War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

Attendant to the Empress, Anna Pavlovna Scherer, is proud to have some of St. Petersburg's finest in her drawing room.Princess Hélène Kuragina is strikingly gorgeous. Little Princess Lise is upset her husband, Price Andrei, has joined the Coalition against Napoleon. She is pregnant with their first child and worried about becoming a widow. Little groups are forming and discussing the topics of the day, such as alliances and the latest plans for a lasting peace. Pierre Bezukhov then arrives. Pierre (not the most Russian of first names but one that is aristocratic) has returned to Russia from about a decade studying abroad, including spending time in France. Pierre believes himself to have been enriched of the ideals of the French Revolution and aftermath. Pierre is the illegitimate son of a prominent Count in Russia, who is quite ill.  The Count holds many estates that are as big as actual states in the U.S.. Pierre struggles to get in conversations and make his point known -- something Tolstoy notes -- yo