Seekers After the
Meaning of Life, and Holy Pilgrim Wanderers
In War and Peace Tolstoy lends his own
preoccupations and megrims to his characters: (1) his struggles with depression
and search for meaning in life to Count Pierre Bezukhov and Prince Andrei
Bolkonsky; (2) his lifelong dream of giving up on civilization and tramping the
countryside as a religious pilgrim to Princess Marya Bolkonskaya.
“Under the pretext of a gift for the holy
pilgrim women, Princess Marya provided herself with all the accoutrements of a
wanderer: a shirt, bast shoes, a kaftan, and a black kerchief. Often, when
going to her secret chest, Princess Marya would pause, unable to decide if the
time had come to carry out her plan. Listening to the stories of the women who
roved, she would often become enthused by their simple talk, mechanical for
them, but full of deep meaning for her, so that several times already she had
been on the verge of dropping everything and fleeing the house. In her
imagination she saw herself out on the road now, she and Fedosyuchka in coarse
rags, walking down a dusty byway with a stick and a bag, aimlessly wandering
without envy, without human love, without desires, from one place of holy
pilgrimage to another, and, in the end, to the place where there is neither
sorrow nor sighs, but only eternal joy and bliss.”
War and Peace, Volume Two, Part 3, Ch. 26
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