Collage 516

This is one of my personal favorite collages, as I used a piece of ephemera that I'd been saving for 30 years! I used the label of a Russian champagne bottle that had been slipped between the pages of a book I'd had since my first trip to Russia in 1981. That summer I slept very little, as I was in  (formerly) Leningrad and stayed out late, enjoying the legendary "white nights". It really never got dark. The bridges were pulled up, so even if you wanted to get back, it was impossible, depending on where you were at what time. It was a decadent, fun summer.

We are in volume III, Part Three, Chapter VI. Helene is in a quandary, caught between two love interests. Decadent, beautiful Helene. "What would have seemed difficult and even impossible for another woman, never once made Countess Bezukhov stop and think __ clearly it was not in vain that she enjoyed the reputation of a most intelligent woman. If she had begun to conceal her actions, to extricate herself by cunning from an awkward situation, she would thereby have spoiled things for herself, acknowledging herself guilty; but Helene, on the contrary, like a truly great person who can do whatever she likes, at once placed herself in the position of being right, in which she sincerely believed, and all the others in the position of being wrong." -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 287-288, volume 2 of original text
collage, ink
made 5/13/11
Pevear/Volokhonsky translation page 833-834