finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_14_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 17-20
chapters 17-20
{"name": "Chapters 17-20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-1720", "summary": "In the days following the rendezvous, Mathilde is distant and cold toward Julien. He is perplexed and discovers that he is hopelessly in love with her. Confronting her one day in the library, Julien asks directly if she does not love him anymore. Mathilde answers that she is horrified at having given herself to the first one to come along. Julien's reaction is spontaneous: He rushes upon a medieval sword hanging in the room and, after unsheathing it, stops, checks his impulse to kill Mathilde, examines the blade curiously, and puts it back. Mathilde sees in the act a truly heroic gesture worthy of her ancestors. In desperation, Julien announces to the marquis that he is going on a business trip to Languedoc. The marquis has other plans for Julien, who is confined to his quarters to be available at any time for an important mission. Mathilde now considers Julien worthy of being her master and for a week permits him to walk with her in the garden while she passionately talks of the love she felt in the past for his rivals. This is torture for Julien, who is suffering all the pangs of jealousy and unhappiness, thinking himself not loved. Blurting out his love for her, Julien finds himself hated again. The course of events increasingly depends upon Julien's imminent departure on the marquis' mission. By a happy accident, Julien and Mathilde come quite independently to a state of mind propitious to a second midnight rendezvous. Mathilde begins to reproach herself for having been so unkind, then is carried away by the mood and sentiment that an opera inspires in her. Julien, for his part, is in the depths of despair and contemplates suicide as he daringly puts up the ladder and presents himself uninvited at Mathilde's window. Their second rendezvous is less studied and more successful than the previous one. Soon thereafter, however, Mathilde regrets having succumbed and having shorn her locks and presented them to Julien in a submissive gesture. Julien has again known, but lost, happiness. At dinner, Julien finds that he has lost favor at court. He rides all day in an effort to numb his mind through physical exhaustion. As she confronts him one morning in the library, Mathilde tells him pitilessly that she does not love him. She overwhelms him with her vehemence. Julien accidentally breaks an antique Japanese vase, and his apology to Mme. de la Mole, made in the presence of Mathilde, intimates that his love, like the vase, has been irreparably shattered.", "analysis": "This four-chapter episode might well have been subtitled their war in love. Viewed as a whole, it consists of the ups and downs of the stormy relationship between Julien and Mathilde. Their love undergoes a reversal from the previous stage. Here, Julien falls madly in love with Mathilde because of her continued coldness and unavailability. He undergoes all the anguish, uncertainty, and torment that Mme. de Renal felt in his affair with her. Julien has lost his advantage; his triumph has turned to ashes. Several explanations are possible. Both egotists, the two are so similar in nature that they are bound to experience love unsuccessfully. Then, too, this is how love develops, according to Stendhal: It is an autonomous emotion that reserves unexpected developments for us. It dies, is revived, overpowers the victim. It is true that in this couple Stendhal has chosen extreme examples for the demonstration of love. Mathilde, previously so ardent and the initiator of the rendezvous, flees Julien, insults and humiliates him. She denies even that she loves him. Paradoxical in nature, their love resembles that between Rodrique and Chimnene in Corneille's Cid: At moments when they are farthest apart and when their love seems impossible, they love each other most since it is during these moments that they are the most worthy of each other. Again, Stendhal reminds us that happiness is the energy expended in the pursuit of happiness. Unwittingly, Julien has magically dispelled the idealization that constituted Mathilde's love for him. Since Mathilde has ceased to feel boredom for the last few months, Stendhal explains, she forgets what it was like and is now bored by Julien. Mathilde exists only for \"magic moments\" when she is placing her entire existence at stake. Once happiness is realized, it ceases to be interesting. In such a proud soul as Mathilde, the idea that another would be her master is unbearable. This fear of domination is another reason for Mathilde's rejection of Julien. The sword incident demonstrates the paradoxical nature of their relationship: Mathilde scorns Julien and insults his honor. Julien reaches blindly for the sword to do her harm, so great is his anger. From this act of malicious intent results a temporary advantage in Mathilde's estimation of Julien, thus in her love for him. She is able to relegate this scene to the medieval past that is the basis of her idealization of their love. She is overjoyed at being on the verge of being killed by her lover. Hurriedly, however, she flees after having recaptured her vision lest Julien destroy it. Note