War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [803]
9. lenten and non-lenten: The banquet falls within the Great Lent, the forty-day period of fast preceding Holy Week and Easter in the Orthodox Church. Count Ilya Andreich graciously allows for those who keep the fast and those who do not.
10. Pavel Ivanovich Kutuzov: Not the general, Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov. He was a minor poet of the time, and his “cantata” was indeed performed during the banquet for Bagration, at which the author himself handed out copies to the guests.
11. Louis XVI…Robespierre: Louis XVI was arrested while trying to flee France in June 1791. Accused of treason, he was tried by the National Convention a year later and executed on 21 January 1793. Maximilien de Robespierre, a leading member of the Convention and of the Committee of Public Safety, which brought about the bloody “Reign of Terror” in France, was overthrown on 27 July 1794 and executed in his turn.
12. que diable…dans cette galère: A line spoken by Géronte in Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671), by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière (1622–73). It means literally “What the devil was he going to do in that galley?” but has become proverbial in a more general sense.
13. Great Russia: The old name for Russia proper, centered on Moscow, as distinct from the southern provinces of Little Russia (Malorus) and White Russia (Belorus).
14. as for one of the living: In the Orthodox tradition, there are special prayers for the living and for the dead, as there are special commemorations of the living and the dead in the sacrament of communion.
15. wedding candles: In the Russian Orthodox marriage service, the bride and groom hold candles, often specially decorated, which are carefully kept after the wedding.
16. sat in another room: It was traditional in Russia for the real parents not to participate in the baptismal ceremony, being replaced by the godparents. It was also customary to stick the baby’s hair, cut during the ceremony, to melted wax and drop it into the baptismal font. If the hair floated, it meant the child would live.
17. war with Napoleon: In September 1806 Napoleon won significant victories over the Prussians at Jena and Auerstädt and occupied Berlin before the Russians could offer help. With the French army so close, Alexander I began preparations for defending his borders, including a new conscription of troops.
18. Epiphany: In the Orthodox festal calendar, the feast of the Epiphany, or Theophany, on 6 January, celebrates Christ’s baptism by St. John in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13–17, Mark 1:9–11, Luke 3:21–23).
19. receiving tickets for lessons: The Moscow dancing master Iogel arranged balls which he counted as lessons for his pupils, who were admitted with personal tickets which he then exchanged for money.
Part Two
1. Mme Souza…Amélie de Mansfield: Adelaide Filleul, marquise de Souza (1761–1836), gathered a brilliant salon in Paris before the revolution, which included Talleyrand among its habitués. She fled to England in 1792, but her husband was arrested in Boulogne and guillotined, after which she supported herself by writing novels. In his notes for War and Peace Tolstoy mentions the popularity of Mme de Souza’s novels as a characteristic of Russian society of the early nineteenth century. Amélie de Mansfield, however, is a novel by her younger contemporary, Sophie Cottin (1773–1807).
2. overturned glass…sugar: Russians sometimes drink tea from a glass instead of a cup. It was a custom among lower-class people to turn the glass upside down to show that they had finished their tea, as it was a custom to nibble from a lump of sugar instead of stirring it into the tea.
3. Freemasons: See note 22 to Volume I, Part One. In the fall of 1866, Tolstoy