3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ the battle that is preparing,’ he went on, ‘pride of birth will be like a high hill, forming a military position between her and myself. It is there that we must manoeuvre. I have done wrong to remain in Paris; this postponement of my departure cheapens me, and exposes my flank if all this is only a game. What danger was there in my going? I was fooling them, if they are fooling me. If her interest in me has any reality, I was increasing that interest an hundredfold.’

      Mademoiselle de La Mole’s letter had so flattered Julien’s vanity that, while he laughed at what was happening to him, he had forgotten to think seriously of the advantages of departure.

      It was a weakness of his character to be extremely sensitive to his own faults. He was extremely annoyed at this instance of his weakness, and had almost ceased to think of the incredible victory which had preceded this slight check when, about nine o’clock, Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared on the threshold of the library, flung him a letter, and fled.

      ‘It appears that this is to be a romance told in letters,’ he said, as he picked this one up. ‘The enemy makes a false move, now I am going to bring coldness and virtue into play.’

      The letter called for a definite answer with an arrogance which increased his inward gaiety. He gave himself the pleasure of mystifying, for the space of two pages, the people who might wish to make a fool of him, and it was with a fresh pleasantry that he announced, towards the end of his reply, his decision to depart on the following morning.

      This letter finished: ‘The garden can serve me as a post office,’ he thought, and made his way there. He looked up at the window of Mademoiselle de La Mole’s room.

      It was on the first floor, next to her mother’s apartment, but there was a spacious mezzanine beneath.

      This first floor stood so high, that, as he advanced beneath the lime-alley, letter in hand, Julien could not be seen from Mademoiselle de La Mole’s window. The vault formed by the limes, which were admirably pleached, intercepted the view.

      ‘But what is this!’ Julien said to himself, angrily, ‘another imprudence! If they have decided to make a fool of me, to let myself be seen with a letter in my hand, is to play the enemy’s game.’

      Norbert’s room was immediately above his sister’s, and if Julien emerged from the alley formed by the pleached branches of the limes, the Count and his friends would be able to follow his every movement.

      Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared behind her closed window; he half showed her his letter; she bowed her head. At once Julien ran up to his own room, and happened to meet, on the main staircase, the fair Mathilde, who snatched the letter with perfect composure and laughing eyes.

      ‘What passion there was in the eyes of that poor Madame de Renal,’ Julien said to himself, ‘when, even after six months of intimate relations, she ventured to receive a letter from me! Never once, I am sure, did she look at me with a laugh in her eyes.’

      He did not express to himself so clearly the rest of his comment; was he ashamed of the futility of his motives? ‘But also what a difference,’ his thoughts added, ‘in the elegance of her morning gown, in the elegance of her whole appearance! On catching sight of Mademoiselle de La Mole thirty yards off, a man of taste could tell the rank that she occupies in society. That is what one may call an explicit merit.’

      Still playing with his theme, Julien did not yet confess to himself the whole of his thoughts; Madame de Renal had had no Marquis de Croisenois to sacrifice to him. He had had as a rival only that ignoble Sub–Prefect M. Charcot, who had assumed the name of Maugiron, because the Maugirons were extinct.

      At five o’clock, Julien received a third letter; it was flung at him from the library door. Mademoiselle de La Mole again fled. ‘What a mania for writing,’ he said to himself with a laugh, ‘when it is so easy for us to talk! The enemy wishes to have my letters, that is clear, and plenty of them!’ He was in no haste to open this last. ‘More elegant phrases,’ he thought; but he turned pale as he read it. It consisted of eight lines only.

      ‘I have to speak to you: I must speak to you, tonight; when one o’clock strikes, be in the garden. Take the gardener’s long ladder from beside the well; place it against my window and come up to my room. There is a moon: no matter.’

      Chapter 15

      IS IT A PLOT?

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      Ah! How cruel is the interval between the conception of a great project and its execution! What vain terrors! What irresolutions! Life is at stake. Far more than life — honour!

      SCHILLER

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      ‘THIS IS BECOMING SERIOUS,’ thought Julien . . . ‘and a little too obvious,’ he added, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Why! This pretty young beauty can speak to me in the library with a freedom which, thank heaven, is unrestricted; the Marquis, for fear of my bothering him with accounts, never comes there. Why! M. de La Mole and Comte Norbert, the only people who ever show their faces here, are absent almost all day; it is easy to watch for the moment of their return to the house, and the sublime Mathilde, for whose hand a Sovereign Prince would not be too noble, wishes me to commit an act of abominable imprudence!

      ‘It is clear, they wish to ruin me, or to make a fool of me, at least. First of all, they sought to ruin me by my letters; these proved cautious; very well, now they require an action that shall be as clear as daylight. These pretty little gentlemen think me too simple or too conceited. The devil! With the brightest moon you ever saw, to climb up by a ladder to a first floor, five and twenty feet from the ground! They will have plenty of time to see me, even from the neighbouring houses. I shall be a fine sight on my ladder!’ Julien went up to his room and began to pack his trunk, whistling as he did so. He had made up his mind to go, and not even to answer the letter.

      But this sage resolution gave him no peace of heart. ‘If, by any chance,’ he said to himself, suddenly, his trunk packed and shut, ‘Mathilde were sincere! Then I shall be cutting in her eyes the most perfect figure of a coward. I have no birth, so I require great qualities, ready on demand, with no flattering suppositions, qualities proved by eloquent deeds . . . ’

      He spent a quarter of an hour pacing the floor of his room. ‘What use in denying it?’ he asked himself, at length; ‘I shall be a coward in her eyes. I lose not only the most brilliant young person in high society, as everyone was saying at M. le Duc de Retz’s ball, but, furthermore, the heavenly pleasure of seeing her throw over for me the Marquis de Croisenois, the son of a Duke, and a future Duke himself. A charming young man who has all the qualities that I lack: a ready wit, birth, fortune . . .

      ‘This remorse will pursue me all my life, not for her, there are heaps of mistresses, “but only one honour”, as old Don Diego says, and here I am clearly and plainly recoiling from the first peril that comes my way; for that duel with M. de Beauvoisis was a mere joke. This is quite different. I may be shot point-blank by a servant, but that is the least danger; I may forfeit my honour.

      ‘This is becoming serious, my boy,’ he went on, with a Gascon gaiety and accent. ‘Honur is at stake. A poor devil kept down by fate in my lowly СКАЧАТЬ