that the entire dramatic effect of the scene depends upon the image of the sword, chosen with care by Stendhal to jolt the reader. No novelist succeeds as well as Stendhal in forcing the reader's complicity. In effect, appreciation of Stendhal depends upon the active participation of the reader, who must supply the motivation for the acts that Stendhal has his characters commit. The resulting complicity between Stendhal and the reader is particularly operative in episodes such as the love duel between Julien and Mathilde. Her ideal partially salvaged, Mathilde now readmits Julien to her presence for walks in the garden, where she sadistically forces Julien to listen to her passionate narration of feelings she has felt for his rivals. Mathilde must keep the upper hand, with herself as master and Julien as victim. Only by seeing herself as the master is she able to permit herself to love him. Julien's admission of love to her is a blunder on his part. Sure that he loves her, Mathilde utterly despises him. Mathilde resorts instinctively to these stratagems to keep her love alive in its ideal state. She half hopes that Julien doesn't love her any more since that would furnish her with a new adventure, permitting her to experience new emotions. The two characters seem to be looking for a safe way to love themselves through the eyes of the other. Julien has never known such unhappiness. The jealousy that he feels is reminiscent of that felt by Mme. de Renal. And just as the latter felt pleasure pleading the cause of her rival's, the servant girl's, love for Julien, the hero now praises his rivals in order to \"share\" the love he thinks Mathilde feels for them. Stendhal is preparing for Julien's departure, which will occur at the end of Chapter 20, the lowest point and end of Julien's subordinate role in their hateful love. Mathilde projects the future of their relationship, trying to see it as a glorious one, worthy of the ancestry she reveres. Chapter 19 portrays another partially gratuitous victory for Julien. The thought of suicide inspires him with a courageous act. He will visit Mathilde's room again, then kill himself after she has rebuffed him. Mathilde might well have rebuffed him had she not been once again at the \"high point\" of the idealization cycle. Mathilde arrives at this point of intoxication in three ways. She continues to project a glorious future for Julien in which she will play a part, then reproaches herself for having acted so cruelly toward him. Second, her idle daydreaming prompts her unconsciously to draw a sketch of Julien. Such an imaginative and romantic nature as Mathilde's could only see this as an almost supernatural sign and proof of her love. The third event congenial to the creation of a receptive frame of mind is the opera that she attends, where again she is able to participate safely, at a distance, idealizing her own love by seeing it in the opera. Stendhal himself sees Mathilde's love as intellectual and contrasts it unfavorably with that felt by Mme. de Renal. The latter's love comes from the heart and does not need to see itself, to examine itself. Stendhal's intervention to justify Mathilde's character represents an ironic way of condemning those who would condemn his portrait of the times. Mathilde's adventurous and fanciful flights are certainly not to be found in the conduct of the young ladies of his age, he continues, since nineteenth-century France is incapable of great passion. Then, in an apparent contradiction, he introduces his definition of the novel as a mirror carried along a highway. Should it reflect the mire it encounters, the novelist is not to blame, but the mire. Balzac, Stendhal's great contemporary, defends his realism on similar grounds, as had the eighteenth-century French realistic novelists. The point is that even though Mathilde cerebrates her passion, she is capable of one. She, like Stendhal, scorns the apathy and sterility of society. Discreetly, Stendhal hardly alludes to the rendezvous. By chance, the lovers' exalted moments coincide, and Julien knows happiness reminiscent of that with Mme. de Renal. The unsolicited avowal of servitude made by Mathilde, betraying her chief concern, Julien will find almost immediately afterward disavowed by her. After having almost half shorn her head and thrown him the locks in a romantic gesture symbolic of her submission, Mathilde, by the next evening, regrets her conduct. She is again at another low ebb in her love, having found only banal reality, much to the bewilderment of Julien. Chapter 20 confirms the view that Mathilde is playing a game with herself, and Julien is but an instrument. She congratulates herself on the power of her will, which has dominated her love and which has finally permitted her to announce to Julien that she was only deluded into believing that she loved him. Although a conflict is waged in Mathilde's mind between her love and her pride and modesty, she does not appear to be a real victim of love at this stage in their relationship. Julien's symbolic remark about the vase represents another accidental, clever move. He regrets later having claimed that he no longer loves her, but the avowal, no matter how feigned and insincere, is actually the type of strategy needed to revive Mathilde's love for him."}
CHAPTER XLVII

