| 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. | 