Page:War and Peace.djvu/489

Rh beringed fingers. "Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do. Which of the two?"

Bilíbin wrinkled up the skin over his eye-brows and pondered, with a smile on his lips.

"You are not taking me unawares, you know," said he. "As a true friend, I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you marry the prince"–he meant the younger man–and he crooked one finger, "you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days happy, and as widow of the Grand . . . the prince would no longer be making a mésalliance by marrying you," and Bilíbin smoothed out his forehead.

"That's a true friend!" said Hélène beaming, and again touching Bilíbin's sleeve. "But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both."

Bilíbin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could help in that difficulty.

"Une maîtresse-femme!" That's what is called putting things squarely. She would like to be married to all three at the same time," thought he.

"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?" Bilíbin asked, his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so naive a question. "Will he agree?"

"Oh, he loves me so!" said Hélène, who for some reason imagined that Pierre too loved her. "He will do anything for me."

Bilíbin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.

"Even divorce you?" said he.

Hélène laughed.

Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed marriage was Hélène's mother, Princess Kurágina. She was continually tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned a subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce and remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest told her that it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband is alive.

Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she drove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone.

Having listened to her mother's objections, Hélène smiled blandly and ironically.

"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced . . .' " said the old princess.

"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de bêtises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma position fat des devoirs," said Helene changing from Russian, in which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear, into French which suited it better.

"But, my dear . . ."

"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has the right to grant dispensations . . ."

Just then the lady companion who lived with Hélène came in to announce that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.

"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir que je suis furieuse centre lui, parce qu'il m' y manque parole"

"Comtesse, à tout péché misécorde" said a fair-haired young man with a long face and nose, as he entered the room.

The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and sidled out of the room.

"Yes, she is right," thought the old princess all her convictions dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. "She is right, but how i: it that we in our irrecoverable youth did no know it? Yet it is so simple," she thought as sru got into her carriage. By the beginning of August Hélène's affair were clearly defined and she wrote a letter to her husband–who, as she imagined, loved her very much–informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by the bearer of the letter.

And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful keeping Your friend. Hélène.