Collage 476

Volume III, Part Two, Chapter XXIII. Pierre is hanging out with the Russian army, just before the battle of Borodino. He is with the general Kutuzov, Boris and Dolokhov as well as many others. He and Dolokhov (my favorite bad-boy character) had a duel many chapters ago when Pierre was offended by Dolokhov's attentions to his wife Helene. Dokolhov asks for Pierre's forgiveness. 

I love Tolstoy's descriptions of nature. In this passage, he describes the scene prior to the battle. "... where soldiers were pulling down the last logs of the cottages and barns. Then downhill and uphill they rode on through broken rye, beaten down as if by hail...". Can't you just smell it? Feel it? Sense it? So in this collage, I added some hail, falling on the left side. -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 207-208, Volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 4/15/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 767-769