Book VII describes the high point of youth and happiness and a falling-away into adulthood in the lives of the Rostovs. The hunt scene, the joyousness of the Christmas mummery express the joyful radiance overflowing in Natasha, Nikolay, Sonya — a radiance which will soon slip from them. At this high point in their lives, Nikolay loves Sonya, who is now at the peak of her attractiveness. Natasha savors these moments of abandon and innocence with the intuitive foreboding that these are the last she will enjoy.
Particularly in this section we see how Tolstoy integrates nature with human life. The autumn abandon is the autumn of their youth, and Sonya, Nikolay, and Natasha try to draw all the power of their common childhood to arm themselves for the wintry future. They even call on supernatural powers to help them, but Sonya's fortune-telling only predicts death for Prince Andrey, despair for Natasha.
As this symbolic autumn passes into"winter," Natasha becomes desperate for Andrey to claim her; she feels as if her spirit is in enforced hibernation. Now that she is ready to give up her claims to childhood, there is no one to claim her, and her restless love can be expected to seek an object for itself. Sonya is also caught in a stormy dilemma: Her desire for self-sacrifice to repay her debts to the Rostovs conflicts with her love for Nikolay. The Count and Countess Rostov, who prepare to break up their ancestral properties, feel likewise lost in the harsh climate of circumstances which makes their futures insecure.
In effect, Book VII carries the Rostovs through the paradisiacal innocence of their youth into the alienation and confusion of a grace-denied Fall. Tolstoy provides a pagan atmosphere to celebrate the end of youth. The hunt, the rites of Christmas mummery, the divining session to foretell the future are human activities left over from pre-Christian times. The author invokes the entire childhood of man to show that the Rostovs are giving up their innocence. From a state of"primitive blessedness" they now face the afflictions of adulthood and civilization.
