Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘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 matters.

A handsome young man, wearing moustaches, very pale and slender, entered the room at about half-past six; he had an extremely small head.

‘You always keep us waiting,’ said the Marquise, as he kissed her hand.

Julien gathered that this was the Comte de La Mole. He found him charming from the first.

‘Is it possible,’ he said to himself, ‘that this is the man whose offensive pleasantries are going to drive me from this house?’

By dint of a survey of Comte Norbert’s person, Julien discovered that he was wearing boots and spurs; ‘and I ought to be wearing shoes, evidently as his inferior.’ They sat down to table. Julien heard the Marquise utter a word of rebuke, slightly raising her voice. Almost at the same moment he noticed a young person extremely fair and very comely, who was taking her place opposite to him. She did not attract him at all; on studying her attentively, however, he thought that he had never seen such fine eyes; but they hinted at great coldness of heart. Later, Julien decided that they expressed a boredom which studies other people but keeps on reminding itself that it is one’s duty to be imposing. ‘Madame de Renal, too, had the most beautiful eyes,’ he said to himself; ‘people used to compliment her on them; but they had nothing in common with these.’ Julien had not enough experience to discern that it was the fire of wit that shone from time to time in the eyes of Mademoiselle Mathilde, for so he heard her named. When Madame de Renal’s eyes became animated, it was with the fire of her passions, or was due to a righteous indignation upon hearing of some wicked action. Towards the end of dinner, Julien found the right word to describe the type of beauty exemplified by the eyes of Mademoiselle de La Mole: ‘They are scintillating,’ he said to himself. Otherwise, she bore a painful resemblance to her mother, whom he disliked more and more, and he ceased to look at her. Comte Norbert, on the other hand, struck him as admirable in every respect. Julien was so captivated, that it never entered his head to be jealous of him and to hate him, because he was richer and nobler than himself.