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Nikolai Rostov
Princess Marya lives with her father Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky on his Bald Hills estate. She is also very close to her brother Prince Andrei, often worrying about his moral and spiritual state. Marya is a gentle, sincere, and somewhat naïve young woman. Though outwardly plain, she has luminous eyes that light up when she’s listening thoughtfully to others. She spends her days sacrificially catering to her father’s needs, seeing him as unfailingly kind and declining to judge him for his harsh moods. Princess Marya is a devout Orthodox Christian who enjoys sheltering poor, wandering pilgrims and briefly dreams of becoming one herself. She tends to deny her own needs (though she has a deep longing for romantic love, which she views as sinful) in order to bear her loved ones’ burdens. Although she’s trusting to a fault and tends to overlook others’ flaws, she also has a deep sense of pride and she refuses to be taken advantage of once she understands the reality of a situation. For example, she refuses an attempted match with Anatole Kuragin. She is friends with Julie Karagin, with whom she often exchanges letters, though it becomes clear that Julie doesn’t respect her. Over the years, her father treats her with increasing cruelty, but they reconcile when he’s on his deathbed. Around this time Princess Marya begins to hope for a different life, and after Nikolai Rostov helps her manage some rebellious peasants, she suspects she could love him. With Natasha Rostov, she shares the duties of nursing Prince Andrei when he’s dying of war wounds. Despite a rocky start, she and Natasha become best friends and live together in Moscow. In 1814, she and Nikolai finally renew their romance, get married, and move to Bald Hills. By 1820, they have three children with a fourth on the way. Princess Marya is deeply happy with family life, although she recognizes that she’s no longer able to pursue spiritual longing to the same degree.
Princess Marya Bolkonsky Quotes in War and Peace
The War and Peace quotes below are all either spoken by Princess Marya Bolkonsky or refer to Princess Marya Bolkonsky. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Volume 1, Part 3: Chapters 1–5
Quotes
Thinking of marriage, Princess Marya dreamed of family happiness and children, but her chiefest, strongest, and most secret dream was of earthly love. […] “My God,” she said, “how can I suppress these devil’s thoughts in my heart? How can I renounce evil imaginings forever, so as peacefully to do Thy will?” And she had barely asked this question, when God answered her in her own heart: “[…] The future of people and your own fate must be unknown to you; but live so as to be ready for anything. If God should see fit to test you in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill His will.” With this reassuring thought (but still with a hope that her forbidden earthly dream would be fulfilled), Princess Marya sighed, crossed herself, and went downstairs without thinking about her dress, or her hairstyle, or how she would walk in, or what she would say. What could all that mean in comparison with the predestination of God, without whose will not one hair falls from man’s head.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Part 5: Chapters 5–10
Quotes
The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box calm and cheerful. Natasha returned to her father’s box, now totally subjected to the world she was in. Everything that was happening before her now seemed perfectly natural to her; but instead all her former thoughts about her fiancé, about Princess Marya, about country life, never once entered her head, as if it was all long ago, long past.
In the fourth act there was a devil, who sang, waving his arm, until the boards were pulled out from under him, and he sank down below. That was all Natasha saw of the fourth act: something excited and tormented her, and the cause of it was Kuragin, whom she involuntarily followed with her eyes.
Volume 3, Part 2: Chapters 13–14
Quotes
“Well, what if I really have fallen in love with him?” thought Princess Marya.
Ashamed as she was to admit to herself that she had fallen in love first with a man who, perhaps, would never love her, she comforted herself with the thought that no one would ever know of it, and that she would not be to blame if, to the end of her life, without speaking of it to anyone, she should love the one she loved for the first and last time.
Sometimes she remembered his glances, his sympathy, his words, and happiness did not seem impossible to her. And it was then that Dunyasha noticed her, smiling, looking out the window of the carriage.
“And it had to be that he came to Bogucharovo, and at that very moment!” thought Princess Marya. […] And in all of that Princess Marya saw the will of Providence.
Volume 4, Part 4: Chapters 1–3
Quotes
Morally bowed down and shutting their eyes to the menacing cloud of death that hung over them, they did not dare to look life in the face. They carefully protected their open wounds from any offensive, painful touch. Everything— a carriage driving quickly down the street, a reminder of dinner, a maid’s question about what dress to prepare; still worse, a word of insincere, weak sympathy— everything painfully irritated the wound, seemed offensive, and violated the necessary quiet in which they both tried to listen to the dread, stern choir not yet silenced in their imagination, and prevented them from peering into those mysterious, infinite distances which for a moment had opened before them.
