Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘An ordinary girl,’ she said to herself, ‘would have sought for the man of her choice among the young fellows who attract every eye in a drawing-room; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to let its thoughts move in the rut traced by the common herd.

‘As the partner of such a man as Julien, who lacks nothing but the fortune which I possess, I shall continue to attract attention, I shall by no means pass unperceived through life. So far from incessantly dreading a Revolution like my cousins, who, in their fear of the people, dare not scold a postilion who drives them badly, I shall be certain of playing a part and a great part, for the man of my choice has character and an unbounded ambition. What does he lack? Friends? Money? I can give him all that.’ But in her thoughts she treated Julien rather as an inferior being who can be made to love one when one wills.

THE OPERA–BOUFFE

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O how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day; Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away!

SHAKESPEARE

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OCCUPIED WITH THOUGHTS of the future and of the singular part which she hoped to play, Mathilde soon came to look back with regret upon the dry, metaphysical discussions which she often had with Julien. Wearied with keeping her thoughts on so high a plane, sometimes also she would sigh for the moments of happiness which she had found in his company; these memories were not untouched by remorse, which at certain moments overwhelmed her.

‘But if one has a weakness,’ she said to herself, ‘it is incumbent upon a girl like myself to forget her duties only for a man of merit; people will not be able to say that it was his handsome moustaches or his elegant seat on a horse that seduced me, but his profound discussions of the future in store for France, his ideas as to the resemblance the events that are going to burst upon us may bear to the Revolution of 1688 in England. I have been seduced,’ she answered the voice of remorse, ‘I am a weak woman, but at least I have not been led astray like a puppet by outward advantages.

‘If there be a Revolution, why should not Julien Sorel play the part of Roland, and I that of Madame Roland? I prefer that to the part of Madame de Stael: immoral conduct will be an obstacle in our time. Certainly they shall not reproach me with a second lapse; I should die of shame.’

Mathilde’s meditations were not all as grave, it must be admitted, as the thoughts we have just transcribed.

She would look at Julien, and found a charming grace in his most trivial actions.

‘No doubt,’ she said to herself, ‘I have succeeded in destroying every idea in his mind that he has certain rights.

‘The air of misery and profound passion with which the poor boy addressed those words of love to me a week ago, is proof positive; I must confess that it was extraordinary in me to be vexed by a speech so fervent with respect and passion. Am I not his wife? That speech was only natural, and, I am bound to say, quite agreeable. Julien still loved me after endless conversations, in which I had spoken to him, and with great cruelty, I admit, only of the feelings of love which the boredom of the life I lead had inspired in me for the young men in society of whom he is so jealous. Ah, if he knew how little danger there is in them for me! How lifeless they seem to me when compared with him, all copies of each other.’

As she made these reflections, Mathilde was tracing lines with a pencil at random on a page of her album. One of the profiles as she finished it startled and delighted her: it bore a striking resemblance to Julien. ‘It is the voice of heaven! This is one of the miracles of love,’ she cried in a transport, ‘quite unconsciously I have drawn his portrait.’

She fled to her room, locked herself in, set to work, tried seriously to make a portrait of Julien, but could not succeed; the profile drawn at random was still the best likeness. Mathilde was enchanted; she saw in it a clear proof of her grand passion.

She did not lay aside her album until late in the evening, when the Marquise sent for her to go to the Italian opera. She had only one idea, to catch Julien’s eye, so as to make her mother invite him to join them.

He did not appear; the ladies had only the most commonplace people in their box. During the whole of the first act of the opera, Mathilde sat dreaming of the man whom she loved with transports of the most intense passion; but in the second act a maxim of love sung, it must be admitted, to a melody worthy of Cimarosa, penetrated her heart. The heroine of the opera said: ‘I must be punished for all the adoration that I feel for him, I love him too well!’

The moment she had heard this sublime cantilena, everything that existed in the world vanished from Mathilde’s ken. People spoke to her; she did not answer; her mother scolded her, it was all she could do to look at her. Her ecstasy reached a state of exaltation and passion comparable to the most violent emotions that, during the last few days, Julien had felt for her. The cantilena, divinely graceful, to which was sung the maxim that seemed to her to bear so striking an application to her own situation, occupied every moment in which she was not thinking directly of Julien. Thanks to her love of music, she became that evening as Madame de Renal invariably was when thinking of him. Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticises itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.

On her return home, in spite of anything that Madame de La Mole might say, Mathilde alleged an attack of fever, and spent part of the night playing over the cantilena on her piano. She sang the words of the famous aria which had charmed her:

Devo punirmi, devo punirmi,

Se troppo amai.

The result of this night of madness was that she imagined herself to have succeeded in conquering her love. (This page will damage the unfortunate author in more ways than one. The frigid hearts will accuse it of indecency. It does not offer the insult to the young persons who shine in the drawing-rooms of Paris, of supposing that a single one of their number is susceptible to the mad impulses which degrade the character of Mathilde. This character is wholly imaginary, and is indeed imagined quite apart from the social customs which among all the ages will assure so distinguished a place to the civilisation of the nineteenth century.

It is certainly not prudence that is lacking in the young ladies who have been the ornament of the balls this winter.

Nor do I think that one can accuse them of unduly despising a brilliant fortune, horses, fine properties, and everything that ensures an agreeable position in society. So far from their seeing nothing but boredom in all these advantages, they are as a rule the object of their most constant desires, and if there is any passion in their hearts it is for them.

Neither is it love that provides for the welfare of young men endowed with a certain amount of talent like Julien; they attach themselves inseparably to a certain set, and when the set ‘arrives’, all the good things of society rain upon them. Woe to the student who belongs to no set, even his minute and far from certain successes will be made a reproach to him, and the higher virtue will triumph over him as it robs him. Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shows the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.