War and Peace Men and Masculinity Quotes

Pierre considered Prince Andrei the model of all perfections, precisely because Prince Andrei united in the highest degree all those qualities which Pierre did not possess and which could be most nearly expressed by the notion of strength of will. Pierre always marveled at Prince Andrei's ability to deal calmly with all sorts of people, at his extraordinary memory, his erudition (he had read everything, knew everything, had notions about everything), and most of all at his ability to work and learn. If Pierre had often been struck by Andrei's lack of ability for dreamy philosophizing (for which Pierre had a particular inclination), he saw it not as a defect, but as a strength. (1.1.6.5)

"What's with me?" said Prince Andrei, stopping in agitation. "Understand that we're either officers serving our tsar and fatherland, and rejoice in our common successes and grieve over our common failures, or we're lackeys, who have nothing to do with their masters' doings. Quarante mille homes massacrés et I'armée de nos alliés détruite, et vous trouvez là le mot pour rire," he said, as if clinching his opinion by this French phrase. "C'est bien pour un garçon de rien, comme cette individu, dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous." [Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed, and you find jokes for laughing. [...] It's all right for a worthless fellow, like that individual you have made friends with, but not for you, not for you.] Only schoolboys can have fun like that," Prince Andrei added. (1.2.3.5-7)

Now going over his impressions of the past battle, now joyfully imagining the impression he would make with his news of the victory, recalling his leave taking from the commander in chief and his comrades. Prince Andrei galloped along in a post britzka, experiencing the feeling of a man who has long been awaiting and has finally achieved the beginning of the happiness he desired. As soon as he closed his eyes, the firing of muskets and cannon resounded in his ears, merging with the rattle of the carriage and the impression of the victory. Now he would begin to imagine that the Russians were fleeing, that he himself had been killed; but then he would hurriedly wake up and happily learn as if for the first time that none of it had happened and that, on the contrary, the French had fled. He would recall once more all the details of the victory, his calm manliness during the battle, and, reassured, would doze off. (1.2.9.4)

During Rostov's short stay in Moscow before leaving for the army, he did not become closer but, on the contrary, drew away from Sonya. She was very pretty, sweet, and obviously passionately in love with him; but he was in that season of youth when one seems to have so much to do that there is no time for that, and a young man is afraid of being tied down – he cherishes his freedom, which he needs for many other things. When he thought about Sonya during his stay in Moscow, he said to himself: "Ah, there will be and there are many, many like her, somewhere, whom I don't know yet. I'll still have time, when I want, to occupy myself with love, but right now I'm busy." Besides, it seemed to him that there was something humiliating to his manliness in women's society. He went to balls and into women's society pretending that he was doing so against his will. The races, the English Club, carousing with Denisov, going there—that was another matter: it was suitable to a dashing hussar. (2.1.2.4)

It seemed to [Nikolai] that it was only today, thanks to that burnt cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and prettier than Nikolai had ever seen her before. [...] Sonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nikolai she had known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress, with tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidly toward him.

"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. (2.4.11.30-41)

The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered it especially pathetic. (3.2.5.23)

Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite, to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood after his talk with Andrei. [...] The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they watched him from the knoll. (3.2.30.15-20)

After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously, thought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife, adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage, little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on – and these pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed incongruous and false. It made him afraid. (4.1.6.16)

"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" [Petya] suddenly cried. "I have some raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something sweet. Would you like some? . . ." and Petya ran out into the passage to his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"

"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out that happens sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are" – and he showed a bag – "a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as many as you want, or all if you like...."

Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and blushed.

He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?" he thought. But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now afraid to speak out.

"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately, blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared ironical, he said:

"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to eat?... Perhaps..." (4.3.7.11-16)

After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected. And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and mysterious reflection. (Epilogue.1.10.21)