Cosmopolis — Volume 3

Cosmopolis, Volume 3, continues the 1892 novel of international Roman society by Paul Bourget (1852-1935), the French psychological novelist and academician. The third volume drives the intertwined jealousies of the expatriate colony toward open rupture: the Polish count Gorka, supplanted in the Countess Steno’s affections by the American painter Maitland, moves toward the duel that the cosmopolitan code of honour demands, while the novelist-observer Dorsenne is forced from spectator into participant and the innocent Alba Steno begins to perceive the corruption around her. Bourget combines the machinery of the society melodrama with his analytic interest in how national character determines conduct under passion. The volume carries the novel to the edge of its catastrophes. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.