In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 4, Chapter 6

Chapter 6

We're back to Pierre, who has not seen his wife alone in ages, since they always have loads of visitors.  He doesn't even go back to their bedroom today (unclear whether they actually share a room, since it's referred to as 'his') but goes to his father's room, the room in which Count Bezukhov died.  He tries to take a nap, but his emotions are too strong.  He feels guilty about having killed Dolokhov - as he believes - especially because he never loved Helene.  He felt proud of her beauty, and her social skill, but now acknowledges that she is "a depraved woman", especially when he remembers her brother, Anatole coming to beg for money and kiss her shoulders.  He also remembers her laughing contemptuously when he asked if she might be pregnant, and saying she wasn't such a fool as to want children and certainly not by him.  Pierre has no confidante, he's just dealing with all this alone, poor big dumb kitten.  He believes it's all his fault for marrying her without loving her, and for never acknowledging before now that he knew she was depraved.  He wonders what he must suffer in repence.    He's still puzzling over that when he decides to leave Moscow for St Petersburg so he doesn't have to deal with Helene, but she walks in while he's still getting ready to leave.  She knows about the duel and wants to talk about it.

She looks at him with a contemptuous smile - which sounds like a Tuesday at this point - and demands to know about the duel and what he meant it to prove.  She taunts him, insists that Dolokhov wasn't her lover but know she will be the laughingstock of Moscow and everyone will think Pierre a drunken fool.  Honestly, I'm getting r/raisedbynarcissists flashbacks.  She says she only prefers Dolokhov's company because he's cleverer and more agreeable than Pierre, which is obviously nonsense.  She says any woman married to Pierre would take a lover.  I hope she takes a cannonball to the chest in the next battle.

Pierre knows he has to get out of the situation, but is almost afraid to say he wants a divorce.  He gets the words out though, and Helene demands his fortune, which is what she married him for in the first place.  I've run out of golddigger gifs.  Pierre almost hits her with a marble slab and tells her to get out.

Helene runs out, but the next week Pierre gives her full power to control all the estates in Great Russia, i.e., most of his property and leaves for St Petersburg.