War and Peace: Volume 2, Part 2: Chapters 10–14 Summary & Analysis

After becoming a Mason, Pierre sets out for his estate in Kiev with big plans for the peasants there. He informs his stewards that he intends to liberate the peasants immediately. Hospitals, almshouses, and schools must be established. The head steward points out that Pierre’s estate is in rough shape financially. Perennially in debt, Pierre doesn’t have a mind for business. His goal of serf liberation and the head steward’s goal of debt repayment are in conflict.

Townspeople begin to seek out acquaintance with Pierre, their new rich neighbor. At the same time, Pierre’s weakness for women persists. Instead of starting a new life, he finds himself drawn into the same lifestyle of soirées and balls, just in a different setting. He knows he’s falling short of the Masonic requirement of living a moral life; he reassures himself that he excels at other virtues, like reforming humanity.

In the spring of 1807, Pierre decides to return to Petersburg. On the way, he plans to stop at his various estates to see how his reforms are progressing. The head steward, who understands Pierre well, orders feasts to be held at each stop. The journey cheers Pierre—his peasants seem grateful for his benefactions. What Pierre doesn’t know is that these are fictions. In one village, for example, wealthy peasants claim they’re building a chapel in his honor, but the construction began long ago, and most of the peasants are still impoverished. Pierre happily writes to the Mason grand master about how easy it is to accomplish good.

Rejuvenated from the country, Pierre decides to visit Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, whom he hasn’t seen for two years. He finds him at Bogucharovo, a flat, rather ugly estate. The manor is situated behind a pond in the middle of a wood. Pierre finds Andrei living not in the manor’s big stone house, but in a small, tidy cottage smelling freshly of pine. He’s shocked by his friend’s aged appearance; Andrei’s expression is dull and remote and doesn’t match his warm words of greeting. As the friends haltingly get into conversation, Pierre longs to show he’s improved himself and express his new Masonic beliefs, but expressing joy in front of Andrei feels wrong somehow.

Eventually, their conversation drifts to Pierre’s marriage. When Pierre says it would’ve been wrong to kill Dolokhov in the duel, Prince Andrei says it wouldn’t necessarily have been wrong—people have always been mistaken in their judgment about right and wrong. Finally becoming animated, he argues that the only two “evils” he acknowledges are remorse and illness; the only good in life is avoiding these things.  Pierre vehemently disagrees. He used to think like Andrei does, living only for himself, but now he believes that life’s happiness consists in living for others.

Prince Andrei says that Pierre will get along well with Princess Marya. He also says that his experience has been the opposite of Pierre’s—he once lived for glory and others’ betterment, but this completely ruined his own life. He’s only found peace since he began to live for himself instead. Andrei then argues that Pierre’s reforming efforts actually deprive his peasants of “animal happiness”—in other words, the only real happiness. Physical labor is as necessary for them, he contends, as mental labor is for himself and Pierre.

Pierre finds this view appalling, but Andrei maintains that he didn’t choose to be alive, so the best he can do is live the best he can without bothering anybody. The local people wanted to elect him their marshal, but he believes he lacks the “good-natured and bustling banality” necessary for the post. And the only reason he serves in the military is to temper his father’s more extreme ideas. Pierre tells Andrei he will never agree with his views.

That evening, Prince Andrei and Pierre drive to Bald Hills. Pierre is downcast—he keeps wanting to enlighten Prince Andrei with Masonic ideas, yet he’s afraid that Andrei will discredit them. Finally, he can’t help himself, and he explains Masonry, describing it as Christianity without any religious ritual or nationalistic trappings. He assures Andrei that if he joins the brotherhood, he, too, will once more feel connected to others. To his relief, Andrei does not laugh.

As they cross a river by ferry, however, Prince Andrei asks how it can be true that the Masons alone know the nature of truth—aren’t they just people, too? Pierre explains that truth is discovered by seeing oneself as a step in the interconnected structure of the universe. Andrei says this is Herder’s teaching, and it doesn’t persuade him. Life and death are the only things he finds convincing—specifically, he believes in a future life because there must be a reason for suffering and dying.

Even after they’ve reached the opposite shore and the servants have taken the carriage off, the two men continue to stand on the ferry, talking. Pierre argues that if there’s a future life, then there is also truth and virtue, and a person finds happiness by striving for these, looking toward eternity. In response, Prince Andrei only says, “If only it were so!” But when he looks into the sky, he remembers the sight of the “eternal sky” at Austerlitz, and something stirs in his soul. From that time forward, Prince Andrei becomes aware of a new, inner life.

As Pierre and Prince Andrei arrive at Bald Hills, Prince Andrei points out four people, including a bent old woman and a man with long hair, fleeing from the carriage. He says they’re Princess Marya’s “people of God,” whom, in defiance of Prince Nikolai, Marya welcomes. After settling into their rooms, Prince Andrei and Pierre go to Marya’s room, where she’s sitting with a young man in a monk’s robe and an elderly woman with a childlike face. Princess Marya blushes at their arrival and helplessly rebukes Prince Andrei when he makes joking remarks in French about the “people of God.” Pierre peers at the guests curiously.

Prince Andrei asks the wanderers about their travels, and the old woman, Pelageyushka, starts talking about a miracle-working icon she saw in Kolyazin—holy oil dripped down the cheek of the Mother of God. Pierre protests that such phenomena are tricks played on the people. When Prince Andrei continues to joke, the horrified old woman gets up to leave, but Pierre asks forgiveness so meekly that she relents. Marya is grateful, and for the rest of the visit, both she and Prince Nikolai get along well with Pierre. However, Marya worries that inactive rural life is bad for her brother.