Book 11 Chapter 6

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?uvring was by her conversion to Catholicism to get a round sum from her for the benefit of the Jesuit order (this was hinted at, indeed), held back the money, while insisting steadily on the various operations that would set her free from her conjugal bonds. To her notions, the real object of every religion was to provide recognised forms of propriety for the satisfaction of human desires. And with this end in view, she insisted, in one of her conversations with her spiritual adviser, on demanding an answer to the question how far her marriage was binding.

They were sitting in the drawing-room window. It was dusk. There was a scent of flowers from the window. Ellen wore a white dress, transparent over the bosom and shoulders. The sleek, well-fed abbé, with his plump, clean-shaven chin, his amiable, strong mouth, and his white hands, clasped mildly on his knees, was sitting close by Ellen. With a subtle smile on his lips, and a look of discreet admiration in his eyes, he gazed from time to time at her face, as he expounded his views on the subject. Ellen, with a restless smile, stared at his curly hair and his smooth-shaven, blackish cheeks, and seemed every minute to be expecting the conversation to take a new turn. But the abbé, though unmistakably aware of the beauty of his companion, was also interested in his own skilful handling of the question. The spiritual adviser adopted the following chain of reasoning:—

“In ignorance,” said he, “of the significance of your promise, you took a vow of conjugal fidelity to a man who, on his side, was guilty of sacrilege in entering on the sacrament of matrimony with no faith in its religious significance. That marriage had not the dual binding force it should have had. But in spite of that, your vow was binding upon you. You broke it. What did you commit? Venial sin or mortal sin? A venial sin, because you committed it with no intention of acting wrongly. If now, with the object of bearing children, you should enter into a new marriage, your sin might be forgiven. But the question again falls into two divisions. First …”

“But, I imagine,” Ellen, who was getting bored, said suddenly, with her fascinating smile, “that after being converted to the true religion, cannot be bound by any obligations laid upon me by a false religion.”

Her spiritual adviser was astounded at the simplicity of this solution, as simple as the solution of Columbus's egg. He was enchanted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could not abandon the edifice of subtle argument that had cost him mental effort.

“Let us understand each other,” he said, with a smile; and began to find arguments to refute his spiritual daughter's contention.

海伦随王室从维尔纳回到彼得堡后，陷入了困境。

在彼得堡时，海伦受到一位身居帝国高位的要员的眷顾。在维尔纳，她又与一位年轻的外国亲王过从甚密。当她回到彼得堡时，亲王和要员又都在彼得堡，双方都宣布他们有保护的权利，这使海伦的生涯中出现一道新的课题：保持同双方的亲密关系，不伤害任何一方。

这对于别的女人似乎是困难的，甚至是无法办到的事，而从未让别祖霍娃伯爵夫人费过神，她真不愧享有最聪明的女人的声誉。假如她开始掩盖自己的行为，狡猾地从尴尬境地解脱出来，那她就自认有罪，反倒会坏事；可是海伦却相反，她立即，像真正的伟人一样，凡是想要做的都能做到，把自己置于她深信不疑的正确立场，而把别人置于有罪的地位。

当那个有张年轻的外国面孔的人初次敢于责备她时，她高傲地昂起美丽的头，斜转身朝着他坚定地说：

“Voilà　l'égoisme　et　la　cruauté　des　hommes！　Je　ne　m'atten－dais　pas　à　autre　chose．La　femme　se　sacrifie　pour　vous，elle　souffre，et　voilà　se　récompense．　Quel　droit　avez　vous，monBseigneur，de　me　demander　compte　de　mes　amitiés，de　mes　af－fections？C'est　un　homme　qui　a　été　plus　qu'un　père　pour　moi．”①

有那张面孔的人想要说什么。海伦打断了他，“Eh　biBen，oui，”——她说，“peut－être　qu'il　a　pour　moi　d'autres　sentiments　que　ceux　d'un　père，mais　ce　n'est　pas　une　raison　pour　que　je　lui　ferme　ma　porte．Je　ne　suis　pas　un　homme　pour　être　ingrate．Sachez，monseigneur，pour　tout　ce　qui　a　rapBport　à　mes　sentiments，jene　rends　compte　qu'à　Dieu　et　à　ma　conscience．”②她说完毕，一只手微掩美丽高耸的胸脯，看着天空。

“Mais　écoutez　moi，au　mon　de　Dieu．”

“Epousez　moi，et　je　serai　votre　esclave．”

“Mais　c'est　impossible．”

“Vous　ne　daignez　pas　descendre　jusqu'à　moi，vous……”③海伦哭着说。

那个人开始安慰她；海伦则抽泣着说，（好像陷入沉思），没有任何情况能妨碍她结婚，这已经有了先例（当时还少有这样的例子，但她举出拿破仑和另一些显贵），她从来不是她

①法语：哼，男人的自私残忍！我没存什么奢望。女人为您牺牲她自己；她吃苦头，而这就是报答，殿下，您有何权利查问我的爱情和友谊？这是一位比我父亲还亲的人。

②那好，就算他向我倾注的感情不完全是父亲般的，但也不能因此我就拒绝他上我的家呀。我不像男人，以怨报德。请殿下放明白，我珍惜的感情只告诉上帝和我的良心。

③法语：“但是请听我说，看在上帝份上。”

