11 June 2010. Ancient Danish woman with sunglasses tilted back on her head, bending over copier, perplexed but winning smile...
La Belle Helene, her entry into Pierre's life, bending over in low-cut gown to look carefully at a snuff box from Anna Pavlovna's dotty aunt. He'd prefer, of course, to have joined the other table, where affairs of the world are under discussion--the Tsar's new alliance with the Prussian King, against "the enemy of mankind..." But, detained by the view, impossibly so--and given that he's Pierre, he decides he must marry her on the spot...
Passage marked in 1965, on first reading. But it's the following paragraph-the beginnings of Pierre's doubt--that I found myself marking late last night...
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