The Performance of Intelligence — War and Peace

At that time, as always happens, the highest society that meets at court and at the grand balls is divided into several circles, each with its own particular tone. The largest is the French circle of the Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt. In this group Hélène, as soon as she has settled in Petersburg with her husband, takes a very prominent place. She is visited by members of the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for intellect and polished manners. She had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and brought from there connections with Napoleonic notabilities. At Erfurt her success was brilliant. Napoleon himself noticed her in the theater and said of her, C'est un superbe animal. Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman does not surprise Pierre, for she has become even handsomer than before. What does surprise him is that during these last two years she has gained the reputation of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely. The distinguished Prince de Ligne writes her eight-page letters. Bilíbin saves up his epigrams to produce them in Countess Bezúkhova's presence. To be received in her salon is regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before attending her evenings, to have something to say, and secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confide diplomatic secrets to her, so that in a way Hélène is a power.

Pierre, who knows she is very stupid, sometimes attends, with a strange feeling of perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics, poetry, and philosophy are discussed. His feelings are like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remains unexposed, and her reputation as a lovely and clever woman becomes so firmly established that she can say the emptiest and stupidest things and everybody goes into raptures over every word and looks for a profound meaning of which she herself has no conception. Pierre is just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman: the absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who is in no one's way, and far from spoiling the high tone of the drawing room, he serves, by contrast, as an advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife.

He tells himself there has never been an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart, a statement gathered from an unknown source which he believes implicitly. Yet strange to say Borís's presence in his wife's drawing room, and he is almost always there, has a physical effect upon Pierre: it constricts his limbs and destroys the unconsciousness and freedom of his movements. What a strange antipathy, he thinks, yet I used to like him very much. In the eyes of the world Pierre is a great gentleman, the rather blind and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who does nothing but harms nobody and is a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But a complex and difficult process of internal development is taking place all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him many spiritual doubts and joys.