Vol I, Part Two, Ch. XI: Ippolit is Back

With Prince Andrei and Bilibin... Prince Vassily's badly behaved son Ippolit reappears. He's going to cause some trouble (perhaps with Andrei's wife?)

p. 158

Prince Ippolit was lying in a Voltaire armchair, his legs thrown over the armrest. He laughed.

"Parlez-moi de ça," he said.

Body language! Wonderful image! One doesn't sit in a chair like that --> Ippolit does what he likes, what he shouldn't.

How can a character sit in a chair? Let me count the ways.

Vol. I, Part One, V: Pierre and the Feathered Hat (and so much more)

So the guests begin to leave Anna Scherer's party and we are informed that, "Pierre is clumsy... and absentminded." The oldest saw of the old saws in a writer's workshop is "show don't tell," but certainly, here, Tolstoy does tell-- and then he shows:

(p.22): "Getting up, he took a three-cornered hat with a general's plumage instead of his own and held on to it, plucking at the feathers, until the general asked him to give it back..."

A few lines further down, "Prince Ippolit stood beside the pretty, pregnant princess and looked at her directly and intently through his lorgnette."

How's that for some foreshadowing? Like a safe pushed out the window of the 21st floor. Wacky analogy, oh well.

I was also so struck by the vividness of the body language earlier on... but if I tarry, I'll never get through this...

So what is Henry Fonda doing in this blog post? He played Pierre in the movie.