Had Julien devoted to the consideration of what went on in the drawing-room the time which he spent in exaggerating Mathilde's beauty, or in lashing himself into a fury at the aloofness natural to her family, whom she was forgetting in his company, he would have understood in what her despotic power over everyone round about her consisted.
Si Julien eût employé à examiner ce qui se passait dans le salon le temps qu’il mettait à s’exagérer la beauté de Mathilde, ou à se passionner contre la hauteur naturelle à sa famille, qu’elle oubliait pour lui, il eût compris en quoi consistait son empire sur tout ce qui l’entourait.