War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

[Squid]

One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with

close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable

at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout

young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known

grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man

had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had

only just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this

was his first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with

the nod she accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room.

But in spite of this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and

fear, as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the

place, came over her face when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was

certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room, her anxiety

could only have reference to the clever though shy, but observant

and natural, expression which distinguished him from everyone else

in that drawing room.

 

"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor

invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her

aunt as she conducted him to her.

[Iapetus999]

"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He

is the well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army

under the late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is

very clever but eccentric, and a bore.

 

Isn't there a King of Prussia shopping mall near Philly?

http://www.kingofprussiamall.com/

Edited August 10, 2005 by Iapetus999

[Squid]

Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look

round as if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to

the little princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate

acquaintance.

 

Anna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the

aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health.

Anna Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know

the Abbe Morio? He is a most interesting man."

[Alpinfox]

 

Shouldn't you be posting beta about iron horse?

[Squid]

"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very

interesting but hardly feasible."

[Alpinfox]

 

[stepping into Squid's head] "Gee, I really need to beat this spray addiction..... I KNOW! Everytime I feel like spraying, I'll just post a paragraph of War & Peace and when I get to the end, I'll flip out and move to Nebraska!" [/stepping out of Squid's head]

 

Man. You're weird.

[Squid]

"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and

get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now

committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady

before she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak

to another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big

feet spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the

abbe's plan chimerical.

[olyclimber]

he's possessed by Tolstoy. There is only one remedy.

[Clampooner]

No, this is pure genius! Do you know how many page tops AND page bottoms he'll have by the end of this! Wait... no one gives a crap about those... I think all that chalk dust is getting to him (not to mention those employees )

[foraker]

Isn't this the point in the movie where all the dudes chip in and finance some BuxomBlondeNympho with a bad memory to give the MainNerd a sympathy f**k?

[Squid]

"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pavlovna with a smile.

[olyclimber]

Now let us look at this mouse in action. Let us suppose, for instance, that it feels insulted, too (and it almost always does feel insulted), and wants to revenge itself, too. There may even be a greater accumulation of spite in it than in l'homme de la nature et de la verite. The base and nasty desire to vent that spite on its assailant rankles perhaps even more nastily in it than in l'homme de la nature et de la verite. For through his innate stupidity the latter looks upon his revenge as justice pure and simple; while in consequence of his acute consciousness the mouse does not believe in the justice of it. To come at last to the deed itself, to the very act of revenge. Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts, emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it by the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it till their healthy sides ache. Of course the only thing left for it is to dismiss all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it will recall it all, it will go over and over every detail, it will invent unheard of things against itself, pretending that those things might happen, and will forgive nothing. Maybe it will begin to revenge itself, too, but, as it were, piecemeal, in trivial ways, from behind the stove, incognito, without believing either in its own right to vengeance, or in the success of its revenge, knowing that from all its efforts at revenge it will suffer a hundred times more than he on whom it revenges itself, while he, I daresay, will not even scratch himself. On its deathbed it will recall it all over again, with interest accumulated over all the years and ... But it is just in that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in that conscious burying oneself alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in that acutely recognised and yet partly doubtful hopelessness of one's position, in that hell of unsatisfied desires turned inward, in that fever of oscillations, of resolutions determined for ever and repented of again a minute later–that the savour of that strange enjoyment of which I have spoken lies. It is so subtle, so difficult of analysis, that persons who are a little limited, or even simply persons of strong nerves, will not understand a single atom of it. "Possibly," you will add on your own account with a grin, "people will not understand it either who have never received a slap in the face," and in that way you will politely hint to me that I, too, perhaps, have had the experience of a slap in the face in my life, and so I speak as one who knows. I bet that you are thinking that. But set your minds at rest, gentlemen, I have not received a slap in the face, though it is absolutely a matter of indifference to me what you may think about it. Possibly, I even regret, myself, that I have given so few slaps in the face during my life. But enough ... not another word on that subject of such extreme interest to you.

[olyclimber]

I will continue calmly concerning persons with strong nerves who do not understand a certain refinement of enjoyment. Though in certain circumstances these gentlemen bellow their loudest like bulls, though this, let us suppose, does them the greatest credit, yet, as I have said already, confronted with the impossible they subside at once. The impossible means the stone wall! What stone wall? Why, of course, the laws of nature, the deductions of natural science, mathematics. As soon as they prove to you, for instance, that you are descended from a monkey, then it is no use scowling, accept it for a fact. When they prove to you that in reality one drop of your own fat must be dearer to you than a hundred thousand of your fellow-creatures, and that this conclusion is the final solution of all so-called virtues and duties and all such prejudices and fancies, then you have just to accept it, there is no help for it, for twice two is a law of mathematics. Just try refuting it.

