The meaning of Nikolenka Bolkonsky’s dream. The essay “Prophetic Dream” by Nikolenka in the epilogue of the novel “War and Peace”

Crystal Globe

Pierre Bezukhov from the novel “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy sees in a dream crystal globe:

“This globe was a living, oscillating ball, without dimensions. The entire surface of the ball consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And these drops all moved, moved and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. Each drop sought to spread out, to capture the greatest space, but others, striving for the same thing, compressed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it... In the middle is God, and each drop strives to expand so that largest sizes reflect it. And it grows, and shrinks, and is destroyed on the surface, goes into the depths and floats up again.”

Pierre Bezukhov

The desire of the drops for global fusion, their readiness to accommodate the whole world is love and compassion for each other. Love as a complete understanding of all living things passed from Platon Karataev to Pierre, and from Pierre it should spread to all people. It became one of the countless centers of the world, that is, it became the world.

That’s why Pierre laughs at the soldier guarding him with a rifle at the door of the barn: “He wants to lock me, my endless soul...” This is what followed the vision of the crystal globe.

The novel’s epigraph about the need for the unity of all is not at all so banal good people. It is no coincidence that the word “conjugate,” heard by Pierre in his second “prophetic” dream, is combined with the word “harness.” It is necessary to harness - it is necessary to couple. Everything that is conjugated is the world; centers - drops that do not strive to connect - this is a state of war, hostility. Hostility and alienation among people. It is enough to remember with what sarcasm Pechorin looked at the stars to understand what the feeling opposite to “conjugation” is.

Pierre Bezukhov. Museum named after K.A.Fedina, Saratov

Probably not without the influence of cosmology Tolstoy built later Vladimir Soloviev its metaphysics, where the Newtonian force of attraction received the name “love”, and the force of repulsion began to be called “enmity”.

War and peace, conjugation and disintegration, attraction and repulsion - these are two forces, or rather, two states of one cosmic force, periodically overwhelming the souls of heroes Tolstoy. From state universal love(falling in love with Natasha and the entire universe, all-forgiving and all-containing cosmic love at the hour of Bolkonsky’s death) to the same general enmity and alienation (his break with Natasha, hatred and call to shoot prisoners before the Battle of Borodino). Such transitions are not typical for Pierre; he, like Natasha, is universal by nature. Rage against Anatole or Helen, the imaginary murder of Napoleon are superficial, without touching the depth of the spirit. Pierre's kindness - natural state his soul.

Pierre, Prince Andrei and Natasha Rostova at the ball

Pierre “saw” the crystal globe from the outside, that is, he went beyond the visible, visible space during his lifetime. The Copernican revolution happened to him. Before Copernicus, people were in the center of the world, but here the universe turned inside out, the center became the periphery - many worlds around the “center of the sun.” It is precisely this kind of Copernican revolution that he speaks of Tolstoy at the end of the novel:

“Since Copernicus’s law was discovered and proven, the mere recognition that it is not the sun that moves, but the earth, has destroyed the entire cosmography of the ancients...

Just as for astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the movements of the earth was to renounce the immediate feeling of the immobility of the earth and the same feeling of the immobility of the planets, so for history the difficulty of recognizing the subordination of the individual to the laws of space, time and causes is to renounce the immediate feeling of one’s independence personality."

Pierre in a duel with Dolokhov

The relation of one to infinity is Bolkonsky's relation to the world at the moment of death. He saw everyone and could not love one. The relation of one to one is something else. This is Pierre Bezukhov. For Bolkonsky, the world fell apart into an infinite number of people, each of whom was ultimately uninteresting to Andrei. Pierre saw the whole world in Natasha, Andrei, Platon Karataev and even in the dog shot by a soldier. Everything that happened to the world happened to him. Andrei sees countless soldiers - “fodder for the guns.” He is full of sympathy, compassion for them, but it is not his. Pierre sees only Plato, but the whole world is in him, and it is his.

