Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve

Pierre, like most people, suffered from physical pain and tension during his captivity, and it was only after this pain and tension passed that he felt so heavy.After being released from the prison camp, he came to Orel, and on the third day he intended to go to Kyiv, but fell ill and lay in Orel for three months; according to the doctor, his illness was gall fever Because of this, he relied on doctors to treat him, bloodletting, and taking medicine, and he finally recovered. From his rescue to his illness, Pierre has almost no memory of everything he has experienced during this period. He vaguely remembers the gray, gloomy weather that sometimes rained and sometimes snowed, the inner distress, the pain in his legs and waist. he still had a general impression of the wretchedness and misery of the people; he remembered that the curiosity of the officers and generals who interrogated him troubled him so much, that he went about in search of carriages and horses, and that, chiefly, he Remember that at that time he had lost the ability to think and feel.On the day of his rescue he saw the dead body of Petya Rostov.That same day he learned that Prince Andrei had lived only a little more than a month after the Battle of Borodino, and that he had died not long ago at the Rostov home in Yaroslavl.That same day, Denisov broke the news to Pierre, and they mentioned Helen's death again in their conversation, and he thought Pierre knew about it.All this seemed strange to Pierre at the time.He felt that he could not understand the significance of all this news.At that time, he was only anxious to leave these places where people killed each other as soon as possible, and go to a quiet sanctuary, where he could calm down, rest, and think about all the novelties he had learned during this time things.But as soon as he arrived in Orel, he fell ill.When Pierre awoke from his illness, he saw with him two servants from Moscow, Terenty and Vaska, and the princess, who had always lived at Pierre's estate in Yelitz.Hearing that Pierre was rescued and fell ill, he came here to take care of him.

Only gradually during the recovery of his health did Pierre shake off the impressions to which he had been accustomed during the past few months and get used to it again: no one will force him to go anywhere tomorrow, no one will take away his A warm bed, and he must be able to get lunch, tea, and supper.But for a long time, in his sleep, he saw his life in the prison camp.Pierre also gradually understood the news he had heard after his release from the prison camp: the death of Prince Andrew, the death of his wife, and the rout of the French. A joyful feeling of freedom—that sense of total, inalienable freedom that is inherent in a human being, which he experienced for the first time in his first bivouac after leaving Moscow, was felt throughout Pierre's life. The period of recovery filled his soul.What struck him was this inner freedom from external circumstances, which now seemed too much and generously around him.He lives alone in a completely strange city and knows no one.No one asked him anything; no one sent him anywhere.He has everything he wants; the thought of his dead wife has been tormenting him in the past. Created by his own characteristics, "man's God is man".The writing that marked Fair is gone now because she is no longer alive.

"Oh, how good! how wonderful!" when a table was set before him with a fragrant consommé, or when he lay at night on a soft, clean bed, or When he recalled that his wife and the French were gone, he said to himself: "Oh, how good, how wonderful!" Then, following his old habit, he asked himself the question: "What then? What shall I do?" He answered himself at once, "Never mind, I want to live. Oh, how Wonderful!" What had been tormenting him before, what he had been looking for so often—the purpose of life—was no longer for him.The purpose of this searched life, in which he did not happen to exist only now, was created.The main representatives are Eubulid (Eubulid, 4th century before) and so on.No, it did not suddenly disappear at this moment.However, he feels that the purpose of this life is not there now, nor will it be possible in the future.It is precisely because of the absence of this purpose that it gives him a complete, gratifying, free feeling, and at this time his feeling of freedom is his happiness.

He cannot have purpose, because he now has faith—not faith in some regulation, or some speech, or some thought, but faith in a living, perceptible God.He had sought it before with some purpose he had set out for himself.This purposeful quest was nothing more than a quest for God; but, during his captivity, he suddenly realized, neither by words nor by reason, but by intuition that the nurse had long ago told him The truth from the past: God is right in front of your eyes, right here, and He is everywhere.As a captive he realized that the God Karatayev had in mind was greater, more infinite, and higher and unfathomable than the Creator recognized by the Freemasons.He felt like a man who looked far and wide and found what he was looking for just before his heels, and he felt that was that kind of man.All his life, he has been looking over the heads of people around him and looking into the distance. In fact, he doesn't need to open his eyes to look into the distance, he just needs to look in front of him.

He had never been able to see the great, the inconceivable, the infinite before anyhow.He just feels that he should be in a certain place, so he looks for it, and in everything that is close and intelligible, he sees only limited, small, mundane, meaningless things.He once equipped himself with an imaginary telescope and used it to look into distant space. He felt that the small, worldly things hidden in the distant clouds and mists seemed great and infinite only because they could not see clearly.It had seemed to him in the past that European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, philanthropy, was like that.But even for that brief moment when he thought he was weak, his wisdom had penetrated into that distant place where what he saw was still small, worldly, meaningless.And now that he had learned to see in everything the Great, the Eternal, and the Infinite, it was natural for him, in order to see it, to enjoy this observation, to throw away the spectacles with which he had been using to see things over people's heads. telescope.and rejoicing to see the ever-changing, ever-great, inconceivable, infinite life around him.The closer he looked, the calmer and happier he became.That dreadful question, "Why?" that had destroyed his whole spiritual support, no longer existed for him.Now, to the question "Why?", he always prepares a simple answer in his heart: "Why? Not one of them will fall to the ground if your father forbids it, even the hairs of your hair have been counted."①

-------- ①See Chapter 10, Section 30 of the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible.