Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘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.’

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, I put it to myself in this way: often she is out of temper, and, as I shall shortly prove to you, she is nothing if not vindictive.

‘I do not find in her that choleric temperament which is a mark of genius and covers every action with a sort of glaze of passion. It is, on the contrary, to her calm and phlegmatic Dutch manner that she owes her rare beauty and the freshness of her complexion.’

Julien was growing impatient with the deliberateness and imperturbable phlegm of the Spaniard; now and again, in spite of himself, he gave vent to a monosyllabic comment.

‘Will you listen to me?’ Don Diego Bustos inquired gravely.

‘Pardon the furia francese; I am all ears,’ said Julien.

‘Well, then, the Marechale de Fervaques is much given to hatred; she is pitiless in her pursuit of people she has never seen, lawyers, poor devils of literary men who have written songs like Colle, you know?

“J’ai la marotte D’aimer Marote,” etc.’

And Julien was obliged to listen to the quotation to the end. The Spaniard greatly enjoyed singing in French.

That divine song was never listened to with greater impatience. When he had finished: ‘The Marechale,’ said Don Diego Bustos, ‘has ruined the author of the song:

“Un jour l’amant au cabaret . . . ”’

Julien was in an agony lest he should wish to sing it. He contented himself with analysing it. It was, as a matter of fact, impious and hardly decent.

‘When the Marechale flew into a passion with that song,’ said Don Diego, ‘I pointed out to her that a woman of her rank ought not to read all the stupid things that are published. Whatever progress piety and gravity may make, there will always be in France a literature of the tavern. When Madame de Fervaques had the author, a poor devil on half pay, deprived of a post worth eighteen hundred francs: “Take care,” said I to her, “you have attacked this rhymester with your weapons, he may reply to you with his rhymes: he will make a song about virtue. The gilded saloons will be on your side; the people who like to laugh will repeat his epigrams.” Do you know, Sir, what answer the Marechale made me? “In the Lord’s service all Paris would see me tread the path of martyrdom; it would be a novel spectacle in France. The people would learn to respect the quality. It would be the happiest day of my life.” Never were her eyes more brilliant.’

‘And she has superb eyes,’ exclaimed Julien.

‘I see that you are in love . . . Very well, then,’ Don Diego Bustos went on gravely, ‘she has not the choleric constitution that impels one to vengeance. If she enjoys injuring people, nevertheless, it is because she is unhappy, I suspect inward suffering. May she not be a prude who has grown weary of her calling?’

The Spaniard gazed at him in silence for fully a minute.

‘That is the whole question,’ he went on gravely, ‘and it is from this that you may derive some hope. I gave it much thought during the two years in which I professed myself her most humble servant. Your whole future, you, Sir, who are in love, hangs on this great problem. Is she a prude, weary of her calling, and malicious because she is miserable?’

‘Or rather,’ said Altamira, emerging at last from his profound silence, ‘can it be what I have said to you twenty times? Simply and solely French vanity; it is the memory of her father, the famous cloth merchant, that causes the unhappiness of a character naturally morose and dry. There could be only one happiness for her, that of living in Toledo, and being tormented by a confessor, who every day would show her hell gaping for her.’

As Julien rose to leave: ‘Altamira tells me that you are one of us,’ Don Diego said to him, graver than ever. ‘One day you will help us to reconquer our freedom, and so I wish to help you in this little diversion. It is as well that you should be acquainted with the Marechale’s style; here are four letters in her hand.’

‘I shall have them copied,’ cried Julien, ‘and return them to you.’

‘And no one shall ever learn from you a single word of what we have been saying?’

‘Never, upon my honour!’ cried Julien.

‘Then may heaven help you!’ the Spaniard concluded; and he accompanied Julien and Altamira in silence to the head of the stair.

This scene cheered our hero somewhat; he almost smiled. ‘And here is the devout Altamira,’ he said to himself, ‘helping me in an adulterous enterprise.’