_War and Peace_ is the longest and most important of Tolstoy's single works. In this book Tolstoy aimed at giving the picture of a whole epoch, and that one of the most stirring in the history of modern Europe; the real subject is the conflict between the French and the Prussians from 1805 to 1812, the historical events of the novel concluding with the tragedy of the French retreat from Moscow. The enormous scope of the book, the power of its psychology, the vast number of characters crowding its pages, its tremendous vitality--all won for Tolstoy a recognition deservedly world-wide. After reading it we feel as if we have beheld with our own eyes a terrific and soul-stirring crisis in the history of a great nation, and one of the epoch-making events of the world. And yet the work is truly a novel, and not history in the form of fiction, because we are shown all these events not in the dry, detached light of the historian (whom Tolstoy dislikes), but through their effect on the minds and souls of the private individuals participating in them. Tolstoy selects a little group of Russian families whose circumstances involve them in all the main events; we see with their eyes and hear with their ears; we share in their sufferings, until at the end it is difficult to believe that we ourselves have not witnessed Austerlitz and Borodino, the conflagration of Moscow, and the horrors of the French retreat. Yet the total impression is not one of catastrophe; the great nation, having shed of its heart's blood and sacrificed its noblest, yet recuperates and recovers; those who are left continue the race, and life proceeds as before. {37} The whole narrative is grouped around three families: the Bolkonskys, the Rostofs, and the Bezukhois, whose relations and inter-relations are very skilfully planned. The book has three heroes, one in each of the families, and our attention is first attracted to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. He is a man of high rank, son of a distinguished general, possessed of aristocratic prejudice, handsome, far more intellectual than his companions; the faults of his character are haughtiness and disdain; far superior to the majority of human beings, he is only too keenly conscious of the fact. Yet Prince Andrei is capable of strong and deep affections; he dearly loves his father, his sister, and one friend--Pierre Bezukhoi. Bezukhoi is massive, clumsy, and sensuous, but the keen-sighted Prince Andrei pierces through all his faults and judges his friend justly when he declares that he has "a heart of gold." Among the people whom Prince Andrei secretly despises is his own wife, the Princess Lisa: he finds her cowardly and frivolous, and, though outwardly respectful, he has little real affection.