The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: taking his eyes from the plan of the building.
"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..."
"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and
still say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never
get beyond the Niemen."
Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of
the Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess
Mary, forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that
what her father was saying was correct.
"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they
could fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the
 War and Peace |