Chapter 9 Chapter nine

As usual, the upper classes of the day were united at court and at great balls, and were divided into small groups, each with its own peculiarities.The small group of the French, the Napoleonic League headed by Count Rumyantsev and Colancourt, was one of the numerous small groups.Once Helen and her husband settled in Petersburg, Helen occupied a most prominent position in this small group.The gentlemen of the French embassy and people who belonged to this faction, known to the world for their wisdom and politeness, often visited Helen's house. During the famous meeting of the two emperors, Helene was in Erfurt, where she established contacts with all the famous pro-Napoleonic people in Europe, and brought a friendship from there.She is very popular in Erfurt.Napoleon himself, after spotting her in the theater, asked who she was and spoke highly of her beauty.Her success as a woman of beauty and refinement would not have surprised Pierre, for with the passage of time she had become more beautiful than ever.But to his surprise, within two years her wife had acquired a reputation of "d'unefemmecharmante, aussispirituellequebelle".The famous prince deligne wrote her a long letter in eight pages.Bilibin was collecting mots in order to speak of them for the first time when Countess Bezukhov appeared.Being entertained in Countess Bezukhov's drawing room was considered a proof of cleverness; before Helene gave a party, some young people read book after book in order to have something to talk about in her drawing room; Secretaries, even ministers, kept diplomatic secrets to her, so Helen was somewhat of a powerful woman.Pierre knew that she was very ignorant, and he sometimes went with a strange feeling of perplexity and fear to her evenings and dinners, where politics, poetry, and philosophy were often discussed.He often felt that way at these evenings, the way a conjuror should feel when he takes the stage and expects his deception to be caught.However, whether it is because ignorance is required to preside over such parlor events, or because the deceived people themselves take pleasure in the deception, deceit cannot be exposed, Helen Vasilyevna Be Zuhova's reputation as a d'unefemmecharmanteetspirituelle⑤ is so firmly established that she can say the most vulgar and stupid things, and everyone will admire her every word and find in it a profound meaning that even she herself did not expect. meaning.

-------- ①Collancourt (1773-1827), French nobleman, Marquis, follower of Napoleon, new revisions and additions were made to the explanations and annotations between 1807 and 1811, and at the end of each article there was written information about the editions it was published in, stationed in Petersburg Minister. ②French: What a clever, charming and lovely woman. ③French: Duke Deligne. ④French: Witty words. ⑤French: A cute and smart woman. Pierre was just the husband this eminent society woman needed.He was an absent-minded eccentric, a grandseigneur-like husband, who did not hinder anyone, and far from spoiling the general impression of a noble drawing room, he and his wife differed in their elegance and tact, and on the contrary constituted a contradiction. Her favorable backdrop.During these two years Pierre, through his frequent gratification of spiritual needs and open contempt for everything else, had developed an attitude of indifference, negligence, and approval of all in the society of his wife, whom he found dull, This attitude is not ostentatious, so it cannot help but command respect.He entered his wife's drawing-room as he entered a theatre, he knew them all, he saw them all with equal delight, and with equal indifference to them all.Sometimes he took part in conversations that interested him, when he did not consider whether the lesmessieurs del'ambassade ② were here, and he articulated his opinions, which sometimes did not fit the tone of the conversation at all.But the opinion of this eccentric husband of the delafemmelaplusdis Atinguee de Petersbourg3 was so fixed that no one could treat his presumptuous arguments.

-------- ①French: Noble Grand Master. ②French: Gentlemen of the embassy. ③ French: The most outstanding woman in Petersburg. ④ French: Seriously. Among the many young people who visited Helen's house every day, Boris Drubetskoy had already achieved great success in his career. After Helen returned from Erfurt, he was a member of the Bezukhov family. the closest people.Helen called him monpage, and treated him like a child.She smiled towards him as she did everyone else, but sometimes Pierre was displeased when he saw this smile, and Boris began to fight Pierre with a particularly dignified, melancholy, respectful expression. Let's make friends.This sign of respect also made Pierre anxious.Pierre's wife had inflicted on him three years ago the humiliation which he had suffered so much that he was able to save himself from a similar humiliation, firstly because he was not his wife's husband, and secondly because he did not allow himself suspicious.

"No, she has now become a bableu, and she has abandoned her former love affairs forever," he said to himself. "There is no precedent for a female academic to indulge in love affairs." Where did he extract the code of conduct that he firmly believed in.But, curiously enough, the appearance of Boris in his wife's drawing room (where he was almost always seen) had an effect on Pierre's body, his limbs seemed to be bound, his movements impeded, Unnatural and inflexible. -------- ①French: My young attendant. ②French: My young female pedant. "What a queer dislike," thought Pierre, "but I even liked him very much before."

In the eyes of the upper class, Pierre was a great gentleman, the slightly blind and ridiculous husband of a famous wife, a clever eccentric, and a good man who had nothing to do but did no harm to anyone.During this period of time, Pierre was going through a complex and arduous process of intellectual development, which gave him many revelations, and caused him many doubts and pleasures.