Yes indeed, of the essence... from the mouth of the Tsar!" came the sobbing voice of Count Rostov from the back. He hadn't heard a word, but in his own way he seemed to understand.

It was awkward for her to admit even secretly to herself that she had fallen in love with a man who would possibly never love her in return, but she consoled herself with the thought that no one would ever know, and she would bear no blame for this love, as long as it remained unspoken, even if it was her first and last love, and it went on for a lifetime.

But Nikolay was brimming with such innocent good humour that now and then even the husband fell prey to his exuberance. Towards the end of the evening, however, as the wife's face grew redder and livelier, the husband's grew steadily paler and sadder. It was as if they had been issued with a limited amount of vivacity between them, and as the wife's share of it rose, the husband's dwindled away.

When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.

Con los ojos fijos en Napoleón pensaba en la insignificancia de la grandeza, en la insignificancia de la vida cuyo objeto nadie comprendía, en la insignificancia mayor aún de la muerte cuyo sentido permanecía oculto e impenetrable a los humanos