丈夫的妻子，她是被当作牺牲品的。

“然而法律，宗教……”那个人垂头丧气地说。

“法律，宗教……其用处是什么，如果这事都办不了！”海伦说。

这个要人吃了一惊，这样简单的道理他竟然没有想过，于是，去求教与它关系密切的耶稣会的教友们。

几天之后，海伦在她石岛上的别墅举行了一次令人消魂的宴会，在宴会上，人们向她引见了一位已不年轻的，发白如雪，眼睛又黑又亮的迷人的m－r　de　Jobert，un　jésuite　á　robe　courte①，他和海伦在花园里的灯光下，在音乐伴奏声中谈了很久，谈的是对上帝的爱，对基督的爱，对圣母圣心的爱，还谈唯一真诚的天主教在现世和来世给予人们的慰藉。海伦大为感动，并且，有几回在她和m—r　Jobert眼里含着泪水，他们的声音颤“娶了我吧，那我就是您的奴隶了。”

“可是这不可能。”

“您不能屈尊降纡同我结婚，您……。”

抖。一位男士来邀海伦跳舞，中断了她同未来的diB

recteur　de　conscience②的谈话；但第二天m－r　Jobert又单独来看海伦，此后并且经常前来。

①法语：一位着短袍的耶稣教士德若贝尔先生。

②法语：良心指导者。

一天，他把伯爵夫人带到天主教堂，领她到祭坛前，她跪了下来。已不年轻的迷人的法国人把手放在她头上，于是，如她事后所说，似有一丝清风降到她心灵，她被告知那是la　graAce①。

然后，她被领去见一位a　robe　longue②长老，他听了她的忏悔，宽恕了她的罪过。第二天，给她送来了一个盛着圣餐的盒子留在她家里供她使用。过了几天，海伦满意地得知，她已加入真诚的天主教会，教皇于数日内将亲自批准她，发给她一种证书。

①法语：神恩。

②法语：身穿长袍的。

这期间围绕她发生，并由她而参与的一切；如此众多的聪明人都以令人愉快而精致的形式向她表示的关注；她装束的鸽子般的纯洁（她在整个这段期间都穿白色衣裙，系白缎带）；所有这一切带给她满足，但她并不由于满足而对她的目的有一刻的疏忽。事情总是这样，蠢人耍狡猾瞒得过聪明人，海伦看出，这一切的言谈奔波，其目的绝大部份是接纳她入天教然后从她获取对耶稣会机构的捐款（她被暗示过），她则在捐款之前，坚持要为她履行脱离丈夫的宗教手续。在她的观念里，一切宗教的意义全在于满足人们愿望的同时，遵守一定的礼仪。怀着这一目的，她在一次同接受忏悔的神父的谈话中，坚决要求他答复一个问题：她的婚姻在多大程度上对她有约束。

他们在客厅里靠窗坐着，时近黄昏，从窗口飘来花香。海伦身穿白色衣裙，袒露出胸脯和肩膀，长老靠近海伦坐着，他保养得很好，肥实的刮得干净的下巴，愉快结实的嘴吧，白皙的双手安详在叠放在膝上。他嘴上挂着优雅的微笑，用藏而不露的赞叹她美貌的目光，偶而扫一眼她的面庞，阐述他对他们所交谈的问题的观点。海伦不安地微笑着，望着她卷曲的头发和刮得发青的丰满的面颊，不耐烦地等候话题的转换。长老，显然在欣赏对谈者的秀色，但却全神贯注于他的本职工作。

这位良心指导者的议论展开如下。您在不明白您所作所为的意义的情况下，就对一个人作出了信守婚约的誓言，而那个人也在不相信婚约的宗教意义下完婚，则犯了亵渎罪。这种婚姻缺少它应有的双重意义。但无论如何，您的誓言约束着您。而您违背了誓言。您这样做犯下了什么罪呢？是Péché　véniel还是péché　mortel？①是péché　véniel，因为您的行为并无不良图谋。假如您现在为了生儿育女重新结婚，您的罪会得到宽恕的。但这个问题又分为两个方面：第一……

“但我认为”，——感到无聊的海伦带着迷人的微笑突然说道，——“我信奉真诚的宗教，便可不受虚假宗教加之于我的约束。”

Directeur　de　conscience②对如此简单地向他提出哥伦布与鸡蛋的问题，大为惊异。他为自己女信徒的意想不到的快速进步感到惊喜，但是他不能放弃绞尽脑汁构筑起来的理论大厦。

①法语：可恕之罪，或是死罪。

②法语：良心指导者。

“Entendons－nous，comtesse．”①他微笑说，开始反驳他的教女的道理。

①法语：让我们来分析，伯爵夫人。