AN OLD SWORD


I now mean to be serious; it is time
Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious.
A jest at vice by virtues called a crime.
                             _Don Juan, c. xiii._


She did not appear at dinner. She came for a minute into the salon in
the evening, but did not look at Julien. He considered this behaviour
strange, "but," he thought, "I do not know their usages. She will give
me some good reason for all this." None the less he was a prey to
the most extreme curiosity; he studied the expression of Mathilde's
features; he was bound to own to himself that she looked cold and
malicious. It was evidently not the same woman who on the proceeding
night had had, or pretended to have, transports of happiness which were
too extravagant to be genuine.

The day after, and the subsequent day she showed the same coldness;
she did not look at him, she did not notice his existence. Julien was
devoured by the keenest anxiety and was a thousand leagues removed from
that feeling of triumph which had been his only emotion on the first
day. "Can it be by chance," he said to himself, "a return to virtue?"
But this was a very bourgeois word to apply to the haughty Mathilde.

"Placed in an ordinary position in life she would disbelieve in
religion," thought Julien, "she only likes it in so far as it is very
useful to the interests of her class."

But perhaps she may as a mere matter of delicacy be keenly reproaching
herself for the mistake which she has committed. Julien believed that
he was her first lover.

"But," he said to himself at other moments, "I must admit that there is
no trace of naivety, simplicity, or tenderness in her own demeanour;
I have never seen her more haughty, can she despise me? It would be
worthy of her to reproach herself simply because of my low birth, for
what she has done for me."

While Julien, full of those preconceived ideas which he had found in
books and in his memories of Verrieres, was chasing the phantom of a
tender mistress, who from the minute when she has made her lover happy
no longer thinks of her own existence, Mathilde's vanity was infuriated
against him.

As for the last two months she had no longer been bored, she was not
frightened of boredom; consequently, without being able to have the
slightest suspicion of it, Julien had lost his greatest advantage.

"I have given myself a master," said mademoiselle de la Mole to
herself, a prey to the blackest sorrow. "Luckily he is honour itself,
but if I offend his vanity, he will revenge himself by making known
the nature of our relations." Mathilde had never had a lover, and
though passing through a stage of life which affords some tender
illusions even to the coldest souls, she fell a prey to the most bitter
reflections.

"He has an immense dominion over me since his reign is one of terror,
and he is capable, if I provoke him, of punishing me with an awful
penalty." This idea alone was enough to induce mademoiselle de la
Mole to insult him. Courage was the primary quality in her character.
The only thing which could give her any thrill and cure her from a
fundamental and chronically recurring ennui was the idea that she was
staking her entire existence on a single throw.

As mademoiselle de la Mole obstinately refused to look at him, Julien
on the third day in spite of her evident objection, followed her into
the billiard-room after dinner.

"Well, sir, you think you have acquired some very strong rights over
me?" she said to him with scarcely controlled anger, "since you venture
to speak to me, in spite of my very clearly manifested wish? Do you
know that no one in the world has had such effrontery?"

The dialogue of these two lovers was incomparably humourous. Without
suspecting it, they were animated by mutual sentiments of the most
vivid hate. As neither the one nor the other had a meekly patient
character, while they were both disciples of good form, they soon came
to informing each other quite clearly that they would break for ever.

"I swear eternal secrecy to you," said Julien. "I should like to add
that I would never address a single word to you, were it not that a
marked change might perhaps jeopardise your reputation." He saluted
respectfully and left.

He accomplished easily enough what he believed to be a duty; he was
very far from thinking himself much in love with mademoiselle de la
Mole. He had certainly not loved her three days before, when he had
been hidden in the big mahogany cupboard. But the moment that he found
himself estranged from her for ever his mood underwent a complete and
rapid change.

His memory tortured him by going over the least details in that night,
which had as a matter of fact left him so cold. In the very night that
followed this announcement of a final rupture, Julien almost went mad
at being obliged to own to himself that he loved mademoiselle de la
Mole.

This discovery was followed by awful struggles: all his emotions were
overwhelmed.

Two days later, instead of being haughty towards M. de Croisenois, he
could have almost burst out into tears and embraced him.

His habituation to unhappiness gave him a gleam of commonsense, he
decided to leave for Languedoc, packed his trunk and went to the post.

He felt he would faint, when on arriving at the office of the mails, he
was told that by a singular chance there was a place in the Toulouse
mail. He booked it and returned to the Hotel de la Mole to announce his
departure to the marquis.

M. de la Mole had gone out. More dead than alive Julien went into
the library to wait for him. What was his emotion when he found
mademoiselle de la Mole there.

As she saw him come, she assumed a malicious expression which it was
impossible to mistake.

In his unhappiness and surprise Julien lost his head and was weak
enough to say to her in a tone of the most heartfelt tenderness. "So
you love me no more."

"I am horrified at having given myself to the first man who came
along," said Mathilde crying with rage against herself.

"The first man who came along," cried Julien, and he made for an old
mediaeval sword which was kept in the library as a curiosity.

His grief--which he thought was at its maximum at the moment when he
had spoken to mademoiselle de la Mole--had been rendered a hundred
times more intense by the tears of shame which he saw her shedding.

He would have been the happiest of men if he had been able to kill her.

When he was on the point of drawing the sword with some difficulty from
its ancient scabbard, Mathilde, rendered happy by so novel a sensation,
advanced proudly towards him, her tears were dry.

The thought of his benefactor--the marquis de la Mole--presented
itself vividly to Julien. "Shall I kill his daughter?" he said to
himself, "how horrible." He made a movement to throw down the sword.
"She will certainly," he thought, "burst out laughing at the sight of
such a melodramatic pose:" that idea was responsible for his regaining
all his self-possession. He looked curiously at the blade of the old
sword as though he had been looking for some spot of rust, then put it
back in the scabbard and replaced it with the utmost tranquillity on
the gilt bronze nail from which it hung.

The whole manoeuvre, which towards the end was very slow, lasted quite
a minute; mademoiselle de la Mole looked at him in astonishment. "So
I have been on the verge of being killed by my lover," she said to
herself.

This idea transported her into the palmiest days of the age of Charles
IX. and of Henri III.

She stood motionless before Julien, who had just replaced the sword;
she looked at him with eyes whose hatred had disappeared. It must be
owned that she was very fascinating at this moment, certainly no woman
looked less like a Parisian doll (this expression symbolised Julien's
great objection to the women of this city).

"I shall relapse into some weakness for him," thought Mathilde; "it
is quite likely that he will think himself my lord and master after a
relapse like that at the very moment that I have been talking to him so
firmly." She ran away.

"By heaven, she is pretty said Julien as he watched her run and that's
the creature who threw herself into my arms with so much passion
scarcely a week ago ... and to think that those moments will never
come back? And that it's my fault, to think of my being lacking
in appreciation at the very moment when I was doing something so
extraordinarily interesting! I must own that I was born with a very
dull and unfortunate character."

The marquis appeared; Julien hastened to announce his departure.

"Where to?" said M. de la Mole.

