We are in Volume II, Part Five, Chapter XII and XIII. Natasha has fallen in love with Anatole at the opera, and has been invited to a soiree at Helene's the next evening. Helene is encouraging this love affair. You wonder -- why? Knowing (presumably) that her brother is secretly married, knowing that Natasha is engaged and also knowing that Natasha has fallen in love with Anatole -- why encourage it? Is she really so evil? One of the guests at the soiree is Mlle George, an actress, who recites some verses "in which the talk was of her criminal love for her son". The footnote says that she was obviously reciting from the tragedy Phedre by Jean Racine.I used a lot of religious texts here and beautiful blues and greens, contrasted with a very dark, intense flower to capture Natasha's two intense, opposing sides. As a woman, I cringe when I recall my own vulnerability as a teenager and how easily a young girl can be influenced.
Criminal love, I guess! -- Lola
Lola Baltzell
from page 717-718 of original tex
collage, India ink
made 1/28/11
page 571-573 Pevear/Volokhonsky translation
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