[Squid]

And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave,

she resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch,

ready to help at any point where the conversation might happen to

flag. As the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands

to work, goes round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or

there one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and

hastens to check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna

Pavlovna moved about her drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a

too-noisy group, and by a word or slight rearrangement kept the

conversational machine in steady, proper, and regular motion. But amid

these cares her anxiety about Pierre was evident. She kept an

anxious watch on him when he approached the group round Mortemart to

listen to what was being said there, and again when he passed to

another group whose center was the abbe.

 

Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna

Pavlovna's was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all

the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like

a child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of

missing any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the

self-confident and refined expression on the faces of those present he

was always expecting to hear something very profound. At last he

came up to Morio. Here the conversation seemed interesting and he

stood waiting for an opportunity to express his own views, as young

people are fond of doing.

[Dave_Schuldt]

Yo Squid, are you actualy read it? Or are you just a literary poser? I read it about 20 years a go, great book took me forever, had to keep getting my time extended at the library. Lucky for me no one else wanted it.

[olyclimber]

"Upon my word," they will shout at you, "it is no use protesting: it is a case of twice two makes four! Nature does not ask your permission, she has nothing to do with your wishes, and whether you like her laws or dislike them, you are bound to accept her as she is, and consequently all her conclusions. A wall, you see, is a wall ... and so on, and so on." Merciful Heavens! but what do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four? Of course I cannot break through the wall by battering my head against it if I really have not the strength to knock it down, but I am not going to be reconciled to it simply because it is a stone wall and I have not the strength.

[Squid]

Anna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed

steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,

beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face

was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company

had settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed

round the abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the

beautiful Princess Helene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little

Princess Bolkonskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump

for her age. The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna

Pavlovna.

[olyclimber]

"Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next," you cry, with a laugh.

[knotzen]

It was a dark and stormy night... And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even my louse.

[Squid]

The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and

polished manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out

of politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in

which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up

as a treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a

specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen

it in the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served

up to her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly

choice morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing

the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc

d'Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were

particular reasons for Buonaparte's hatred of him.

[olyclimber]

"Well, even in toothache there is enjoyment," I answer. I had toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan. It is a good example, gentlemen, and I will develop it. Those moans express in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so humiliating to your consciousness; the whole legal system of nature on which you spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same while she does not. They express the consciousness that you have no enemy to punish, but that you have pain; the consciousness that in spite of all possible Wagenheims you are in complete slavery to your teeth; that if someone wishes it, your teeth will leave off aching, and if he does not, they will go on aching another three months; and that finally if you are still contumacious and still protest, all that is left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your wall with your fist as hard as you can, and absolutely nothing more. Well, these mortal insults, these jeers on the part of someone unknown, end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the highest degree of voluptuousness. I ask you, gentlemen, listen sometimes to the moans of an educated man of the nineteenth century suffering from toothache, on the second or third day of the attack, when he is beginning to moan, not as he moaned on the first day, that is, not simply because he has toothache, not just as any coarse peasant, but as a man affected by progress and European civilisation, a man who is "divorced from the soil and the national elements," as they express it now-a-days. His moans become nasty, disgustingly malignant, and go on for whole days and nights. And of course he knows himself that he is doing himself no sort of good with his moans; he knows better than anyone that he is only lacerating and harassing himself and others for nothing; he knows that even the audience before whom he is making his efforts, and his whole family, listen to him with loathing, do not put a ha'porth of faith in him, and inwardly understand that he might moan differently, more simply, without trills and flourishes, and that he is only amusing himself like that from ill-humour, from malignancy. Well, in all these recognitions and disgraces it is that there lies a voluptuous pleasure. As though he would say: "I am worrying you, I am lacerating your hearts, I am keeping everyone in the house awake. Well, stay awake then, you, too, feel every minute that I have toothache. I am not a hero to you now, as I tried to seem before, but simply a nasty person, an impostor. Well, so be it, then! I am very glad that you see through me. It is nasty for you to hear my despicable moans: well, let it be nasty; here I will let you have a nastier flourish in a minute...." You do not understand even now, gentlemen? No, it seems our development and our consciousness must go further to understand all the intricacies of this pleasure. You laugh? Delighted. My jests, gentlemen, are of course in bad taste, jerky, involved, lacking self-confidence. But of course that is because I do not respect myself. Can a man of perception respect himself at all?

