignificant, silly, dcccitful, debauched, idle people, a few souls ring more deeply. Pierre Bezukhov, oafish and soft-hearted; Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, tense, sardonic and proud; Princess Marya, exuding sweetness and resignation in the shadow of her tyrannical father; the Rostov children, whose liveliness, spontaneity and youthful appeal are like a fresh, cool breeze blowing through the book; and among them, Natasha—passionate, devil-may-care, willful and tender Natasha, a mixture of Tanya Behrs and Sonya Tolstoy.
War breaks out. The problems of each are swept away by the problem of all. History puts an end to stories. The Russian army invades Austria. Bloody battles are fought, as futile as they are inevitable. The real leaders arc not the men who plot stratagems, like Napoleon, but those who, like Kutuzov, submit to "circumstances, the will of their subordinates and the whims of chance." In action, Prince Andrey feels strangely relieved to be borne along by a flood over which he has no control. While he searches for the meaning of this tempest raging over whole nations, Pierre Bezukhov, far behind the lines, is contaminated by the artificiality of his circle and marries the lovely Elena Kuragin; and Elena's brother Anatol is refused by Princess Marya, whom he does not love. The war continues. Wounded at Austerlitz, Prince Andrey has a revelation of the absurdity and purposclcssncss of life. Lying on his back, he sees above him "a sky that was somehow vague, but very far and high, immensely high, in which gray clouds were drifting." And he says to himself, "How calm and peaceful, how majestic . . . Everything is vain, everything is false, except this l>oundless sky. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, except that. . . ." Life resumes its course, however, for him and for the others, with its honors and errors and fruitless striving. Pierre Bezukhov suspects Elena of faithlessness, wounds his rival Dolokhov in a duel, separates from his wife, contemplates his existence with disgust, becomes involved in freemasonry, plans to emancipate his serfs. Prince Andrey, back home, finds his wife, the "little princess," about to give birth. He has scant affection for her and treats her as a child herself; but she dies in childbirth, almost under his eyes, and her death depresses him. He seeks another source of affection and begins to grow fond of Natasha Rostov. She is moved, attracted; but, out of respect for family conventions, the marriage is put off for a year. For her, the delay is fataclass="underline" forgetting Prince Andrey, she becomes enamored of handsome Anatol Kuragin and plans to elope with him, but the attempt ends ignominiously in scandal and dishonor. And once again the dreadful threat of cataclysm rises and towers over the frog-pond: 1812—war breaks out again. Napoleon's troops invade Russia. Borodino. Prince Andrcy is badly injured. On the table next to him in the field hospital, a leg has just been amputated—the leg of the person he hates most in the world: Anatol Kuragin. ITis hatred melts on the spot, into trembling pit)'. He weeps "for all men, for himself, for their errors and his." He thinks of Natasha. He dreams of seeing her again. Miraculously, he does see her again, during the retreat, and then he dies. But what is that one death among all those others that litter the Russian soil these days? Moscow in flames. National union. Napoleon hesitant, worried. Pierre Bezukhov schemes to slay the tyrant. He is arrested and deported by the French. In his convoy he meets a Russian muzhik, Platon Karatayev, a pious and resigned man who smiles at suffering. Partisans heckle the fleeing French. One of them is Petya Rostov, who is killed. But Pierre Bezukhov is liberated by the Cossacks. Back in Moscow, he meets Natasha Rostov again and, after a long struggle with his conscience, realizes that he loves her and finds the courage to propose. The couple appears again, older, more staid and sedate, in 1820, in the Epilogue. Pierre is still excitcd by liberal ideas. He joins a small political club that aspires to reform ever)' institution; a few years more, and we will probably find him among the ranks of the Decembrists. The story stops before the heroes reach the end of their road—with the next wave swelling behind them, the young, thirsty for love and battle.
When he began his book, did Tolstoy know what adventures lay in store for his characters from the first line to the last? Everything inclines us to believe he did not: their destinies as well as their personalities were dccidcd as he went along. And yet their behavior corresponds to their personalities at every turn. The wildest schemes seem as matter-of-fact as if they were proposed by living beings. That is the miracle of Tolstoy: this gift of life that he transmits to hundreds of creatures, all different, lightly yet unforgettably sketched: soldiers, peasants, generals, great noblemen, young maidens and women of the world. He moves from one to the other, effortlessly changing age, sex and social class. He gives each a particular way of thinking and talking, a physical apj>earance, a weight in live flesh, a past, even an odor. There would be nothing so remarkable in it if these were exceptional people, whose features were etched in acid. But no: the protagonists of this drama are standard issue, who might not arouse our curiosity if we were to meet them on the street. Here, however, they are identified and animated with such skill that they continue to live and move in our memories after we have closed the book. We would recognize her in a thousand, Natasha Rostov, "not pretty, black-eyed, with a wide, ex- pressivc mouth . . . narrow shoulders, bare arms full of childish grace." She dreams of Boris Drubetskoy, inflames Vaska Denisov, falls in love with Prince Andrcy Bolkonsky and becomcs engaged to him—which does not prevent her from being swept off her feet by Anatol Kuragin and ultimately marrying Pierre Bezukhov. Thus, as she pursues her hectic course toward happiness, she acts as a link between all the main characters of the book. Every one, at some point, draws near to her, is lit up by and glows in her flame. "Whatever she did, she threw herself into it, body and soul," wrote Tolstoy. Whether caring for the wounded, sitting with Prince Andrey on his deathbed, singing, dancing, dashing through the country or loving the fatuous, absurd Kuragin—she abandons herself utterly to her joy or duty or danger or sorrow. Not over- intelligent, perhaps, or very cultivated, but instinct does duty for wit in her. In his remarks Tolstoy noted, "Prodigal . . . Self-confident . . . Loved by all . . . Proud . . . Musical . . . She needs a husband, two husbands, she needs children, she needs a bed. . . ." The war and the deaths of her brother and Prince Andrcy make brutal inroads on the girl her intimates used to call the "graceful little imp." Badly shaken, she contemplates the world with new seriousness. In the Epilogue we see her happily married, basking in a fairly obtuse sort of felicity. "She had grown so round and broad that it was hard to recognize the slender, quicksilver Natasha of old in this stout matron. . . . Talk and argument on women's rights or the relations between married couples not only did not interest her, she did not understand them." In the author's scale of values it was not wrong for a wife to be concerned exclusively with housekeeping and children. Unlike the avant-garde writers of his time who were preaching emancipation, he considered that women must remain in their rightful place, obedient to their husbands and tied to hearth and cradle, if the very structure of the family and hence of society were not to collapse.