War and Peace

here was nothing in Pierre’s soul now at all like what had troubled it
during his courtship of Hélène.

He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words
he had spoken, or say: “Oh, why did I not say that?” and, “Whatever made
me say ‘Je vous aime’?” On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination
every word that he or Natásha had spoken and pictured every detail of
her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but
only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt
in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.
Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Wasn’t it all
a dream? Isn’t Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and
self-confident? I believe all this—and suddenly Princess Mary will tell
her, and she will be sure to smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be
deluding himself. Doesn’t he know that he is a man, just a man, while
I...? I am something altogether different and higher.’”

That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any
plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only
he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended
with that.

A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,
possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the
whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of
being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with
one thing only—his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that
other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to
hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In
every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often
surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which
seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when
he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied
them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them
that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of
attention.

When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service,
or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the
assumption that everybody’s welfare depended on this or that issue
of events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise
people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody—both
those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that
is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not
understand it—in the bright light of the emotion that shone within
himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met
everything that was good and worthy of being loved.

When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory
aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he
now knew. Prince Vasíli, who having obtained a new post and some
fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a
pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All
the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true
for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when
he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had
held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.

“I may have appeared strange and queer then,” he thought, “but I was
not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had
more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth
understanding in life, because... because I was happy.”

Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to
discover personal attributes which he termed “good qualities” in people
before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by
loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving
them.