3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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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, СКАЧАТЬ