第 二百三十五 章 · 第235章

Hélène, having returned with the court from Vílna to Petersburg, found

herself in a difficult position.

In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who

occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vílna she had formed

an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg

both the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their

rights. Hélène was faced by a new problem—how to preserve her intimacy

with both without offending either.

What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did

not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezúkhova, who evidently

deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted

concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position

by cunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself

guilty. But Hélène, like a really great man who can do whatever

he pleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she

sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame.

The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she

lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: “That’s

just like a man—selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman

sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What

right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and

friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!” The

prince was about to say something, but Hélène interrupted him.

“Well, yes,” said she, “it may be that he has other sentiments for me

than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door

on him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!

Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I

render account only to God and to my conscience,” she concluded, laying

her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to

heaven.

“But for heaven’s sake listen to me!”

“Marry me, and I will be your slave!”

“But that’s impossible.”

“You won’t deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you...” said Hélène,

beginning to cry.

The prince tried to comfort her, but Hélène, as if quite distraught,

said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,

that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but

she mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had

never been her husband’s wife, and that she had been sacrificed.

“But the law, religion...” said the prince, already yielding.

“The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can’t

arrange that?” said Hélène.

The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him,

and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus,

with whom he was on intimate terms.

A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Hélène gave at

her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert,

a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes,

a Jesuit à robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the

light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a

long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the

consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and

the next. Hélène was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes

and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,

for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with

her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de

Jobert came to see Hélène when she was alone, and after that often came

again.

* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.

One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt

down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged

Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward

described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her

soul. It was explained to her that this was la grâce.

After that a long-frocked abbé was brought to her. She confessed to

him, and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box

containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to

partake of. A few days later Hélène learned with pleasure that she had

now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the

Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.

All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention

devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,

refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore

only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,

but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And

as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets

the better of cleverer ones, Hélène—having realized that the main object

of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her to

Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to

which she received indications)—before parting with her money insisted

that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband

should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely

to preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to

human desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father

Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she

bound by her marriage?

They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room.

The scent of flowers came in at the window. Hélène was wearing a white

dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbé, a well-fed

man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white

hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Hélène and, with a

subtle smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty,

occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the

subject. Hélène with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his

plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the

conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbé, though he evidently

enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the

matter.

The course of the Father Confessor’s arguments ran as follows: “Ignorant

of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal

fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without

faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of

sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have

had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it.

What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial

sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again

with the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the

question is again a twofold one: firstly...”

But suddenly Hélène, who was getting bored, said with one of her

bewitching smiles: “But I think that having espoused the true religion I

cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me.”

The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case

presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus’ egg. He was

delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil’s progress, but could

not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.

“Let us understand one another, Countess,” said he with a smile, and

began refuting his spiritual daughter’s arguments.