Collage 190

The scene is a meeting at the English Club in Moscow, Volume II, Part One, Chapter III. There are various circles of people discussing different topics. The book started like this, in the drawing room of Anna Pavlovna. Tolstoy uses this device frequently so the reader can access many points of view. We again meet up with Pierre. "Pierre, who, on his wife's orders, had let his hair grow long and removed his spectacles, was fashionably dressed, but walked about the room with a sad and dejected air. As everywhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of people who bowed before his wealth, and he treated them with a habitual lordliness and absentminded disdain. By his age he should have been with the young people, but by his wealth and connections he was a member of the circle of old, venerable guests, and therefore he kept going from one circle to another."

Is one to feel sorry for him, or does he keep himself locked in isolation out of pride? -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 387-388 of original text
collage, acrylic paint
made 8/6/10