The Arabs are believers in Fate, and the Arabs are in the right.'
'Then why should you plan, Napoleon, if everything is to be decided by
Fate?'
'Because it is fated that I should plan, you little stupid. Don't you
see that that is part of Fate also, that I should have a brain which is
capable of planning. I am always building behind a scaffolding, and no
one can see what I am building until I have finished. I never look
forward for less than two years, and I have been busy all morning,
Monsieur de Laval, in planning out the events which will occur in the
autumn and winter of 1807. By the way, that good-looking cousin of
yours appears to have managed this affair very cleverly. She is a very
fine girl to be wasted upon such a creature as the Lucien Lesage who has
been screaming for mercy for a week past. Do you not think that it is a
great pity?'
I acknowledged that I did.
'It is always so with women--ideologists, dreamers, carried away by
whims and imaginings. They are like the Easterns, who cannot conceive
that a man is a fine soldier unless he has a formidable presence.
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