Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

Two games of billiards were in progress. The waiters were calling out the scores; the players hurried round the tables through a crowd of onlookers. Streams of tobacco smoke, pouring from every mouth, enveloped them in a blue haze. The tall stature of these men, their rounded shoulders, their heavy gait, their bushy whiskers, the long frock coats that coveted their bodies, all attracted Julien’s attention. These noble sons of ancient Bisontium conversed only in shouts; they gave themselves the air of tremendous warriors. Julien stood spellbound in admiration; he was thinking of the vastness and splendour of a great capital like Besancon. He felt that he could not possibly summon up courage to ask for a cup of coffee from one of those gentlemen with the proud gaze who were marking the score at billiards.

But the young lady behind the counter had remarked the charming appearance of this young country cousin, who, brought to a standstill three paces from the stove, hugging his little bundle under his arm, was studying the bust of the King, in gleaming white plaster. This young lady, a strapping Franc–Comtoise, extremely well made, and dressed in the style calculated to give tone to a cafe, had already said twice, in a low voice so modulated that only Julien should hear her: ‘Sir! Sir!’ Julien’s gaze met that of a pair of the most tender blue eyes, and saw that it was himself who was being addressed.

He stepped briskly up to the counter and the pretty girl, as he might have advanced in the face of the enemy. As he executed this great movement, his bundle fell to the ground.

What pity will not our provincial inspire in the young scholars of Paris, who at fifteen, have already learned how to enter a cafe with so distinguished an air! But these children, so stylish at fifteen, at eighteen begin to turn common. The passionate shyness which one meets in the provinces now and then overcomes itself, and then teaches its victim to desire. As he approached this beautiful girl who had deigned to speak to him, ‘I must tell her the truth,’ thought Julien, who was growing courageous by dint of his conquered shyness.

‘Madame, I have come for the first time in my life to Besancon; I should like to have, and to pay for, a roll of bread and a cup of coffee.’

The girl smiled a little and then blushed; she feared, for this good-looking young man, the satirical attention and witticisms of the billiard players. He would be frightened and would never show his face there again.

‘Sit down here, near me,’ she said, and pointed to a marble table, almost entirely hidden by the enormous mahogany counter which protruded into the room.

The young woman leaned over this counter, which gave her an opportunity to display a superb figure. Julien observed this; all his ideas altered. The pretty girl had just set before him a cup, some sugar and a roll of bread. She hesitated before calling to a waiter for coffee, realising that on the arrival of the said waiter her private conversation with Julien would be at an end.

Julien, lost in thought, was comparing this fair and sprightly beauty with certain memories which often stirred him. The thought of the passion of which he had been the object took from him almost all his timidity. The pretty girl had only a moment; she read the expression in Julien’s eyes.

‘This pipe smoke makes you cough, come to breakfast tomorrow before eight o’clock; at that time, I am almost alone.’

‘What is your name?’ said Julien, with the caressing smile of happy timidity.

‘Amanda Binet.’

‘Will you permit me to send you, in an hour’s time, a little parcel no bigger than this?’

The fair Amanda reflected for a while.

‘I am watched: what you ask may compromise me; however, I am now going to write down my address upon a card, which you can attach to your parcel. Send it to me without fear.’

‘My name is Julien Sorel,’ said the young man. ‘I have neither family nor friends in Besancon.’

‘Ah! Now I understand,’ she exclaimed joyfully, ‘you have come for the law school?’

‘Alas, no!’ replied Julien; ‘they are sending me to the Seminary.’

The most complete discouragement extinguished the light in Amanda’s features; she called a waiter: she had the necessary courage now. The waiter poured out Julien’s coffee, without looking at him.

Amanda was taking money at the counter; Julien prided himself on having ventured to speak to her: there was a dispute in progress at one of the billiard tables. The shouts and contradictions of the players, echoing through that vast hall, made a din which astonished Julien. Amanda was pensive and did not raise her eyes.

‘If you like, Mademoiselle,’ he said to her suddenly with assurance, ‘I can say that I am your cousin.’

This little air of authority delighted Amanda. This is no good-for-nothing young fellow,’ she thought. She said to him very quickly, without looking at him, for her eye was occupied in watching whether anyone were approaching the counter:

‘I come from Genlis, near Dijon; say that you are from Genlis too, and my mother’s cousin.’

‘I shall not forget.’

‘On Thursdays, at five o’clock, in summer, the young gentlemen from the Seminary come past the cafe here.’

‘If you are thinking of me, when I pass, have a bunch of violets in your hand.’

Amanda gazed at him with an air of astonishment; this gaze changed Julien’s courage into temerity; he blushed deeply, however, as he said to her:

‘I feel that I love you with the most violent love.’

‘Don’t speak so loud, then,’ she warned him with an air of alarm.

Julien thought of trying to recollect the language of an odd volume of the Nouvelle Heloise, which he had found at Vergy. His memory served him well; he had been for ten minutes reciting the Nouvelle Heloise to Miss Amanda, who was in ecstasies; he was delighted with his own courage, when suddenly the fair Franc–Comtoise assumed a glacial air. One of her admirers stood in the doorway of the cafe.

He came up to the counter, whistling and swaying his shoulders; he stared at Julien. For the moment, the latter’s imagination, always flying to extremes, was filled entirely with thoughts of a duel. He turned deadly pale, thrust away his cup, assumed an air of assurance and studied his rival most attentively. While this rival’s head was lowered as he familiarly poured himself out a glass of brandy upon the counter, with a glance Amanda ordered Julien to lower his gaze. He obeyed, and for a minute or two sat motionless in his place, pale, determined, and thinking only of what was going to happen; he was really fine at that moment. The rival had been astonished by Julien’s eyes; his glass of brandy drained at a gulp, he said a few words to Amanda, thrust his hands into the side pockets of his ample coat, and made his way to one of the billiard tables, breathing loudly and staring at Julien. The latter sprang to his feet in a transport of rage; but did not know what action to take to be insulting. He laid down his little bundle and, with the most swaggering gait that he could assume, strode towards the billiard table.

In vain did prudence warn him: ‘With a duel on the day of your arrival at Besancon, your career in the church is gone for ever.’

‘What does that matter, it shall never be said that I quailed before an insult.’

Amanda observed his courage; it formed a charming contrast with the simplicity of his manners; in an instant, she preferred him to the big young man in the long coat. She rose, and, while appearing to be following with her eyes the movements of someone going by in the street, took her place swiftly between him and the billiard table.

‘You are not to look askance at that gentleman; he is my brother-inlaw.’