3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

I do not conceal from you, yours is a difficult part to play: you have to act, and if she discovers that you are acting, you are doomed.’

      ‘She is so clever, and I am not! I am doomed,’ said Julien sadly.

      ‘No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is profoundly taken up with herself, like all women who have received from heaven either too high a rank or too much money. She looks at herself instead of looking at you, and so does not know you. During the two or three amorous impulses to which she has yielded in your favour, by a great effort of imagination, she beheld in you the hero of her dreams and not yourself as you really are . . .

      ‘But what the devil, these are the elements, my dear Sorel, are you still a schoolboy? .. .

      ‘Egad! Come into this shop; look at that charming black cravat; you would say it was made by John Anderson, of Burlington Street; do me the pleasure of buying it, and of throwing right away that dreadful black rope which you have round your neck.

      ‘And now,’ the Prince went on as they left the shop of the first hosier in Strasbourg, ‘who are the friends of Madame de Dubois? Good God, what a name! Do not be angry, my dear Sorel, I cannot help it . . . To whom will you pay court?’

      ‘To a prude of prudes, the daughter of an enormously rich stocking-merchant. She has the loveliest eyes in the world, which please me vastly; she certainly occupies the first place in the district; but amid all her grandeur she blushes and loses her head entirely if anyone refers to trade and a shop. And unfortunately for her, her father was one of the best-known tradesmen in Strasbourg.’

      ‘So that if one mentions industry,’ said the Prince, with a laugh, ‘you may be sure that your fair one is thinking of herself and not of you. The weakness is divine and most useful, it will prevent you from ever doing anything foolish in her fair eyes. Your success is assured.’

      Julien was thinking of Madame la Marechale de Fervaques, who often came to the Hotel de La Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had married the Marshal a year before his death. Her whole life seemed to have no other object than to make people forget that she was the daughter of an industrial, and in order to count for something in Paris she had set herself at the head of the forces of virtue.

      Julien admired the Prince sincerely; what would he not have given to have his absurd affectations! The conversation between the friends was endless; Korasoff was in raptures: never had a Frenchman given him so long a hearing. ‘And so I have succeeded at last,’ the Prince said to himself with delight, ‘in making my voice heard when I give lessons to my masters!

      ‘It is quite understood,’ he repeated to Julien for the tenth time, ‘not a vestige of passion when you are talking to the young beauty, the Strasbourg stocking-merchant’s daughter, in the presence of Madame de Dubois. On the contrary, burning passion when you write. Reading a well-written love letter is a prude’s supreme pleasure; it is a momentary relaxation. She is not acting a part, she dares to listen to her heart; and so, two letters daily.’

      ‘Never, never!’ said Julien, losing courage; ‘I would let myself be brayed in a mortar sooner than compose three sentences; I am a corpse, my dear fellow, expect nothing more of me. Leave me to die by the roadside.’

      ‘And who said anything about composing phrases? I have in my hold-all six volumes of love letters in manuscript. There are specimens for every kind of woman, I have a set for the most rigid virtue. Didn’t Kalisky make love on Richmond Terrace, you know, a few miles out of London, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of England?’

      Julien was less wretched when he parted from his friend at two o’clock in the morning.

      Next day the Prince sent for a copyist, and two days later Julien had fifty-three love letters carefully numbered, intended to cope with the most sublime and melancholy virtue.

      ‘There would be fifty-four,’ said the Prince, ‘only Kalisky was shown the door; but what does it matter to you, being ill-treated by the stocking-merchant’s daughter, since you are seeking to influence only the heart of Madame de Dubois?’

      Every day they went out riding: the Prince was madly taken with Julien. Not knowing what token to give him of his sudden affection, he ended by offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a wealthy heiress in Moscow; ‘and once you are married,’ he explained, ‘my influence and the Cross you are wearing will make you a Colonel in two years.’

      ‘But this Cross was not given me by Napoleon, quite the reverse.’

      ‘What does that matter,’ said the Prince, ‘didn’t he invent it? It is still the first decoration by far in Europe.’

      Julien was on the point of accepting; but duty recalled him to the eminent personage; on parting from Korasoff, he promised to write. He received the reply to the secret note that he had brought, and hastened to Paris; but he had barely been by himself for two days on end, before the thought of leaving France and Mathilde seemed to him a punishment worse than death itself. ‘I shall not wed the millions that Korasoff offers me,’ he told himself, ‘but I shall follow his advice.

      ‘After all, the art of seduction is his business; he has thought of nothing else for more than fifteen years, for he is now thirty. One cannot say that he is lacking in intelligence; he is shrewd and cautious; enthusiasm, poetry are impossible in such a nature: he is calculating; all the more reason why he should not be mistaken.

      ‘There is no help for it, I am going to pay court to Madame de Fervaques.

      ‘She will bore me a little, perhaps, but I shall gaze into those lovely eyes which are so like the eyes that loved me best in the world.

      ‘She is foreign; that is a fresh character to be studied.

      ‘I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.’

      Chapter 25

      THE OFFICE OF VIRTUE

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      But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence and circumspection, it ceases to be a pleasure for me.

      LOPE DE VEJA

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      IMMEDIATELY ON HIS return to Paris, and on leaving the study of the Marquis de La Mole, who appeared greatly disconcerted by the messages that were conveyed to him, our hero hastened to find Conte Altamira. With the distinction of being under sentence of death, this handsome foreigner combined abundant gravity and had the good fortune to be devout; these two merits and, more than all, the exalted birth of the Count were entirely to the taste of Madame de Fervaques, who saw much of him.

      Julien confessed to him gravely that he was deeply in love with her.

      ‘She represents the purest and loftiest virtue,’ replied Altamira, ‘only it is a trifle Jesuitical and emphatic. There are days on which I understand every word that she uses, but I do not understand the sentence as a whole. She often makes me think that I do not know French as well as people say. This acquaintance will make you talked about; it will give you a position in society. But let us go and see Bustos,’ said Conte Altamira, who had an orderly mind; ‘he has made love to Madame la Marechale.’

      Don Diego Bustos made them explain the matter to him in detail, without saying a word, like a barrister in chambers. He had a plump, monkish face, with black moustaches, and an unparalleled gravity; in other respects, a good carbonaro.

      ‘I understand,’ he said at length to Julien. ‘Has the Marechale de Fervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you, therefore, any hope of success? That is the question. It is as much as to say that, for my own part, I have failed. Now that I am no longer aggrieved,