I am living with my wife again. My mother-in-law came round to see me in tears and told me that Hélène was here, begging to be listened to, that she was innocent, that she was miserable at my desertion of her, and much more besides. I knew that if I once gave in and saw her I wouldn’t be able to hold out against her wishes. In my uncertainty, I didn’t know who to turn to for help and advice. If only my benefactor had been here he would have told me what to do. I retired to my room, read through Osip’s letters and recalled my conversations with him, all of which led me to the conclusion that I must not refuse a supplicant, I must extend a helping hand to anyone, especially someone close to me, and that I must bear my cross. But if I have forgiven her, this being the right thing to do, let my reunion with her have nothing but a spiritual purpose. This is my decision, and this is what I have written to Bazdeyev. I have told my wife I want her to forget the past, I have asked her forgiveness for any harm I might have done to her, and told her I have nothing to forgive her for. It gave me great joy to tell her that. She’s not to know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have now installed myself on the top floor of this huge house, and I’m now experiencing a happy feeling of regeneration.
CHAPTER 9
At that time the high society people that came together at court and at the great balls broke down as always into several circles, each having a character of its own. The largest among them was the French circle of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt which supported the Napoleonic alliance. Hélène had assumed a prominent position in this circle once she had become established in her husband’s house in Petersburg. She received gentlemen from the French embassy and a great number of people famous for their wit and their polished manners who subscribed to that tendency.
Hélène had been at Erfurt for the famous meeting between the two Emperors and had returned well connected to all the notable pro-Napoleon figures in Europe. In Erfurt she had been brilliantly successful. Napoleon himself, seeing her at the theatre, had asked who she was and spoken well of her beauty. Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman came as no surprise to Pierre, for with the years she had become more beautiful than ever. What did surprise him was that over the last two years his wife had managed to gain a reputation as ‘a charming woman with a mind as sharp as her beauty’. The celebrated Prince de Ligne wrote her letters eight pages long. Bilibin saved up his witticisms so as to issue them for the first time in the presence of Countess Bezukhov. To be received in her salon was to be certified as an intellectual. Young men read up on things before going to one of Hélène’s soirées so they would have something to say in her salon, and embassy secretaries, even ambassadors, entrusted her with diplomatic secrets, all of which gave Hélène a certain authority. Pierre, knowing how stupid she really was, sometimes felt an odd mixture of bewilderment and alarm at her dinner-parties and soirées when the conversation turned to politics, poetry or philosophy. At soirées he felt like a conjurer constantly expecting to have his tricks seen through at any moment. But either because the successful management of a salon like this depended on nothing but stupidity or because those who were taken in found it all very amusing, the sham was never exposed and the reputation of being ‘a charming woman with a sharp mind’ stuck to Hélène Bezukhov so effectively that she could come out with the most vulgar banalities and still find everyone hanging on her every word and, more than that, discovering in what she said profound meanings that she had never dreamt of.
