War and Peace

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1867

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Book 2, Part 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5 Summary

Iosif Alexeevich Bazdeev dies and leaves Pierre without a mentor. The loss takes a heavy toll on Pierre, particularly coupled with the news of Andrei and Natasha’s engagement. Pierre’s grief prompts him to lose interest in the Freemasons and return to his bad habits. He drinks, gambles, and spends his nights with the nefarious bachelors at a gentlemen’s club. Pierre embraces this debauchery to drown out his grief and his nagging fear that life is meaningless. Realizing that he has acted wrongly, he leaves Saint Petersburg and returns to his father’s house in Moscow. Though he retains a belief in the existence of goodness and truth, he cannot help but see evil and falseness in every facet of humanity. He remembers hearing that soldiers who come under fire try to occupy their minds with strange, random thoughts to comfort themselves. He pictures all of humanity in a similar way: People drink, gamble, engage with politics, and pursue other ventures as they try to ignore the fleeting, empty nature of existence and seek “refuge from life” (578).

Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky and his daughter Marya move to Moscow. The old prince is sick, and his increasing frailty makes him angry, forgetful, and vindictive. He blames Marya for all the bad luck in his life and loudly declares how much he loves Mademoiselle Bourienne. Marya is also sad and worries that she has begun to echo her father’s irritable, unsociable behavior. She feels trapped and lonely, unable to go out into Moscow society because she needs to stay home and help her father. Even her old friends now seem strangely distant. Her childhood friend Julie Karagina is now a wealthy heiress whose fashionable amusements and frequent parties hold no interest for Marya.

In 1811, Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky has a small party to celebrate his name day. Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy are invited. Just as the guests are about to arrive, the old prince throws a tantrum. He directs his anger at Marya and insists that they can no longer live together. Later, Marya confesses to Pierre that she is unhappy. Pierre listens sympathetically and offers her a potential escape: Boris is searching for a wealthy woman to make his wife, and his options include Marya or her friend Julie. Marya asks Pierre about Natasha Rostov, curious about the woman her brother intends to marry. Pierre assures Marya that Natasha is a fascinating young woman. A short time later, Boris and Julie Karagina announce their engagement.

Chapters 6-15 Summary

Count Rostov and his family move to Moscow. However, his ill wife is forced to remain on their country estate. The Rostov house is not ready for their arrival, so they stay with Natasha’s godmother Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, the woman known as le terrible dragon. Marya Akhrosimova plans Natasha’s social life in Moscow and assures Natasha that Andrei will make an excellent husband.

Natasha visits her prospective in-laws, filled with hope that Marya and Prince Nikolai will love her. However, she is surprised to discover that Marya treats her coldly. The hostile reception drives Natasha to tears. She returns home and spends a long time upset. Natasha blames Andrei—she wishes he had been present to spare her from humiliation.

That night, Count Rostov takes Natasha and Sonya to the opera. The two girls attract the attention of the attendees. Natasha is pleased that she is the focus of so much chatter and praise. However, this sensation only strengthens her sadness that Andrei is not with her. She feels that she has so much love to give and has no one to receive her affection. At first, the wave of emotions has a serious effect on Natasha. She feels disgusted by the theater and the opera, finding their extravagant exaggerations foolish and embarrassing. However, soon Natasha’s mood softens. She examines the audience at the opera: the women in their glamorous outfits and their elegantly dressed male partners. Natasha sees Helene and is struck by her beauty. The confident Anatole strides into the theater and lays eyes on Natasha. His assured, intimate stare makes Natasha feel as though she already knows him.

During the intermission, Helene invites Count Rostov, Sonya, and Natasha to her box. Natasha is almost hypnotized by Helene’s beautiful, unwavering smile. Helene flatters her guests and praises Andrei. During the next break in the show, Helene introduces Natasha to her brother Anatole. Natasha and Anatole have a brief conversation that leaves Natasha with the sense that she is incredibly close to the handsome stranger. Her usual reserve and hesitation around new people vanishes in Anatole’s presence. Throughout the rest of the opera performance, she only thinks about Anatole. Later, Natasha is horrified to realize that the love she feels for Andrei has lost its unique purity.

Anatole has a reputation in Russian high society: He believes that the world only exists to satisfy his urges. Anatole was forced to marry the daughter of a wealthy farmer to settle his gambling debts. However, quickly growing bored of the woman, he paid off her father and abandoned his wife, returning to his libertine lifestyle. In a conversation with Dolokhov, Anatole admits that he is fascinated by young girls and by Natasha Rostov in particular. Dolokhov warns Anatole away from Natasha, though the idea of Anatole and Natasha amuses Helene. She tells Natasha that her brother is infatuated with her. Anatole kisses a confused and excited Natasha at a party. She no longer knows for certain whom she really loves.

