> I've been thinking about poor Pierre, a good heart, but going along, being pushed along by the society users around him... This scene is from his stay at Prince Vassily's house, who is madly trying to set him up with Helene...
"He so constantly heard the words: 'with your extraordinary kindness', 'with your excellent heart', 'you yourself, Count, are so pure' or 'if he were as intelligent as you are' and so on, that he was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence, the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent.
Even people who had formerly been wicked and obviously hostile became affectionate and loving with him.
It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should love him, it would have seemed so unnatural if someone did not love him, that he could not help believing in the sincerity of the people around him. Besides, he had not time to ask himself about the sincerity or insincerity of these people." (p.202)
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I love how Tolstoy's omniscient narrator takes us into Pierre's mind, and you want him to wake up...he seems tossed around, with no firm place to land right now.
Don't do it!!! Don't fall for Helene!
--Lulu
Lola Baltzell
page 81-82 from original text
made 3/26/10
collage, ink and acrylic paint on paper
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