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I love Denisov.

This subplot about the purse, though proving to be part of a larger, moral lesson for Rostov, is a very common thing in the military. Thievery is very common which I always felt was the more baffling since we all had to live in such close quarters: we would know if you had stolen something. Yet it happened a lot. But Tolstoy is not unsympathetic; “poor” Telyanin may very well have needed it.

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Kutuzov is an endlessly fascinating character. Putting aside if the real Kutuzov was anything like what Tolstoy makes him out to be, the General’s (and Tolstoy’s) philosophy mirror what the priest said in the room of the dying Bezukhov “The limits of human life… are fixed and may not be o’erpassed”. Andrei’s “faith” in the leadership, his blind obedience to Kutuzov and the emperor mirror these limits.