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Updated: October 7, 2025
To bring his exasperation to a head, that very day he happened to see an article by Lucien Levy-Coeur on a performance of Fidelio. In it he spoke of Beethoven in a bantering way, and poked fun at his heroine. Christophe was as alive as anybody to the absurdities of the opera, and even to certain mistakes in the music.
The general went on talking with effusive politeness and a gentle, meaningless smile: and he wanted Christophe to explain how he could play such a long piece of music from memory. Christophe fidgeted impatiently, and thought wildly of knocking the old gentleman off the sofa. He wanted to hear what Lucien Levy-Coeur was saying: he was waiting for an excuse for attacking him.
He looked into the matter, and had no difficulty in finding out that the whole trouble arose from the scandal-mongering of Colette and Lucien Levy-Coeur. He rushed back with his evidence to Christophe, thinking that he could in that way prevent the duel.
Christophe pretended to notice neither attacks nor advances. Levy-Coeur wearied of it. They lived in the same neighborhood and used often to meet. As they passed each other Christophe would look through Levy-Coeur, who was exasperated by this calm way of ignoring his existence.
Even if Olivier had made him suffer a thousand times more, Christophe would never have done anything to avenge himself, and he would have done hardly anything to defend himself: Olivier was sacred to him. But it was necessary that the indignation he felt should be expended upon some one: and since that some one could not be Olivier, it was Lucien Levy-Coeur.
She met him one day at a concert, and asked him if it were true that he had quarreled with that poor Olivier Jeannin: and she asked about his work, and alluded to things which he believed were known only to himself and Olivier. And when he asked her how she had come by her information, she said she had had it from Lucien Levy-Coeur, who had had it direct from Olivier.
He was just about to give in once more when Lucien Levy-Coeur came in: and he was welcomed with the same soft look in her eyes and the same tender note in her voice. Christophe sat for some time in silence watching Colette at her tricks: then he went away, having made up his mind to break with her. He was sick and sorry at heart.
But the result was exactly the opposite of what he expected: Christophe was only the more rancorous against Levy-Coeur when he learned that it was through him that he had come to doubt his friend. To get rid of Mooch, who kept on imploring him not to fight, he promised him everything he asked. But he had made up his mind. He was quite happy now: he was going to fight for Olivier, not for himself!
In the comparison his bias was all in favor of Aurora, but it led him to create in his mind a sort of imaginary friendship between the two girls, though they did not know each other, and even, without his knowing it, to a certain feeling for Levy-Coeur. When he returned from Germany he heard that "the lamb" was dead. In his fatherly selfishness his first thought was: "Suppose it had been mine!"
That gave him a great advantage. It is very pleasant to a woman to feel that she has to deal with a man weaker than herself. She finds food in it at once for her lower and higher instincts: her maternal instinct is touched by it. Lucien Levy-Coeur knew that perfectly: one of the surest means of touching a woman's heart is to sound that mysterious chord.
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