The feeling of the convergence of two sides of a diverging angle into a single point is very well conveyed in “Confession” Tolstoy, where he very accurately conveys the discomfort of weightlessness in his sleepy flight, feeling somehow very uncomfortable in the infinite space of the universe, suspended on some kind of support, until a feeling of the center appeared, from where these supports come. Pierre saw this center, which permeates everything, in a crystal globe, so that, waking up from sleep, he could feel it in the depths of his soul, as if returning from a transcendental height.

So Tolstoy explained his dream in “Confession”, also after waking up and also moving this center from the interstellar heights to the depths of the heart. The center of the universe is reflected in every crystal drop, in every soul. This crystal reflection is love.

War is someone else's, peace is ours. Pierre's Crystal Globe is preceded in the novel Tolstoy the globe-ball that Napoleon's heir plays with in the portrait. A world of war with thousands of accidents, truly reminiscent of a game of billbok. Globe - ball and globe - crystal ball - two images of the world. The image of a blind man and a sighted man, gutta-percha darkness and crystal light. A world obedient to the capricious will of one, and a world of unmerged but united wills.

Pierre goes to watch the war

The artistic persuasiveness and integrity of such a space does not require proof. The crystal globe lives, acts, exists as a kind of living crystal, a hologram that has absorbed the structure of the novel and the cosmos Lev Tolstoy.

“Light cobwebs are the reins of the Mother of God,” which connect people in prophetic dream Nikolenki, the son of Andrei Bolkonsky, will eventually unite in a single “center” of a crystal globe, somewhere out there, in space. Will become a strong support for Tolstoy in his cosmic hover over the abyss (a dream from “Confession”). The tension of the “cosmic reins” - the feeling of love - is both the direction of movement and the movement itself. Tolstoy I loved such simple comparisons as an experienced horseman, a horseman, and a peasant following a plow. You wrote everything correctly, he will tell Repin about his painting “Tolstoy on the Plowed Field,” but they forgot to put the reins in their hands.

Pierre at the Battle of Borodino between the Russian army and Napoleon

In Pierre’s crystal globe, the drops and the center are correlated in exactly this way, in Tyutchev’s way: “Everything is in me, and I am in everything.”

IN late period the individual personality was sacrificed to the “single” world. One can and should doubt the correctness of such a simplification of the world. Pierre's globe seemed to become cloudy and stopped glowing. Why are drops needed if everything is in the center? And where can the center be reflected if those crystal drops are not there?

The space of the novel “War and Peace” is as unique and majestic a structure as space “ Divine Comedy» Dante and "Faust" Goethe. “Without the cosmology of the crystal globe there is no novel,” asserts TO. Kedrov-Chelishchev. This is something like a crystal casket in which Koshchei’s death is hidden. Here everything is in everything - the great principle of synergetic double helix, diverging from the center and at the same time converging towards it.

Pierre the reader

If Tolstoy depicted dreams as a transformation of external impressions (for example, the dream of Pierre Bezukhov, who perceives the words of the servant waking him up “it’s time to harness” in a dream as a decision philosophical problem- “to match”), then Dostoevsky believed that in dreams people’s forgotten experiences emerge into spheres controlled by consciousness, and therefore through their dreams a person knows himself better. The heroes' dreams reveal their inner essence - the one that their waking mind does not want to notice.

Lev Tolstoy

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In the epilogue, the reader is given the opportunity to make another choice: to take the side of the defenders of Decembrism (Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, Nikolenka) or its opponents (Nikolai Rostov).

It is very significant that at the end of the epic novel, Tolstoy created an attractive image of the recipient of the ideas of Pierre Bezukhov and Andrei Bolkonsky - a future participant in the December events of 1825 - Bolkonsky's son, who sacredly preserves the memory of his father and an enthusiastic admirer of his father's friend Pierre, whose ideas he would approve . " Prophetic dream“Nikolenki in the epilogue reflects in figurative form his perception of real circumstances, the content of conversations and disputes of adults, reflects his affections, dreams of courageous heroic activity in the name of people, his premonitions of a dramatic future.