Epilogue, Part 1: Chapters 8–16
Quotes
Sometimes the thought occurred to her that this difference was caused by age; but she felt that she was guilty before him, and in her heart she promised herself to mend her ways and do the impossible— that is, in this life to love her husband, and her children, and Nikolenka, and all who were close to her as Christ loved mankind. Countess Marya’s soul always strove towards the infinite, eternal, and perfect, and therefore could never be at peace. The stern expression of concealed, lofty suffering of a soul burdened by a body came to her face. Nikolai looked at her […] and, standing in front of the icon, he began to recite the evening prayers.
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Princess Marya Bolkonsky Quotes in War and Peace
The War and Peace quotes below are all either spoken by Princess Marya Bolkonsky or refer to Princess Marya Bolkonsky. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Volume 1, Part 3: Chapters 1–5
Quotes
Thinking of marriage, Princess Marya dreamed of family happiness and children, but her chiefest, strongest, and most secret dream was of earthly love. […] “My God,” she said, “how can I suppress these devil’s thoughts in my heart? How can I renounce evil imaginings forever, so as peacefully to do Thy will?” And she had barely asked this question, when God answered her in her own heart: “[…] The future of people and your own fate must be unknown to you; but live so as to be ready for anything. If God should see fit to test you in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill His will.” With this reassuring thought (but still with a hope that her forbidden earthly dream would be fulfilled), Princess Marya sighed, crossed herself, and went downstairs without thinking about her dress, or her hairstyle, or how she would walk in, or what she would say. What could all that mean in comparison with the predestination of God, without whose will not one hair falls from man’s head.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Part 5: Chapters 5–10
Quotes
The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box calm and cheerful. Natasha returned to her father’s box, now totally subjected to the world she was in. Everything that was happening before her now seemed perfectly natural to her; but instead all her former thoughts about her fiancé, about Princess Marya, about country life, never once entered her head, as if it was all long ago, long past.
In the fourth act there was a devil, who sang, waving his arm, until the boards were pulled out from under him, and he sank down below. That was all Natasha saw of the fourth act: something excited and tormented her, and the cause of it was Kuragin, whom she involuntarily followed with her eyes.
Volume 3, Part 2: Chapters 13–14
Quotes
“Well, what if I really have fallen in love with him?” thought Princess Marya.
Ashamed as she was to admit to herself that she had fallen in love first with a man who, perhaps, would never love her, she comforted herself with the thought that no one would ever know of it, and that she would not be to blame if, to the end of her life, without speaking of it to anyone, she should love the one she loved for the first and last time.
Sometimes she remembered his glances, his sympathy, his words, and happiness did not seem impossible to her. And it was then that Dunyasha noticed her, smiling, looking out the window of the carriage.
“And it had to be that he came to Bogucharovo, and at that very moment!” thought Princess Marya. […] And in all of that Princess Marya saw the will of Providence.
Volume 4, Part 4: Chapters 1–3
Quotes
Morally bowed down and shutting their eyes to the menacing cloud of death that hung over them, they did not dare to look life in the face. They carefully protected their open wounds from any offensive, painful touch. Everything— a carriage driving quickly down the street, a reminder of dinner, a maid’s question about what dress to prepare; still worse, a word of insincere, weak sympathy— everything painfully irritated the wound, seemed offensive, and violated the necessary quiet in which they both tried to listen to the dread, stern choir not yet silenced in their imagination, and prevented them from peering into those mysterious, infinite distances which for a moment had opened before them.
Epilogue, Part 1: Chapters 8–16
Quotes
Sometimes the thought occurred to her that this difference was caused by age; but she felt that she was guilty before him, and in her heart she promised herself to mend her ways and do the impossible— that is, in this life to love her husband, and her children, and Nikolenka, and all who were close to her as Christ loved mankind. Countess Marya’s soul always strove towards the infinite, eternal, and perfect, and therefore could never be at peace. The stern expression of concealed, lofty suffering of a soul burdened by a body came to her face. Nikolai looked at her […] and, standing in front of the icon, he began to recite the evening prayers.
