Pierre’s wife, Hélène, begs him to take her back, and trying to abide by the Freemason laws of forgiveness, he agrees. Hélène establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society.
Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Saint Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Saint Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, Andrei’s father dislikes the Rostovs and opposes the marriage, insisting that the couple wait a year before marrying. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha distraught. Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to Moscow in order to raise funds for her trousseau.
Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets Hélène and her brother Anatole. Anatole has since married a Polish woman whom he abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and determined to seduce her and conspires with his sister to do so. Anatole succeeds in making Natasha believe he loves her, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha writes to Princess Maria, Andrei’s sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Natasha learns from Pierre of Anatole’s marriage. Devastated, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill.
Pierre is initially horrified by Natasha’s behavior but realizes he has fallen in love with her. As the Great Comet of 1811–12 streaks across the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre. Prince Andrei coldly accepts Natasha’s breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal.
Book Three
With the help of her family, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming confrontation between Napoleon’s army and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation and that Pierre himself has an eschatological role. Old Prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke knowing that French marauders are coming for his estate. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to the distraught Princess Maria.
Back in Moscow, the patriotic Petya joins a crowd in audience of Tzar Alexander and manages to snatch a biscuit thrown from the balcony window of the Cathedral of the Assumption by the Tzar. He is nearly crushed by the throngs in his effort. Under the influence of the same patriotism, his father finally allows him to enlist.
Napoleon himself is the main character in this section, and the novel presents him in vivid detail, both personally and as both a thinker and would-be strategist. Also described are the well-organized force of over four hundred thousand troops of the French Grande Armée (only one hundred and forty thousand of them actually French-speaking) that marches through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew.
After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil, he experiences first-hand the death and destruction of war; Eugène’s artillery continues to pound Russian support columns, while Marshals Ney and Davout set up a crossfire with artillery positioned on the Semyonovskaya heights. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon’s reputedly invincible army. The Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatole Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatole loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a grenade wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified.
The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it became clear that Kutuzov had retreated past Moscow. The Muscovites are being given contradictory instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Fyodor Rostopchin, the commander in chief of Moscow, is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. However, Tolstoy states that the burning of an abandoned city mostly built of wood was inevitable, and while the French blame the Russians, these blame the French. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, but in the end, Natasha convinces them to load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is among the wounded.
When Napoleon’s army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a naïve mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes anonymous in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her.
Pierre saves the life of a French officer who, seeking shelter, enters the home of a dead friend of Pierre’s, in which Pierre has been living since departing his own home. The two have a long, amicable conversation. The next day Pierre goes into the street to resume his assassination plan. He rescues a young girl from a burning house and then comes across two French soldiers robbing an Armenian family. When one of the soldiers tries to rip the necklace off the young Armenian woman’s neck, Pierre intervenes by attacking the soldiers, and is taken prisoner by the French army.
Book Four
After his capture, Pierre believes he will be executed. In the end he is spared, but witnesses the execution of other prisoners with horror. Pierre becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a Russian peasant with a saintly demeanor. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity, who is utterly without pretense.
Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of tribulation—during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French—Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party led by Dolokhov and Denisov, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action.
Meanwhile, Andrei has been taken in and cared for by the Rostovs, fleeing from Moscow to Yaroslavl. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. In an internal transformation, he loses the fear of death and forgives Natasha in a last act before dying.
As the novel draws to a close, Pierre’s wife Hélène dies from an overdose of an abortifacient (Tolstoy does not state it explicitly but the euphemism he uses is unambiguous). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei’s death and Pierre of Karataev’s. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement.
Epilogue in two parts
First part
The first part of the epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. Nikolai becomes worried about his family’s finances and leaves the army after hearing of Petya’s death. There is little hope for recovery. Given the Rostovs’ ruin, he does not feel comfortable with the prospect of marrying the wealthy Marya Bolkonskaya, but when they meet again, they both still feel love for each other. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate. Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. Although he finds marrying women for money repugnant, he gives in to his love for Princess Maria and marries her.
Nikolai and Maria then move to her inherited estate of Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their lives. Nikolai and Maria have children together, and also raise Prince Andrei’s orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky.
As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples – Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria – remain devoted. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father “would be satisfied” (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt).
Second part
The second part of the epilogue contains Tolstoy’s critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. The 19th-century Great Man Theory claims that historical events are the result of the actions of “heroes” and other great individuals; Tolstoy argues that this is impossible because of how rarely these actions result in great historical
