Pierre wins the Duel and thereafter cannot stand to be in the presence of his wife. The night after the conflict he avoids the marital bedroom in preference of his late father’s room. Pierre desires to fall asleep and forget all. Yet a storm of emotions prevents any rest.

Pierre relives his rash decision to marry, which he now realizes would inevitably lead to dreadful consequences. He acknowledges that even when he first expressed love for Hélène, it was not a genuine.

Tolstoy brings you into Pierre’s soul. Pierre recognizes his own sinful pride in his wife’s majestic beauty and appreciation of how she glides through Society. She is so out-of-reach that he could not resist. Yet at her core, he knows her to be depraved. He recalls how her corrupt brother, Anatole, would come to borrow money and take un-natural liberties, like kissing her naked shoulders. He notes how she would assent to the affection. He then relives the time he asked if she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She belittled him, laughing contemptuously, and voiced she was not the type of fool to want to have children and especially not with Pierre.

Pierre digested these moral sufferings while his adversary faced physical wounds. He agonizes: Why did I say “I love you” (Je vous aime).

His minds wonder to both philosophy and history – including the notion of causation and justification, a topic which Tolstoy pours over in his Second Epilogue. Pierre considers how Louis XVI was executed during the French Revolution when those who gained power labeled him dishonorable and a criminal. From a certain point, the King’s enemies were right. Yet so were those who canonized Louis. Everyone is right depending on their perspective. Pierre is paraphrasing a theme of the Biblical Book of Judges – where there was no King and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Pierre concludes that it is not worth tormenting oneself over life’s endless complexity when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity. He senses: if you are alive— one must live! Tolstoy is such a reader of the Biblical Wisdom literature that he is infusing his character with some of notions from the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes, namely: that our lives are but a shadow in the face of the vast heavens; that we will never understand the nature of the world; and that there is much more beyond cause and effect. For Pierre, he will never be able to fully grasp how his marriage led to such anguish.

Pierre then references Moliére, the 17th Century French playwright. The famous quote goes through his mind – “But what the devil was he doing in that galley?” This phrase was a popular way of voicing frustration when someone gets tangled up in a mess of their own making. It is taken from 'The Imposture of Scapin,' 1671, where the cunning main character tricks an older man into believing his son was lured onto a Turkish ship and would be sold into slavery unless the father pays a ransom. As the father is tricked, he can only replay the quote in his mind. Pierre sees himself as someone caught in such a web of deceit.

This frustration led Pierre to instruct his valet to pack as he would be leaving for Petersburg. He could not be around Hélène another moment. She does not let him leave without giving him a piece of her mind. She confronts him and lectures, “So it seems you’re a hero?, What was this duel about?” He doesn’t answer and she continues: “You believe everything you’re told….including that Dolokhov was my lover. Well, what have you proved? That you’re a fool,(que vous êtes un sot). But everybody knew that! And what will be the result? That I shall be a laughingstock…that everyone will say that you, drunk… challenged a man you are jealous of -- a man who’s a better man than you in every way!”

She denies any affair while announcing that she should have taken a lover and concedes preferring Dolokhov’s company. Pierre begs her to stop, while violent feelings stir within. Pierre keeps composure at first and suggests they separate. Hélène demands a fortune for said privilege. Pierre then leaps up from the sofa and rushes at Hélène and threatens to kills her as he seized the marble top of a table with a strength he never felt. Her face expressed a base fear and she screamed. Some of Pierre’s father’s nature showed itself. Pierre felt the delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, smashing it and swooped toward Hélène and shouted, “Get out!” Hélène retreated.

A week later Pierre gave his wife what she asked for -- full power to control much of his land. He gave her control on one of the vastest estates in the land and left for Petersburg.