10 May 2010. Gray clouds, scatter of rain on hatchback glass...
A Russian officer, as drawn by his own hand-- Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time. Geroj Nashego Vremeni. Figure of Pechorin--the "superfluous man," an existential character avante la lettre.
And Prince Andrei...? His irritability. Razdrazhenie, a kind of impulsive dissatisfaction with the world as is. Dreams of a hero set against bedrock of shame. Pozor. The loss of 40,000 men--Austria's folly--and for Kutuzov, the greatest challenge...
A century hence (my father, quoting Lenin): "Freedom is the recognition of necessity..."
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