One day, Natasha receives two letters. One is from Marya and contains an apology for the previous cold reception. The other is a love letter from Anatole. Natasha writes Marya that she plans to abandon her engagement to Andrei. Later, Sonya finds the letter to Natasha from Anatole and confronts her cousin. Natasha defends her interactions with Anatole and insists that she has done nothing in a dishonorable fashion. Sonya is shocked by the news of the broken engagement between Natasha and Andrei. She resolves to keep a close watch over her cousin. She becomes convinced that Natasha plans to elope with Anatole and grows determined to protect her cousin.

Chapters 16-22 Summary

Anatole convinces Dolokhov to help him seduce Natasha. The two men plan to abduct the young girl and whisk her away from Moscow, where a disgraced priest will pretend to marry Natasha and Anatole. He hopes this hastily arranged fake wedding will convince Natasha to allow Anatole to have sex with her. However, their plan does not succeed: They go to meet Natasha but are chased away a burly groom who works for Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova.

Sonya had told Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova about Natasha and Anatole’s plan to elope. Now she watches over her goddaughter as Natasha lies listlessly on a sofa and refuses to listen to advice. Marya Akhrosimova decides not to tell Count Rostov about his daughter’s plan to run away, but she does tell him that the engagement to Andrei has been called off. Marya Akhrosimova tells Pierre the whole story. Pierre is shocked by Natasha’s behavior, Anatole’s lack of morals, and his wife’s role in the planned kidnapping. Pierre explains to Marya Akhrosimova that Anatole is already married and thus cannot marry again. He sits Natasha down and tells her about Anatole’s past, his existing marriage, and the fact that the planned wedding was a farce designed to exploit her innocence. Natasha is too shocked to reply. Later, a furious Pierre finds Anatole, who agrees with Pierre’s demand that he immediately leave the city. Natasha is distraught by the collapse of her proposed marriage to Anatole. She swallows arsenic in a failed attempt to kill herself.

Andrei learns that Natasha has decided to call off their engagement. Pierre visits his distraught friend. Andrei begs Pierre never to mention the events ever again, telling him to remove Natasha’s letters and mementos from his sight. Though Andrei publicly believes that no woman is ever beyond redemption, he knows deep within himself that he will never forgive Natasha.

Pierre takes the letters and mementos back to Natasha. As he talks with her, Natasha admits that she is confused about love. The sincerity of her sad words strikes a chord in Pierre. He leaves, certain that humanity is capable of tenderness in a way he assumed was impossible. As he walks home, he sees the famous Great Comet of 1812 in the sky. He sees the comet as a symbol of his newfound feelings of harmony and joy. He feels a new vigor in his heart, though many other people consider the comet a warning of bad times ahead.

Book 2, Part 5 Analysis

Pierre seeks an idea that justifies his existence, but he can never truly find something that interests and satisfies him in equal measure. As he searches, he cycles through mentors and father figures—everyone from his distant father, to the manipulative Vasili, to the Freemason Iosif Alexeevich Bazdeev. Though Pierre saw Bazdeev as a man who could guide him to answers to life’s most difficult questions, Bazdeev did not satisfy Pierre needs and insecurities. Pierre never fully realizes that his search for a mentor is an attempt to make up for parental abandonment; he will only quell the need for a father when he becomes a mentor and father figure for several children later in his life.

The narrator presents the trip to the opera and its aftermath as though it were a series of battles, blurring the lines between war and peace and showing how Russia’s upper classes are always embroiled in conflict. The narrator picks out the factions and the families in the audience as though they were military units, showing how they move through the social space with the strategy of a general. Anatole and Helene are masters of this strategy, and they plot against Natasha for their own amusement. The innocent young girl is a naive soldier, caught between experienced, battle-hardened fighters. Anatole nearly kidnaps and elopes with Natasha because of her naivety, illustrating how the aristocrats’ luxurious social events hide a simmering violence that threatens to break out at any time. Just like the duel in the earlier chapters, the opera is a war disguised as a social event.

Book 2 explores Natasha’s understanding of love and sexual desire—and her confusion about the similarities and differences between the two. Her romance with Andrei is something of a fairytale—a handsome prince dances with her at a ball and proposes that they marry. Their engagement, however, is defined by denial: Waiting a year to marry tests Natasha’s patience. The relationship with Anatole, in contrast, is a sensuous and lustful experience, as Anatole feigns an intimate friendship, kisses Natasha in a stirring way, and awakens her burgeoning sexuality. She enjoys the attention but does not have the emotional maturity or the experience necessary to realize that he is only interested in sex. Because of the strict mores emphasizing female sexual purity in the early 19th century, Natasha’s youthful misstep is socially devastating. She loses Andrei’s respect, shocks Pierre, attempts suicide, and sinks into a deep depression. Her later forays into romance will be more reserved and careful, as her understanding of sexuality and romance matures beyond a youthful desire for instant gratification.