# Hélène Bezúkhova — War and Peace character guide

> Hélène Bezúkhova in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Elèn, Princess Elèn, Countess Bezúkhova, Elèna Vasílievna

**First appearance:** 0005-ii

## Snapshot

A woman of dazzling beauty and almost no interior life, whose smile is her weapon and whose marriage is her business.

## Who they are

Hélène enters every room as an event, her beauty so complete that it seems to require no effort and no thought. She marries Pierre for his fortune, manages her affairs with a calm that scandalizes society without ever quite touching her, and treats her husband with a polite contempt that she never bothers to disguise. She is the novel's great study in beauty as power — a woman who has learned that her face opens every door and who has never needed to develop anything behind it.

## Links

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