Poor but educated young men can have a hard time to reach the top of the social ladder. If they are capable of dissimulation, of disguise, if they are cold-blooded calculators, their story can be quite a frightnening and successful one. But who can be that cold for a whole lifetime? Indeed, on their way, Stendhal's heroes may use women, but they may also be overwhelmed by passion for one of them. Here begins the true drama. And Stendhal tells it the way he thinks life should be lived: with the speed of a racing horse, the intensity of a war, and most of all with art.