He and Pierre, wearing helmets like those depicted in Plutarch’s publication, walk joyfully ahead of a huge army, glory awaits them. They are already close to the goal, but their path is blocked by Uncle Nikolai Rostov. He stops in front of them in a “formidable and stern pose.” “I loved you, but Arakcheev ordered me, and I will kill the first one who moves forward.” Pierre disappears and turns into his father - Prince Andrei, who caresses and takes pity on him, but Uncle Nikolai moves closer and closer towards them. Nikolenka wakes up in horror, he is left with a feeling of gratitude to his father for his approval and persistent desire to accomplish the feat. “I only ask God for one thing: that what happened to Plutarch’s people should happen to me, and I will do the same. I'll do better. Everyone will know, everyone will love, everyone will admire me. I will do something that would make even him happy..."

Natasha’s path is not without “delusions (fascination with Anatoly Kuragin) and suffering”: the break with Andrei Bolkonsky, his illness and death, the death of his brother Petya, etc. But responsiveness to living life, purity of moral feeling prevails. Natasha finds her place in life - wife and mother. Young readers are often disappointed (or puzzled) by her evolution: from a charming, gifted, poetic girl to a busy mother, rejoicing macular spot on the diaper of a recovering child.

For Tolstoy - maternal concerns, an atmosphere of love, friendship, mutual understanding in a family created by a creator and guardian hearth and home, is no less a manifestation of femininity and spiritual wealth. And this does not exclude (as can be seen from the example of Natasha in the days Patriotic War) a woman’s participation in national concerns and assessments of what is happening, into which she also brings parts of her soul (“I know that I will not submit to Napoleon”), does not exclude an internal connection with the people (“where did this countess absorb it from ...”) and the ability to react not rationalistically, but emotionally to inequality, falsehood in modern life. (In church she is surprised: “why pray so much for the royal family”). At first glance, the distance between Natasha Rostova, the “graceful poetic imp” in childhood, the “Cossack” free to the point of self-will in her youth, and Natalia Ilyinishna Bezukhova, absorbed in her family, is too great.

But, looking more closely, you see that at all stages of its path it remains itself: completeness vitality, the ability of love, heartfelt understanding of another person, the courage to make decisions. All this makes the feat of a “Russian woman” - the wife of a Decembrist - quite organic to her nature.

Tolstoy depicts the Rostov and Bolkonsky families with great sympathy because: they are participants historical events, patriots; they are not attracted to careerism and profit; they are close to the Russian people. Characteristic features of the Rostov Bolkonskys 1. Older generation....

When creating the image of Pierre Bezukhov, L.N. Tolstoy started from specific life observations. People like Pierre were often encountered in Russian life at that time. These are Alexander Muravyov and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker, to whom Pierre is close in his eccentricity...

Kutuzov goes through the entire book, almost unchanged in appearance: an old man with a gray head “on a huge thick body”, with cleanly washed folds of a scar where “where the Ishmael bullet pierced his head.” N “slowly and sluggishly” rides in front of the shelves at the review...

At the center of the novel is L.N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” contains an image of the Patriotic War of 1812, which stirred up the entire Russian people, showed the whole world its power and strength, and brought forward ordinary Russian heroes and the great commander - Kutuzov. In the same time...

The episode of Prince Bolkonsky's dream begins again with a description internal state character, which is at the same time the author’s attitude towards what needs to be figuratively “proved” next.

“Prince Andrei not only knew that he would die, but he felt that he was dying, that he was already half dead. He experienced a consciousness of alienation from everything earthly and a joyful and strange lightness of being. He, without haste and without worry, expected that what lay ahead of him. That menacing, eternal, unknown and distant, the presence of which he never ceased to feel throughout his entire life, was now close to him and, due to the strange lightness of being that he experienced, almost understandable and felt" (7, p. 66).

