Napoleon was experiencing a painful feeling similar to that which is always experienced by a lucky gambler, who madly threw his money about, always won, and suddenly, precisely when he has calculated all the chances of the game, feels that the more he thinks over his move, the more certain he is to lose.
This arcs back to that painful scene where Nicolai Rostov loses much of the family fortune while playing cards with Dolokhov.
In this piece, I hand-wrote in India ink the names of several previous victorious Napoleonic battles -- Lodi and Marengo were a few of them. One of the many wonderful aspects of this project has been the opportunity to re-connect with Russian language which I fell in love with in college oh-so-many years ago. -- Lola
Lola Baltzell
from page 249-250, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 5/6/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 802-803
No comments:
Post a Comment