"Ah! my young friend," he said, "if I thought that what you feel were true love… but I do not," and he shook his head and let his hand drop.
Jean protested. To suffer so, and not to be really in love?
Monsieur Tudesco repeated:
"If I thought that this were true love… but I do not, so far."
Jean answered with great vehemence; he talked of death and plunging a dagger in his heart.
Monsieur Tudesco reiterated for the third time:
"I do not believe it is true love."
Then Jean fell into a fury and began to rumple and tear at his waistcoat as if he would bare his heart for inspection. Monsieur Tudesco took his hands and addressed him soothingly:
"Well, well, my young friend, since it is true love you feel, I will help you. I am a great tactician, and if King Carlo Alberto had read a certain memorial I sent him on military matters he would have won the battle of Novara. He did not read my memorial, and the battle was lost, but it was a glorious defeat. How happy the sons of Italy who died for their mother in that thrice holy battle! The hymns of poets and the tears of women made enviable their obsequies. I say it: what a noble, what a heroic thing is youth! What flames divine escape from young bosoms to rise to the Creator! I admire above everything young folk who throw themselves into ventures of war and sentiment with the impetuosity natural to their age."
Tasso, Novara, and the diva so beloved of cardinals mingled confusedly in Jean Servien's heated brain, and in a burst of sublime if fuddled enthusiasm he wrung the old villain's hand. Everything had grown indistinct; he seemed to be swimming in an element of molten metal.