[Squid]

"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pavlovna,

with a pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in

the sound of that sentence: "Contez nous cela, Vicomte."

 

The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness

to comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone

to listen to his tale.

 

"The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pavlovna to of

the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to

another. "How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a

third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest

and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef

on a hot dish.

[olyclimber]

Come, can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling of his own degradation possibly have a spark of respect for himself? I am not saying this now from any mawkish kind of remorse. And, indeed, I could never endure saying, "Forgive me, Papa, I won't do it again," not because I am incapable of saying that–on the contrary, perhaps just because I have been too capable of it, and in what a way, too. As though of design I used to get into trouble in cases when I was not to blame in any way. That was the nastiest part of it. At the same time I was genuinely touched and penitent, I used to shed tears and, of course, deceived myself, though I was not acting in the least and there was a sick feeling in my heart at the time.... For that one could not blame even the laws of nature, though the laws of nature have continually all my life offended me more than anything. It is loathsome to remember it all, but it was loathsome even then. Of course, a minute or so later I would realise wrathfully that it was all a lie, a revolting lie, an affected lie, that is, all this penitence, this emotion, these vows of reform. You will ask why did I worry myself with such antics: answer, because it was very dull to sit with one's hands folded, and so one began cutting capers. That is really it. Observe yourselves more carefully, gentlemen, then you will understand that it is so. I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. How many times it has happened to me–well, for instance, to take offence simply on purpose, for nothing; and one knows oneself, of course, that one is offended at nothing; that one is putting it on, but yet one brings oneself at last to the point of being really offended. All my life I have had an impulse to play such pranks, so that in the end I could not control it in myself. Another time, twice, in fact, I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, too, gentlemen, I assure you. In the depth of my heart there was no faith in my suffering, only a faint stir of mockery, but yet I did suffer, and in the real, orthodox way; I was jealous, beside myself ... and it was all from ennui, gentlemen, all from ennui; inertia overcame me.

[Squid]

The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.

 

"Come over here, Helene, dear," said Anna Pavlovna to the

beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of

another group.

[olyclimber]

You know the direct, legitimate fruit of consciousness is inertia, that is, conscious sitting-with-the-hands-folded. I have referred to this already. I repeat, I repeat with emphasis: all "direct" persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited. How explain that? I will tell you: in consequence of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones, and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. To begin to act, you know, you must first have your mind completely at ease and no trace of doubt left in it. Why, how am I, for example to set my mind at rest? Where are the primary causes on which I am to build? Where are my foundations? Where am I to get them from? I exercise myself in reflection, and consequently with me every primary cause at once draws after itself another still more primary, and so on to infinity. That is just the essence of every sort of consciousness and reflection. It must be a case of the laws of nature again. What is the result of it in the end? Why, just the same. Remember I spoke just now of vengeance. (I am sure you did not take it in.) I said that a man revenges himself because he sees justice in it. Therefore he has found a primary cause, that is, justice. And so he is at rest on all sides, and consequently he carries out his revenge calmly and successfully, being persuaded that he is doing a just and honest thing. But I see no justice in it, I find no sort of virtue in it either, and consequently if I attempt to revenge myself, it is only out of spite. Spite, of course, might overcome everything, all my doubts, and so might serve quite successfully in place of a primary cause, precisely because it is not a cause. But what is to be done if I have not even spite (I began with that just now, you know). In consequence again of those accursed laws of consciousness, anger in me is subject to chemical disintegration. You look into it, the object flies off into air, your reasons evaporate, the criminal is not to be found, the wrong becomes not a wrong but a phantom, something like the toothache, for which no one is to blame, and consequently there is only the same outlet left again–that is, to beat the wall as hard as you can. So you give it up with a wave of the hand because you have not found a fundamental cause. And try letting yourself be carried away by your feelings, blindly, without reflection, without a primary cause, repelling consciousness at least for a time; hate or love, if only not to sit with your hands folded. The day after tomorrow, at the latest, you will begin despising yourself for having knowingly deceived yourself. Result: a soap-bubble and inertia. Oh, gentlemen, do you know, perhaps I consider myself an intelligent man, only because all my life I have been able neither to begin nor to finish anything. Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?