The act of Pierre feeling it an effort to be around Platon and then ignoring Platon’s unspoken beckoning is one of those details common to us all in one way or another. We are like the general at the beginning who has never made a mistake and only wishes to go on not making mistakes. It’s selfish, but we’re all selfish and that’s the point: the sum total of selfishness moves history along, not 1 ‘great man’ alone.