‘No, the way I see it,’ Hélène cut in with a smile of bewitching beauty as she wearied of the way things were going, ‘once converted to the true religion, I cannot be bound by anything imposed upon me by a false religion.’ Her director of conscience was astounded at being presented with a Columbus’s egg1 of such stark simplicity. He rejoiced at his pupil’s unheralded speed of development, and yet he could not relinquish the towering structure of reasoned argument he had worked on so hard.
‘We must come to an understanding,’ he smiled, and looked for ways of undermining his spiritual daughter’s contention.
CHAPTER 7
Hélène had come to the conclusion that in ecclesiastical terms her situation was plain and simple, but her spiritual counsellors kept raising difficulties for the simple reason that they were worried about how things might seem to the worldly authorities. So she decided to go out into society and prepare the ground. She provoked the jealousy of the elderly dignitary by telling him what she had told her other suitor: the issue was straightforward – the only way of obtaining exclusive rights over her was to marry her. At first the elderly dignitary was just as shocked as his younger counterpart had been to receive a proposal of marriage from a wife with a husband who was still alive. But Hélène’s absolute certainty that the whole thing was as simple and natural as marrying a young girl had its effect on him too. If she had shown the slightest twinge of hesitation, embarrassment or reticence her case would undoubtedly have been lost, but not only did she avoid showing any such twinge, she spoke openly about this business to her intimate friends (and that meant all Petersburg), informing them with disarming innocence that the prince and the dignitary had proposed to her, and since she loved both men she was afraid of hurting either of them.
A rumour swept the city, not that Hélène wanted a divorce from her husband (if the rumour had said that, many people would have come out against any such impropriety), but simply that the ill-starred and ever-fascinating Hélène was agonizing over her two suitors, wondering which one to marry. There was no interest in the extent to which this might or might not be feasible; the only questions were who would be the better match, and how would the court look on things. True, there were one or two puritans incapable of rising to the occasion who saw this as a desecration of the sacrament of marriage, but they were few in number, and they kept their own counsel, while most people concentrated on the upturn in Hélène’s fortunes, and who would be the better choice. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing for a wife to remarry during her husband’s lifetime was not up for discussion, because clearly this question must have been settled once and for all by ‘wiser heads than ours’ (as the saying went), and to doubt the validity of the decision would be to risk parading one’s ignorance and lack of savoir-faire.
The only person to come out with an opinion that departed from the general view was Marya Dmitriyevna Akhrosimov, who had come up to Petersburg that summer to see one of her sons. Chancing across Hélène at a ball, this lady stopped her in the middle of the room, and spoke out in a harsh voice with everyone listening.
‘So, I hear it’s in order now for women to go from one living husband to another! I suppose you think this is something new. But they’ve beaten you to it, madam. It’s a very old idea. It’s done in every brothel.’ This said, Marya Dmitriyevna fluffed up her capacious sleeves in a familiar gesture of intimidation, glared round at the company and strode off across the ballroom.
Although people were wary of Marya Dmitriyevna, she was looked on in Petersburg as a kind of comic figure, so the only word that got noticed was the last vulgar expression, which was passed on in whispers as if it was the only important thing that had been said.
Prince Vasily, who had become rather forgetful of late, tended to repeat a phrase over and over again, and every time he came across his daughter he would say the same thing.
‘Hélène, a word in your ear,’ he would say, drawing her to one side and jerking her arm downwards. ‘A little bird tells me about certain plans for . . . you know what. Well, my dear child, you know how my father’s heart rejoices to hear you are . . . You’ve had so much suffering. But, my dear child, listen only to the promptings of your heart. That’s all I have to say.’ And each time, stifling the same surge of emotion, he would embrace his daughter cheek to cheek and then wander off on his own.
Bilibin, who had lost none of his reputation as a wit, was a friend of Hélène’s, one of those disinterested allies who can always be seen circulating round brilliant women, men friends who are never going to change into lovers. One day, in what he called ‘a little sub-committee’, Bilibin gave his friend Hélène the benefit of his views on the subject.