"For Languedoc."

"No, if you please, you are reserved for higher destinies. If you leave
it will be for the North.... In military phraseology I actually confine
you in the hotel. You will compel me to be never more than two or three
hours away. I may have need of you at any moment."

Julien bowed and retired without a word, leaving the marquis in a state
of great astonishment. He was incapable of speaking. He shut himself
up in his room. He was there free to exaggerate to himself all the
awfulness of his fate.

"So," he thought, "I cannot even get away. God knows how many days
the marquis will keep me in Paris. Great God, what will become of me,
and not a friend whom I can consult? The abbe Pirard will never let
me finish my first sentence, while the comte Altamira will propose
enlisting me in some conspiracy. And yet I am mad; I feel it, I am mad.
Who will be able to guide me, what will become of me?"





CHAPTER XLVIII

CRUEL MOMENTS


        And she confesses it to me! She goes into even
        the smallest details! Her beautiful eyes fixed on
        mine, and describes the love which she felt for
        another.--_Schiller_.


The delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the
happiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to
herself, "he is worthy of being my master since he was on the point of
killing me. How many handsome young society men would have to be melted
together before they were capable of so passionate a transport."

"I must admit that he was very handsome at the time when he climbed up
on the chair to replace the sword in the same picturesque position in
which the decorator hung it! After all it was not so foolish of me to
love him."

If at that moment some honourable means of reconciliation had presented
itself, she would have embraced it with pleasure. Julien locked in his
room was a prey to the most violent despair. He thought in his madness
of throwing himself at her feet. If instead of hiding himself in an out
of the way place, he had wandered about the garden of the hotel so as
to keep within reach of any opportunity, he would perhaps have changed
in a single moment his awful unhappiness into the keenest happiness.

But the tact for whose lack we are now reproaching him would have been
incompatible with that sublime seizure of the sword, which at the
present time rendered him so handsome in the eyes of mademoiselle de
la Mole. This whim in Julien's favour lasted the whole day; Mathilde
conjured up a charming image of the short moments during which she had
loved him: she regretted them.

"As a matter of fact," she said to herself, "my passion for this poor
boy can from his point of view only have lasted from one hour after
midnight when I saw him arrive by his ladder with all his pistols in
his coat pocket, till eight o'clock in the morning. It was a quarter of
an hour after that as I listened to mass at Sainte-Valere that I began
to think that he might very well try to terrify me into obedience."

After dinner mademoiselle de la Mole, so far from avoiding Julien,
spoke to him and made him promise to follow her into the garden. He
obeyed. It was a new experience.

Without suspecting it Mathilde was yielding to the love which she was
now feeling for him again. She found an extreme pleasure in walking by
his side, and she looked curiously at those hands which had seized the
sword to kill her that very morning.

After such an action, after all that had taken place, some of the
former conversation was out of the question.

Mathilde gradually began to talk confidentially to him about the
state of her heart. She found a singular pleasure in this kind of
conversation, she even went so far as to describe to him the fleeting
moments of enthusiasm which she had experienced for M. de Croisenois,
for M. de Caylus----

"What! M. de Caylus as well!" exclaimed Julien, and all the jealousy of
a discarded lover burst out in those words, Mathilde thought as much,
but did not feel at all insulted.

She continued torturing Julien by describing her former sentiments with
the most picturesque detail and the accent of the most intimate truth.
He saw that she was portraying what she had in her mind's eye. He had
the pain of noticing that as she spoke she made new discoveries in her
own heart.

The unhappiness of jealousy could not be carried further.

It is cruel enough to suspect that a rival is loved, but there is no
doubt that to hear the woman one adores confess in detail the love
which rivals inspires, is the utmost limit of anguish.

Oh, how great a punishment was there now for those impulses of pride
which had induced Julien to place himself as superior to the Caylus
and the Croisenois! How deeply did he feel his own unhappiness as he
exaggerated to himself their most petty advantages. With what hearty
good faith he despised himself.