“Knowing” is confirmed by feeling, in this case the “mental” becomes the property inner world person. Know in in every sense This word also means sensory knowledge. And for the artist, the need to convey to the reader this “know” and “feel” with a convincing figurative picture, to convey the change of feelings of the character, his “alienation from everything earthly” and at the same time “lightness of being”, to convey that last state a person when he understands death and is no longer afraid of it.

“Before, he was afraid of the end. He experienced this terrible, painful feeling of fear of death, of the end, twice, and now he no longer understood it.

The first time he experienced this feeling was when a grenade was spinning like a top in front of him, and he looked at the stubble, at the bushes, at the sky and knew that death was in front of him. When he woke up after the wound and in his soul, instantly, as if freed from the oppression of life that held him back, this flower of love, eternal, free, independent of this life, blossomed, he was no longer afraid of death and did not think about it "(7, p. 67).

The dream event is preceded by a conversation between the prince and Natasha (again a narrative frame), i.e., a description of what is most precious in the prince’s life - love for a woman.

“No one like you gives me that soft silence... that light” (7, p. 69). “Natasha, I love you too much. More than anything else in the world” (7, p. 69).

The depth, the extraordinary power of love, heightened by the feeling of death, imminent separation, the entire scene is built on the conveyance of this range of feelings.

Here are memories of the most touching moments of the recent past in the relationship between Prince Andrei and Natasha.

“In the Trinity Lavra they talked about the past, and he told her that if he were alive, he would forever thank God for his wound, which brought him together again with her; but since then they have never talked about the future” ( 7, p. 68).

Here is a description of the heightened sensation of each other: the approach of a loved one excites a “feeling of happiness.”

“He dozed off. Suddenly a feeling of happiness came over him.

“Oh, she came in!” he thought.

Indeed, sitting in Sonya’s place was Natasha, who had just entered with silent steps.

Since she began to follow him, he has always experienced this physical sensation of her closeness" (7, p. 68).

“He looked at her without moving, and saw that after her movement she needed to take a deep breath, but she did not dare to do this and carefully took a breath” (7, p. 68).

Here are the prince’s bitter internal reflections about the coming of love and the need to die.

“Was it really only then that fate brought me so strangely together with her that I might die?..” (7, p. 69).

“Her face shone with enthusiastic joy,” “Natasha was happy and excited,” “His eyes shone towards her.”

It is with this, with this fact that “more than anything else,” that the prince now has to part with, understand and accept a stronger, omnipotent, secret love.

How difficult it is for a person to part with life, with everything that he loves, what he is used to, what keeps him in life. This is depicted by Tolstoy with all the strength of his artistic skill, and the more complete and convincing the content of the dream-vision episode sounds.

The hum of footsteps... The hum of blood beating into his temples... He walked along the top floor, moving from room to room... He arrived in Yekaterinburg the day before yesterday and only today was able to enter Ipatiev’s house. It was transported here from Tobolsk royal family. On the wall of one of the rooms, near the window, he saw a sign of the Empress drawn in pencil - she put it everywhere - for good luck. Below was the date: April 17 (30). This is the day when they were imprisoned in Ipatiev's house. In the room where Tsarevich Alexei was located, there is the same sign painted on the wallpaper. The sign was also located above the crown prince’s bed. There was terrible chaos everywhere. Near the stoves, piles of ash darkened ominously. He squatted in front of one of them and saw half-burnt hairpins, toothbrushes, buttons... What happened? Where were they taken? Most likely this happened at night. They were taken away in what they were found in, without allowing them to gather and grab the most necessary things.

During his imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, the only permitted place for Nicholas II and his family to walk was the roof of the Ipatiev house. Photo by Pierre Gilliard

He went down to the lower floor, into the semi-basement, and froze in horror on the threshold. The low, barred window let in almost no daylight. The walls and floor, like black wounds, were covered with traces of bullets and bayonets. There was no more hope. Did they really raise their hand against the sovereign? But if so, then it was impossible to even think that the empress outlived him. So they were both victims. But children? Grand Duchesses? Tsarevich Alexei? Everything proved that the victims were numerous...

