❝ i remember exactly how i thought life would be. ❞ — aline .
IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL , was it , mother ? no , hélène knows this . princess kuragina has made it so clear so often , how unhappy she was with the progression of her life . she had grown up so similar to her daughter , wishing that life would treat them as well as they so certainly thought they deserved , had been taught to think they deserved , but aline was crueler , elena was sadder .
she knows the implication of her mother telling her this . that unrighteous blame is placed upon her shoulders — her lovely , greatly admired shoulders — for her mother’s hope’s end . [ i have no more beauty left in me . i have no place . you dragged it out of me . it bled out of me in the afterbirth . it followed you out . ] one night , through wine - stained lips , princess kuragina had told her daughter of the loss of her position within society with ippolit , the loss of her potential with anatole , the loss of absolutely everything else with elena . in her mother’s eyes , she stood as an end , a last threat backing her into submission before hélène had even come into society . did she always know this , hélène wondered , that she would reach such heights , ones that surpassed her own so severely ? was that why she was so cruel ?
hélène did not understand her mother enough to know why , when she so clearly possessed such hatred for her , she tried so hard to ensure her daughter’s success . with all her terrible fierceness , aline had pulled a more than exceptional lady out of hélène . that former princess had kept at bay the resentment for her mother the way aline wanted her to , with unjust gratitude . princess kuragina had taken the stone block of her & violently chipped away at it until she produced an artwork of a daughter : a statue made of the purest possible marble . beautiful , but immovable . she was gazed at & called beautiful , but there was little else to say . but , shouldn’t elena be thankful ? at least she had been afforded that . at least she was called beautiful . the secret to aline’s attempts was that she did not want to be an artist , though hélène was not aware of that . she , too , wanted to be art , but such a fate had become impossible , so she forced it upon her daughter & enjoyed the audience’s praise behind her . it was the artwork they loved , not her , but at the very least she could say that she had created it .
very suddenly , hélène remembered that she was no longer only elena vassilievna , but countess bezukhova , & that she had indeed won that superiority over her mother . the marble had cracked , moved . why should she continue to carry that blame , when her reclusive , aging mother was so very far below her now ? let her forget her past childhood guilt & be proud of herself , for she had done what others , her mother included , could not . what was princess kuragina’s anger to her anymore ? what would she dare do to that very important person that her daughter had become ? hélène raised her lovely head & , finally , after an uncomfortable & heavy silence , spoke in a tone so coarse & devoid of pity . ❝ i’m sorry , mama . ❞
