《War And Peace》Book11 CHAPTER VII

《War And Peace》　Book11 　CHAPTER VII
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

ELLEN perceived that the matter was very simple and easy from the
ecclesiastical point of view, but that her spiritual counsellors raised
difficulties simply because they were apprehensive of the way in which it might
be looked at by the temporal authorities.

And, consequently, Ellen decided in her own mind that the way must be paved
for society to look at the matter in the true light. She excited the jealousy of
the old dignitary, and said the same thing to him as she had to her other
suitor—that is, gave him to understand that the sole means of obtaining
exclusive rights over her was to marry her. The elderly dignitary was, like the
young foreign prince, for the first moment taken aback at this proposal of
marriage from a wife whose husband was living. But Ellen's unfaltering
confidence in asserting that it was a matter as simple and natural as the
marriage of an unmarried girl had its effect on him too. Had the slightest
traces of hesitation, shame, or reserve been perceptible in Ellen herself, her
case would have been undoubtedly lost. But far from it; with perfect directness
and simple-hearted naïveté, she told her intimate friends (and that term
included all Petersburg), that both the prince and the dignitary had made her
proposals of marriage, and that she loved both, and was afraid of grieving
either.

The rumour was immediately all over Petersburg—not that Ellen wanted a
divorce from her husband (had such a rumour been discussed very many persons
would have set themselves against any such illegal proceeding)—but that the
unhappy, interesting Ellen was in hesitation which of her two suitors to marry.
The question was no longer how far any marriage was possible, but simply which
would be the more suitable match for her, and how the court would look at the
question. There were, indeed, certain strait-laced people who could not rise to
the high level of the subject, and saw in the project a desecration of the
sanctity of marriage; but such persons were few in number, and they held their
tongues; while the majority were interested in the question of Ellen's
happiness, and which would be the better match for her. As to whether it were
right or wrong for a wife to marry when her husband was alive, that was not
discussed, as the question was evidently not a subject of doubt for persons
“wiser than you and me” (as was said), and to doubt the correctness of their
decision would be risking the betrayal of one's ignorance and absence of
savoir faire.

Marya Dmitryevna Ahrosimov, who had come that summer to Petersburg to see one
of her sons, was the only person who ventured on the direct expression of a
contrary opinion. Meeting Ellen at a ball, Marya Dmitryevna stopped her in the
middle of the room, and in the midst of a general silence said to her, in her
harsh voice:

“So you are going to pass on from one husband to another, I hear! You think,
I dare say, it's a new fashion you are setting. But you are not the first,
madam. That's a very old idea. They do the same in all the …” And with these
words, Marya Dmitryevna tucked up her broad sleeves with her usual menacing
action, and looking severely round her, walked across the ballroom.

Though people were afraid of Marya Dmitryevna, yet in Petersburg they looked
on her as a sort of buffoon, and therefore of all her words they noticed only
the last coarse one, and repeated it to one another in whispers, supposing that
the whole point of her utterance lay in that.

Prince Vassily had of late dropped into very frequently forgetting what he
had said, and repeating the same phrase a hundred times; and every time he
happened to see his daughter he used to say:

“Ellen, I have a word to say to you,” he would say, drawing her aside and
pulling her arm downwards. “I have got wind of certain projects relative to …
you know. Well, my dear child, you know how my father's heart rejoices to know
you are … You have suffered so much. But, my dear child, consult only your
heart. That's all I tell you.” And concealing an emotion identical on each
occasion, he pressed his cheek to his daughter's cheek and left her.

Bilibin, who had not lost his reputation as a wit, was a disinterested friend
of Ellen's; one of those friends always to be seen in the train of brilliant
women, men friends who can never pass into the rank of lovers. One day, in a
“small and intimate circle,” Bilibin gave his friend Ellen his views on the
subject.

“Écoutez, Bilibin” (Ellen always called friends of the category to
which Bilibin belonged by their surnames), and she touched his coat-sleeve with
her white, beringed fingers. “Tell me, as you would a sister, what ought I to
do? Which of the two?”

Bilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows, and pondered with a smile on
his lips.

“You do not take me unawares, you know,” he said. “As a true friend, I have
thought, and thought again of your affair. You see, if you marry the
prince”—(the younger suitor) he crooked his finger—“you lose forever the chance
of marrying the other, and then you displease the court. (There is a sort of
relationship, you know.) But if you marry the old count, you make the happiness
of his last days. And then as widow of the GREat … the prince will not be making
a mésalliance in marrying you …” and Bilibin let the wrinkles run out of
his face.

“That's a real friend!” said Ellen beaming, and once more touching Bilibin's
sleeve. “But the fact is I love them both, and I don't want to make them
unhappy. I would give my life for the happiness of both,” she declared.

Bilibin shrugged his shoulders to denote that for such a trouble even he
could suggest no remedy.

“Une maîtresse-femme! That is what's called putting the question
squarely. She would like to be married to all three at once,” thought
Bilibin.

“But do tell me what is your husband's view of the question?” he said, the
security of his reputation saving him from all fear of discrediting himself by
so naïve a question. “Does he consent?”

“Oh, he is so fond of me!” said Ellen, who, for some unknown reason, fancied
that Pierre too adored her. “Il fera tout pour moi.”

Bilibin puckered up his face in preparation of the coming mot.

“Même le divorce?” he said.

Ellen laughed.

Among the persons who ventured to question the legality of the proposed
marriage was Ellen's mother, Princess Kuragin. She had constantly suffered pangs
of envy of her daughter, and now when the ground for such envy was the one
nearest to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the idea of
it.

She consulted a Russian priest to ascertain how far divorce and remarriage
was possible for a woman in her husband's lifetime. The priest assured her that
this was impossible; and to her delight referred her to the text in the Gospel
in which (as it seemed to the priest) remarriage during the lifetime of the
husband was directly forbidden.

Armed with these arguments, which seemed to her irrefutable, Princess Kuragin
drove round to her daughter's early one morning in order to find her
alone.

Ellen heard her mother's protests to the end, and smiled with bland
sarcasm.

“You see it is plainly said: ‘He who marryeth her that is divorced…' ”

“O mamma, don't talk nonsense. You don't understand. In my position I have
duties…” Ellen began, passing out of Russian into French, for in the former
language she always felt a lack of clearness about her case.

“But, my dear…”

“O mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has the
right of granting dispensations…”

At that moment the lady companion, who lived in Ellen's house, came in to
announce that his highness was in the drawing-room, and wished to see her.

“No, tell him I don't want to see him, that I am furious with him for not
keeping his word.”

“Countess, there is mercy for every sin,” said a young man with fair hair and
a long face and long nose.

The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied at his entrance. The young
man took no notice of her. Princess Kuragin nodded to her daughter, and swam to
the door.

“Yes, she is right,” thought the old princess, all of whose convictions had
been dissipated by the appearance of his highness on the scene. “She is right;
but how was it in our youth—gone now for ever—we knew nothing of this? And it is
so simple,” thought Princess Kuragin, as she settled herself in her
carriage.

At the beginning of August Ellen's affairs were settled, and she wrote to her
husband (who, as she supposed, was deeply attached to her) a letter, in which
she made known to him her intention of marrying N. N. She informed him also of
her conversion to the one true faith, and begged him to go through all the
necessary formalities for obtaining a divorce, of which the bearer of the letter
would give him further details. “On which I pray God to have you in His holy and
powerful keeping. Your friend, Ellen.”

This letter was brought to Pierre's house at the time when he was on the
field of Borodino.