He sank to the stone floor of this ominous, prison-like room, clasped his head in his hands and saw the sovereign and his daughters coming towards him. Snow-covered spruce trees surround Lake Tsarskoye Selo. Grand Duchess Olga walks with her father's arm, pressing tightly to his shoulder. Grand Duchess Tatiana, on the other hand, squeezes the sovereign’s hand and says something quickly. The younger princesses either run ahead or walk behind. Anastasia comes up with another prank, pushing snow into the lapels of her velvet fur coat. The Emperor looks at his daughters with tenderness, he admires their shining, blushing faces. Blue kind eyes seem to say: “Look how nice my daughters are!” ...He wanted to bow to the sovereign, but he could not get up from the floor. “But why winter?” - he thought. And then it was revealed to his consciousness that both the Ipatiev house and the Tsarskoye Selo park were just a dream... He woke up...

In the small cozy apartment of Pierre Gilliard there was a peaceful morning silence

E. Lipgart. "Portrait of Emperor Nicholas II"

I. Galkin. "Empress Alexandra Feodorovna"

Grand Duchess Anastasia

Of course, it was not by chance that he had this dream. Yesterday Pierre received a letter from Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of Emperor Nicholas II, living in Denmark. She wrote that a young woman had appeared in Berlin calling herself youngest daughter Emperor Nicholas II Anastasia. “Please go and see this unfortunate woman immediately. What if she turns out to be our baby... And if it really is her, please let me know by telegram, and I will also come to Berlin.”

Pierre Gilliard, together with his wife Alexandra, the former maid of the grand duchesses, went to Berlin the next day to St. Mary's Hospital. The woman who declared herself Anastasia had been unconscious for several days. The emaciated body looked like a skeleton covered in skin. Who could recognize Princess Anastasia in her, even if it really was her?

At the insistence of Gilliard, the patient was transferred to a good clinic.

“The most important thing is that she stays alive,” he told his wife, who did not leave the sick bed. "We'll be back as soon as she gets better."

Three months later, Pierre Gilliard and Alexandra visited the patient. Pierre, sitting down next to her, said:

Please tell me what you remember from your past?

She said in anger:

I don't know what "remember" is! If they wanted to kill you like me, how much would you remember from what happened before?

Gilliard had to leave.

On the threshold he encountered a woman in a lilac cloak. Gilliard recognized her: it was Princess Olga, the beloved aunt of the great duchesses.

Approaching Anastasia's bed, she smiled at her and extended her hand.

Princess Olga adored her nieces. Every Saturday the princesses who lived in Tsarskoe Selo looked forward to it. They went to Olga Alexandrovna's house, where they had fun, played and danced with other children...

Do you remember how much you enjoyed every minute? - she asked Anastasia with a smile. - I can still hear your laughter ringing.

At these words, the impostor nodded and burst into tears. Olga Alexandrovna kissed her on both cheeks:

You will definitely get better.

Again and again she peered intently at woman's face, almost nothing like the face of her little Anastasia. Only the eyes were the same huge, bright, blue.

“But she’s been through so much! My heart tells me it's her! How I wish it were her!”

In October 1928, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna died. The next day, a document was published, later called the “Romanov Declaration.” It was signed by twelve representatives of the Russian imperial family, who unanimously confirmed that Frau Unbekannt was not the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. This document, which quoted statements from Grand Duchess Olga, Pierre Gilliard and Baroness Buxhoeveden, Alexandra Feodorovna's maid of honor, convinced the public that the representatives of the House of Romanov had rejected the impostor.

But the impostor continued to pose as Princess Anastasia, and there were always people who wanted to house the “tsar’s daughter.” She lived in America, then in England, then in Germany.

