Other editions of book Strong as Death

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Olivier Bertin, a renowned painter and highly prized by Parisian high society, falls madly in love with one of his models, Countess Anne de Guilleroy, already married of course.They both maintained a passionate relationship for nearly 20 years thanks to the meticulous care of the countess, very jealous, who took care to remove all potential dangers that could threaten her romance and deprive her of her only love.Everything was going very well until the arrival in Paris of the Countess' daughter, who had until then grown up in the countryside with her grandmother.For the old painter, it's a shock. The girl looks like two drops of water to the mother when he met her.Love feelings that had fallen asleep somewhat over time are awakened.It is a real confusion that overwhelms Olivier. Is he in love with the girl or is his love for the mother renewed through the girl?Added to this dilemma, he gradually realizes the weight of age, he is no longer a fashionable painter, new trends are emerging, he becomes "an outdated artist".As for the Countess, the arrival of her daughter exacerbates her jealousy. It is no longer the one we admire and compliment. In his eyes, his daughter took his place. It is her that is compared to her mother's painting painted by Olivier 20 years ago and it is her that is praised.Anne then becomes obsessed with her physical appearance, she sees herself old, stalks the slightest wrinkle in the mirror. She loses her youth, she loses her value in the eyes of others, she loses the man she loves.This novel has all the charm of Maupassant's novels. He analyses the world of high society, its rites, its pretences, its trivialities, its superficiality. He deals with many themes: old age, love, fame, the loss of a loved one, etc... and describes the characters' feelings perfectly.The Countess' jealousy is treated magnificently in a passage that I cannot help but transcribe here:"In her, on the contrary, the passionate attachment, the obstinate attachment of some women who give themselves to a man for all and for ever, is constantly growing.But from the moment the Countess gave herself this way, she felt overwhelmed by fears about Olivier Bertin's constancy. Nothing held him but his will as a man, only a whim, only a passing taste for a woman he had met one day, as he had already met so many others! She felt him so free and easy to tempt, he who lived without duties, habits and scruples, like all men! He was a handsome boy, famous, sought after, having within reach of his desires all the women of the world whose modesty is so fragile, and all the women of the alcove or theater prodigal of their favours with people like him. One of them, one evening, after dinner, could follow him and please him, take him and keep him. She lived in the terror of losing him, spying on his gaits, his attitudes, overwhelmed by a word, full of anguish as soon as he admired another woman, praised the charm of a face, or the grace of a twist. Everything she didn't know about her life made her tremble, and everything she knew frightened her. At each of their meetings, she became ingenious at questioning him, without his noticing it, to make his opinions about the people he had seen, about the houses where he had dined, about the lightest impressions of his mind. As soon as she thought she could guess someone's possible influence, she fought it with a prodigious trick, with countless resources.Oh, she often senses these short intrigues, without deep roots, that last eight or fifteen days, from time to time, in the existence of any prominent artist. She had, so to speak, an intuition of danger, even before she was warned of the awakening of a new desire in Olivier, by the festive air that the eyes and face of a man who is overexcited by a gallant fantasy.

Broad daylight streamed down into the vast studio through a skylight in the ceiling, which showed a large square of dazzling blue, a bright vista of limitless heights of azure, across which passed flocks of birds in rapid flight. But the glad light of heaven hardly entered this severe room, with high ceilings and draped walls, before it began to grow soft and dim, to slumber among the hangings and die in the portieres, hardly penetrating to the dark corners where the gilded frames of portraits gleamed like flame. Peace and sleep seemed imprisoned there, the peace characteristic of an artist's dwelling, where the human soul has toiled. Within these walls, where thought abides, struggles, and becomes exhausted in its violent efforts, everything appears weary and overcome as soon as the energy of action is abated; all seems dead after the great crises of life, and the furniture, the hangings, and the portraits of great personages still unfinished on the canvases, all seem to rest as if the whole place had suffered the master's fatigue and had toiled with him, taking part in the daily renewal of his struggle.