3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

to Julien, whom he presented. It was the Marquis. Julien had great difficulty in recognising him, so civil did he find him. This was no longer the great nobleman, so haughty in his mien, of the Abbey of Bray-le-Haut. It seemed to Julien that there was far too much hair in his wig. Thanks to this impression, he was not in the least intimidated. The descendant of Henri III’s friend struck him at first as cutting but a poor figure. He was very thin and greatly agitated. But he soon remarked that the Marquis showed a courtesy even more agreeable to the person he was addressing than that of the Bishop of Besancon himself. The audience did not occupy three minutes. As they left the room, the abbe said to Julien:

      ‘You looked at the Marquis as you would have looked at a picture. I am no expert in what these people call politeness, soon you will know more about it than I; still, the boldness of your stare seemed to me to be scarcely polite.’

      They had returned to their vehicle; the driver stopped by the boulevard; the abbe led Julien through a series of spacious rooms. Julien remarked that they were unfurnished. He was looking at a magnificent gilt clock, representing a subject that in his opinion was highly indecent, when a most elegant gentleman approached them with an affable expression. Julien made him a slight bow.

      The gentleman smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. Julien quivered and sprang back. He was flushed with anger. The abbe Pirard, for all his gravity, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. The gentleman was a tailor.

      ‘I leave you at liberty for two days,’ the abbe told him as they emerged; ‘it is not until then that you can be presented to Madame de La Mole. Most people would protect you like a young girl, in these first moments of your sojourn in this modern Babylon. Ruin yourself at once, if you are to be ruined, and I shall be rid of the weakness I show in caring for you. The day after tomorrow, in the morning, this tailor will bring you two coats; you will give five francs to the boy who tries them on you. Otherwise, do not let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. If you utter a word, they will find a way of making you look foolish. That is their talent. The day after tomorrow, be at my house at midday . . . Run along, ruin yourself . . . I was forgetting, go and order boots, shirts, a hat at these addresses.’

      Julien studied the handwriting of the addresses.

      ‘That is the Marquis’s hand,’ said the abbe, ‘he is an active man who provides for everything, and would rather do a thing himself than order it to be done. He is taking you into his household so that you may save him trouble of this sort. Will you have sufficient intelligence to carry out all the orders that this quick-witted man will suggest to you in a few words? The future will show: have a care!’

      Julien, without uttering a word, made his way into the shops indicated on the list of addresses; he observed that he was greeted there with respect, and the bootmaker, in entering his name in his books, wrote ‘M. Julien de Sorel’.

      In the Cemetery of Pere–Lachaise a gentleman who seemed highly obliging, and even more Liberal in his speech, offered to guide Julien to the tomb of Marshal Ney, from which a wise administration has withheld the honour of an epitaph. But, after parting from this Liberal, who, with tears in his eyes, almost clasped him to his bosom, Julien no longer had a watch. It was enriched by this experience that, two days later, at noon, he presented himself before the abbe Pirard, who studied him attentively.

      ‘You are perhaps going to become a fop,’ the abbe said to him, with a severe expression. Julien had the appearance of an extremely young man, in deep mourning; he did, as a matter of fact, look quite well, but the good abbe was himself too provincial to notice that Julien still had that swing of the shoulders which in the provinces betokens at once elegance and importance. On seeing Julien, the Marquis considered his graces in a light so different from that of the good abbe that he said to him:

      ‘Should you have any objection to M. Sorel’s taking dancing-lessons?’

      The abbe was rooted to the spot.

      ‘No,’ he replied, at length, ‘Julien is not a priest.’

      The Marquis, mounting two steps at a time by a little secret stair, conducted our hero personally to a neat attic which overlooked the huge garden of the house. He asked him how many shirts he had ordered from the hosier.

      ‘Two,’ replied Julien, dismayed at seeing so great a gentleman descend to these details.

      ‘Very good,’ said the Marquis, with a serious air, and an imperative, curt note in his voice, which set Julien thinking: ‘very good! Order yourself two and twenty more. Here is your first quarter’s salary.’

      As they came down from the attic, the Marquis summoned an elderly man: ‘Arsene,’ he said to him, ‘you will look after M. Sorel.’ A few minutes later, Julien found himself alone in a magnificent library: it was an exquisite moment. So as not to be taken by surprise in his emotion, he went and hid himself in a little dark corner; from which he gazed with rapture at the glittering backs of the books. ‘I can read all of those,’ he told himself. ‘And how should I fail to be happy here? M. de Renal would have thought himself disgraced for ever by doing the hundredth part of what the Marquis de La Mole has just done for me.

      ‘But first of all, we must copy the letters.’ This task ended, Julien ventured towards the shelves; he almost went mad with joy on finding an edition of Voltaire. He ran and opened the door of the library so as not to be caught. He then gave himself the pleasure of opening each of the eighty volumes in turn. They were magnificently bound, a triumph of the best craftsman in London. This was more than was needed to carry Julien’s admiration beyond all bounds.

      An hour later, the Marquis entered the room, examined the copies, and was surprised to see that Julien wrote cela with a double l, cella ‘So all that the abbe has been telling me of his learning is simply a tale!’ The Marquis, greatly discouraged, said to him gently:

      ‘You are not certain of your spelling?’

      ‘That is true,’ said Julien, without the least thought of the harm he was doing himself; he was moved by the Marquis’s kindness, which made him think of M. de Renal’s savage tone.

      ‘It is all a waste of time, this experiment with a little Franc-comtois priest,’ thought the Marquis; ‘but I did so want a trustworthy man.

      ‘Cela has only one l,’ the Marquis told him; ‘when you have finished your copies, take the dictionary and look out all the words of which you are not certain.’

      At six o’clock the Marquis sent for him; he looked with evident dismay at Julien’s boots: ‘I am to blame. I forgot to tell you that every evening at half-past five you must dress.’

      Julien looked at him without understanding him.

      ‘I mean put on stockings. Arsene will remind you; today I shall make your apologies.’

      So saying, M. de La Mole ushered Julien into a drawing-room resplendent with gilding. On similar occasions, M. de Renal never failed to increase his pace so that he might have the satisfaction of going first through the door.

      The effect of his old employer’s petty vanity was that Julien now trod upon the Marquis’s heels, and caused him considerable pain, owing to his gout. ‘Ah! He is even more of a fool than I thought,’ the Marquis said to himself. He presented him to a woman of tall stature and imposing aspect. It was the Marquise. Julien decided that she had an impertinent air, which reminded him a little of Madame de Maugiron, the Sub–Prefect’s wife of the Verrieres district, when she attended the Saint Charles’s day dinner. Being somewhat embarrassed by the extreme splendour of the room, Julien did not hear what M. de La Mole was saying. The Marquise barely deigned to glance at him. There were several men in the room, among whom Julien recognised with unspeakable delight the young Bishop of Agde, who had condescended to say a few words to him once at the ceremony at Bray-le-Haut. The young prelate was doubtless alarmed by the tender gaze which Julien, in his timidity, fastened upon him, and made no effort to recognise this provincial.

      The men assembled in this drawing-room seemed to Julien to be somehow melancholy and constrained; people speak low in Paris, and do not exaggerate trifling