In 1968, Anastasia moved again to America, where she married Dr. Menahan. They lived together for fifteen years. In recent years, the impostor has often found herself in psychiatric clinic. On February 12, 1984, Anastasia Menahan died of pneumonia.

Royal martyrs. Icon

Crystal Globe

Pierre Bezukhov from the novel “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy sees a crystal globe in a dream:

“This globe was a living, oscillating ball, without dimensions. The entire surface of the ball consisted of drops tightly compressed together. And these drops all moved, moved and then merged from several into one, then from one they were divided into many. Each drop sought to spread out, to capture the greatest space, but others, striving for the same thing, compressed it, sometimes destroyed it, sometimes merged with it... There is God in the middle, and each drop strives to expand in order to reflect him in the greatest possible size. And it grows, and shrinks, and is destroyed on the surface, goes into the depths and floats up again.”

Pierre Bezukhov

That’s why Pierre laughs at the soldier guarding him with a rifle at the door of the barn: “He wants to lock me, my endless soul...” This is what followed the vision of the crystal globe.

The novel's epigraph about the need for the unity of all good people is not at all so banal. It is no coincidence that the word “conjugate,” heard by Pierre in his second “prophetic” dream, is combined with the word “harness.” It is necessary to harness - it is necessary to couple. Everything that is conjugated is the world; centers - drops that do not strive to connect - this is a state of war, hostility. Hostility and alienation among people. It is enough to remember with what sarcasm Pechorin looked at the stars to understand what the feeling opposite to “conjugation” is.

Pierre Bezukhov. Museum named after K.A.Fedina, Saratov

War and peace, conjugation and disintegration, attraction and repulsion - these are two forces, or rather, two states of one cosmic force, periodically overwhelming the souls of heroes Tolstoy. From the state of universal love (falling in love with Natasha and the entire universe, all-forgiving and all-containing cosmic love at the hour of Bolkonsky’s death) to the same general enmity and alienation (his break with Natasha, hatred and call to shoot prisoners before the Battle of Borodino). Such transitions are not typical for Pierre; he, like Natasha, is universal by nature. Rage against Anatole or Helen, the imaginary murder of Napoleon are superficial, without touching the depth of the spirit. Pierre's kindness is the natural state of his soul.

Pierre, Prince Andrei and Natasha Rostova at the ball

“Since Copernicus’s law was discovered and proven, the mere recognition that it is not the sun that moves, but the earth, has destroyed the entire cosmography of the ancients...

In a duel with Dolokhov

Pierre goes to see the war

At the Battle of Borodino between the Russian army and Napoleon

In Pierre’s crystal globe, the drops and the center are correlated in exactly this way, in Tyutchev’s way: “Everything is in me, and I am in everything.”

In the later period, the individual personality was sacrificed to the “single” world. One can and should doubt the correctness of such a simplification of the world. Pierre's globe seemed to become cloudy and stopped glowing. Why are drops needed if everything is in the center? And where can the center be reflected if those crystal drops are not there?

With Natasha Rostova

The cosmos of the novel “War and Peace” is as unique and majestic a structure as the cosmos of the “Divine Comedy” Dante and "Faust" Goethe. “Without the cosmology of the crystal globe there is no novel,” asserts TO. Kedrov-Chelishchev. This is something like a crystal casket in which Koshchei’s death is hidden. Here everything is in everything - the great principle of a synergetic double helix, diverging from the center and at the same time converging towards it.

Pierre the reader

If Tolstoy depicted dreams as a transformation of external impressions (for example, the dream of Pierre Bezukhov, who perceives the words of the servant waking him up “it’s time to harness” in a dream as a solution to the philosophical problem - “to harness”), then Dostoevsky believed that in dreams people’s forgotten experiences emerge into spheres controlled by consciousness, and therefore through their dreams a person knows himself better. The heroes' dreams reveal their inner essence - the one that their waking mind does not want to notice.

Lev Tolstoy

Modern crystal globe in section

Remember this at the right time

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