1. In fact, as we know, Tolstoy originally conceived War and Peace as a novel about the Decembrist rebellion of 1825. The story had begun to evolve in his mind merely as a way of showing the background to that moment of crisis in Russian life, and as a way of building up his characters to the point where they were confronted by the crisis: in which the liberal idealist Pierre and the conservative, loyal army officer Nikolai would find themselves on opposing sides. In light of this, it is even more interesting to see how Tolstoy’s imagination became gradually possessed by a quite different type of story, based on the archetype of Comedy, leaving his First Epilogue as the only vestigial evidence of the story as it had originally occurred to him.

2. Another of many later stories to use ‘non-white’ characters in this way, to represent the ‘below the line’ element which must be brought up into the light to provide a happy ending, was Stanley Kramer’s Hollywood movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). The young white heroine returns home to San Francisco with a friend she has fallen in love with on holiday in Hawaii, planning to introduce him to her rich parents as the man she intends to marry. He (played by Sidney Poitier) is a highly-successful black doctor. Her mother (Katherine Hepburn) and father (Spencer Tracy), despite being the owner of a liberal newspaper which has long campaigned for racial equality, are horrified. Recognising that her daughter is deeply in love, mother is soon won round; but father remains adamantly opposed to the marriage. Since the lovers plan to fly off that night to Europe to be wed, the daughter invites to dinner his poor but respectable black parents, to break the news. They are equally shocked at the prospect of their son marrying a white girl; but his mother is similarly won round to supporting the match, leaving the two ‘unrelenting fathers’ united in their opposition. A part in resolving the impasse is played by a wise, genial old Catholic priest, a friend of the family who is also invited to dinner. The denouement comes when the heroine’s father announces that he wants to make a speech. Everyone expects him to reiterate his opposition to the match, but he reveals he has had a change of heart and now gives the marriage his blessing. Thus love triumphs over prejudice and all ends happily (although we are left only to guess whether the hero’s black father has been similarly converted).

3. By a delightful twist of Hollywood unreality, both the speaking and singing voices of Debbie Reynolds, playing Kathy, themselves had to be dubbed in the film by other actresses. By an even greater irony, her speaking voice was dubbed by Jean Hagen, the actress playing Lina.