Although reported probably mortally wounded, Andrei Bolkonsky returns home in time for his son's birth, but it kills his beloved wife. Good boy Pierre Bezukhov gets to wed Helene Kuragina, but finds her a manipulative, strong-headed bed partner, who sends him off to his estates and seems the ultimate proof of her own warning against his self-invited womanizing party mate Dolokhov. Broke schemer Vassily Denisov's son Anatole charms prospective fat dowry-bride Marya Bolkonskaya, but she decides against a union seeing him already wooing French companion Bourienne. Discarding sage general Mikhail Kutuzov's advice to disengage, Tsar Alexander engages in another battle against Naopoleon, which proves an even bloodier defeat.
—KGF Vissers