The Burden of Caregiving — War and Peace

At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and Mary move to Moscow, where patriotic anti-French feeling, his past, and his originality make him the centre of opposition to the government. He has aged: he falls asleep, forgets recent events, remembers remote ones, and accepts with childish vanity the role of head of the Moscow opposition. Visitors who see him of an evening in powdered wig, amid gigantic mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, and powdered footmen, feel respectful veneration. They do not reflect that besides those two hours there are twenty-two of private strain.

In Moscow Mary loses pilgrims, solitude, and the refreshment of Bald Hills. Her father will not let her go out without him, and his health keeps him home, so she is not invited. She has abandoned hope of marrying. Young men are received with cold malevolence. Julie, now one of the richest heiresses, proves alien in the whirl of society; Mary has no one left to write to on Thursdays. Andrew's return and marriage approach, but she has not prepared their father; at every mention of young Countess Rostóva he loses control. Teaching six-year-old nephew Nicholas, she detects her father's irritability in herself, puts the boy in the corner, then cries until he comforts her.

Worst is a new intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The jest that if Andrew married he himself would marry the Frenchwoman has pleased him, and he uses endearments to offend his daughter. One day, in Mary's presence, he kisses Bourienne's hand and embraces her. Mary flushes, runs out, then shouts that it is horrible and vile to take advantage of weakness, and bursts into sobs. Next day Bourienne is served first at dinner. When the footman from habit offers Mary coffee first, the prince throws his stick at Philip and orders him conscripted, screaming that Bourienne is the first person in the house. Mary must beg pardon of the Frenchwoman, of her father, and for Philip. Then, when there are no visitors, he looks for spectacles he cannot see, takes a false step with failing legs, or falls asleep at dinner with his napkin dropping, and she feels revulsion at herself for daring to condemn an old, feeble man.