A Year of War and Peace+ Day 47

In which Prince Vasíli plays the newly wealthy Pierre Bezúkhov and we see in this that the things we own own us

Brian E. Denton
16 min readAug 19, 2021

Welcome! New readers may find an introduction to A Year of War and Peace+ and a table of contents here. Please consider following me on Medium. I publish essays on diverse topics, but mostly on books and film.

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War and Peace — Book One, Part Three

Chapter One

Prince Vasíli was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans. Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves, some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He did not, for instance, say to himself: “This man now has influence, I must…

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Brian E. Denton

For my friends and family, love. For my enemies, durian fruit.