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This chapter gives us some insight into how peasants (serfs) were, or could be treated but also of their ability to control the affairs of the landowners. Nicholas’s anger comes to the fore and we see how he deals with people: by bashing them. Yet he understands none of the financial affairs run by Mitenka, he only thinks the family has been mismanaged. But who is to blame? The elder Rostov or the serf?

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BOOK SEVEN

A bit more telling than I’d like from Tolstoy, and it really only adds up to learning that Nicholas doesn’t like Andrei and doesn’t trust that this strange, secret betrothal will actually amount to anything good.

Otherwise we learn the Rostov’s are bad off financially, and that Nicholas will have to be the man of the family. The party for the Rostov’s is almost over. Almost, but not just yet.