War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER VI

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

ELLEN had accompanied the court on its return from Vilna to Petersburg, and

there found herself in a difficult position.

In Petersburg Ellen had enjoyed the special patronage of a great personage,

who occupied one of the highest positions in the government. In Vilna she had

formed a liaison with a young foreign prince.

When she returned to Petersburg the prince and the great dignitary were both

in that town; both claimed their rights, and Ellen was confronted with a problem

that had not previously arisen in her career—the preservation of the closest

relations with both, without giving offence to either.

What might have seemed to any other woman a difficult or impossible task

never cost a moment's thought to Countess Bezuhov, who plainly deserved the

reputation she enjoyed of being a most intelligent woman. Had she attempted

concealment; had she allowed herself to get out of her awkward position by

subterfuges, she would have spoilt her own case by acknowledging herself the

guilty party. But like a truly great man, who can always do everything he

chooses, Ellen at once assumed the rectitude of her own position, of which she

was indeed genuinely convinced, and the guilty responsibility of every one else

concerned.

The first time the young foreign prince ventured to reproach her, she lifted

her beautiful head, and, with a haughty tone towards him, said firmly:

“This is the egoism and the cruelty of men. I expected nothing else. Woman

sacrifices herself for you; she suffers, and this is her reward. What right have

you, your highness, to call me to account for my friendships, my affections? He

is a man who has been more than a father to me!”

The prince would have said something. Ellen interrupted him.

“Well, yes, perhaps he has sentiments for me other than those of a father,

but that is not a reason I should shut my door on him. I am not a person to be

ungrateful. Know, your highness, that in all that relates to my private

sentiments I will account only to God and to my conscience!” she concluded,

laying her hand on her beautiful, heaving bosom, and looking up to heaven.

“But listen to me, in God's name!”…

“Marry me, and I will be your slave!”

“But it is impossible.”

“You do not deign to stoop to me, you…” Ellen burst into tears.

The prince attempted to console her. Ellen, as though utterly distraught,

declared through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying; that

there were precedents (they were but few at that time, but Ellen quoted the case

of Napoleon and some other persons of exalted rank); that she had never been a

real wife to her husband; that she had been dragged an unwilling victim into the

marriage.

“But the law, religion …” murmured the prince, on the point of

yielding.

“Religion, laws … what can they have been invented for, if they are unable to

manage that?” said Ellen.

The prince was astonished that so simple a reflection had never occurred to

him, and applied to the council of the brotherhood of the Society of Jesus, with

which he was in close relations.

A few days later, at one of the fascinating fêtes Ellen used to give at her

summer villa at Kamenny Ostrov, a certain fascinating M. Jobert was presented to

her; a man no longer young, with snow-white hair and brilliant black eyes, un

Fésuite à robe courte, who walked for a long while with Ellen among the

illuminations in the garden to the strains of music, conversing with her of the

love of God, of Christ, of the heart of the Holy Mother, and of the consolations

afforded in this life and the next by the one true Catholic faith. Ellen was

touched, and several times tears stood both in her eyes and in M. Jobert's, and

their voices trembled. A dance, to which her partner fetched Ellen away, cut

short her conversation with the future “director of her conscience,” but the

next evening M. Jobert came alone to see Ellen, and from that day he was a

frequent visitor.

One day he took the countess into a Catholic church, where she fell on her

knees before the altar, up to which she was conducted. The fascinating,

middle-aged Frenchman laid his hands on her head, and as she herself afterwards

described it, she felt something like a breath of fresh air, which seemed wafted

into her soul. It was explained to her that this was the “grace of God.”

Then an abbé à robe longue was brought to her; he confessed her, and

absolved her from her sins. Next day a box was brought containing the Sacred

Host, and left for her to partake of at her house. Several days later Ellen

learned to her satisfaction that she had now been admitted into the true

Catholic Church, and that in a few days the Pope himself would hear of her case,

and send her a document of some sort.

All that was done with her and around her at this period, the attention paid

her by so many clever men, and expressed in such agreeable and subtle forms, and

her dovelike purity during her conversion (she wore nothing but white dresses

and white ribbons all the time)—all afforded her gratification. But this

gratification never led her for one instant to lose sight of her object. And, as

always happens in contests of cunning, the stupid person gains more than the

cleverer; Ellen, fully grasping that the motive of all these words and all this

man

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