Prince Andrey has always sought for death as the ultimate resolution of the problems of his life. Tolstoy shows how his hero has always suffered his moments of truth when facing death: at the battlefield of Austerlitz, at the death of his wife Liza, in the hospital tent with Anatole, and even during his life-affirming conversation with Pierre when he regards the peaceful sky. On the other hand, Tolstoy shows how Andrey has always suffered disillusion whenever he followed life's beckoning: his dream of being a hero, his work with Speransky and his committee positions, and finally, his despair at Natasha's"fall." In his death scene, where Andrey believes very much like Platon Karataev in the cosmic unity of life and love and death and God, he arrives at an ultimate understanding of himself. At that moment he chooses death, welcoming its deliverance from all his problems of self-definition and resolving his life's futile activities. Andrey's ultimate expression is nihilistic, and this nihilism is the only solution his civilized, intellectual, egotistical nature can provide him.
In working out Andrey's nature to its ultimate conclusion, Tolstoy has neatly provided the end of one thread of his narrative and a point of beginning for two others. Nikolay and Marya are now free to marry, and Natasha, enriched by her awareness of love by the death of her fiancé, will be mature when it is time for her to accept Pierre.
