- Easing up on the philosophical stuff for now.
- Pierre and Natasha get married in 1813. It’s the last happy thing that happens in the Rostov family, since right after that Count Rostov dies.
- As soon as he dies, Nikolai resigns from the army and comes home.
- Things are bad. His dad basically wasted their whole estate and now there’s no money left – just a bunch of debts.
- All the creditors had been holding off as long as Count Rostov was alive, but now they get way nervous and start demanding their money back from Nikolai.
- Nikolai is all, ugh, I guess I have to get a job. So he does, as some kind of mid-level bureaucrat.
- Pierre loans his brother-in-law some money, but Nikolai tries to hide how bad the situation is from Natasha and Pierre.
- He lives with Sonya and his mom, and all the money he makes goes to keeping up his mom’s lifestyle. She’s a little demented now and doesn’t understand that they are poor.
- Needless to say, Nikolai is depressed.