Mathilde struck him as adorable. All words are weak to express his
excessive admiration. As he walked beside her he looked surreptitiously
at her hands, her arms, her queenly bearing. He was so completely
overcome by love and unhappiness as to be on the point of falling at
her feet and crying "pity."

"Yes, and that person who is so beautiful, who is so superior to
everything and who loved me once, will doubtless soon love M. de
Caylus."

Julien could have no doubts of mademoiselle de la Mole's sincerity,
the accent of truth was only too palpable in everything she said. In
order that nothing might be wanting to complete his unhappiness there
were moments when, as a result of thinking about the sentiments which
she had once experienced for M. de Caylus, Mathilde came to talk of
him, as though she loved him at the present time. She certainly put an
inflection of love into her voice. Julien distinguished it clearly.

He would have suffered less if his bosom had been filled inside with
molten lead. Plunged as he was in this abyss of unhappiness how could
the poor boy have guessed that it was simply because she was talking to
him, that mademoiselle de la Mole found so much pleasure in recalling
those weaknesses of love which she had formerly experienced for M. de
Caylus or M. de Luz.

Words fail to express Julien's anguish. He listened to these detailed
confidences of the love she had experienced for others in that very
avenue of pines where he had waited so few days ago for one o'clock
to strike that he might invade her room. No human being can undergo a
greater degree of unhappiness.

This kind of familiar cruelty lasted for eight long days. Mathilde
sometimes seemed to seek opportunities of speaking to him and sometimes
not to avoid them; and the one topic of conversation to which they both
seemed to revert with a kind of cruel pleasure, was the description of
the sentiments she had felt for others. She told him about the letters
which she had written, she remembered their very words, she recited
whole sentences by heart.

She seemed during these last days to be envisaging Julien with a kind
of malicious joy. She found a keen enjoyment in his pangs.

One sees that Julien had no experience of life; he had not even read
any novels. If he had been a little less awkward and he had coolly said
to the young girl, whom he adored so much and who had been giving him
such strange confidences: "admit that though I am not worth as much as
all these gentlemen, I am none the less the man whom you loved," she
would perhaps have been happy at being at thus guessed; at any rate
success would have entirely depended on the grace with which Julien had
expressed the idea, and on the moment which he had chosen to do so. In
any case he would have extricated himself well and advantageously from
a situation which Mathilde was beginning to find monotonous.

"And you love me no longer, me, who adores you!" said Julien to her one
day, overcome by love and unhappiness. This piece of folly was perhaps
the greatest which he could have committed. These words immediately
destroyed all the pleasure which mademoiselle de la Mole found in
talking to him about the state of her heart. She was beginning to be
surprised that he did not, after what had happened, take offence at
what she told him. She had even gone so far as to imagine at the very
moment when he made that foolish remark that perhaps he did not love
her any more. "His pride has doubtless extinguished his love," she was
saying to herself. "He is not the man to sit still and see people like
Caylus, de Luz, Croisenois whom he admits are so superior, preferred to
him. No, I shall never see him at my feet again."

Julien had often in the naivety of his unhappiness, during the previous
days praised sincerely the brilliant qualities of these gentlemen; he
would even go so far as to exaggerate them. This nuance had not escaped
mademoiselle de la Mole, she was astonished by it, but did not guess
its reason. Julien's frenzied soul, in praising a rival whom he thought
was loved, was sympathising with his happiness.

These frank but stupid words changed everything in a single moment;
confident that she was loved, Mathilde despised him utterly.

She was walking with him when he made his ill-timed remark; she left
him, and her parting look expressed the most awful contempt. She
returned to the salon and did not look at him again during the whole
evening. This contempt monopolised her mind the following day. The
impulse which during the last week had made her find so much pleasure
in treating Julien as her most intimate friend was out of the question;
the very sight of him was disagreeable. The sensation Mathilde felt
reached the point of disgust; nothing can express the extreme contempt
which she experienced when her eyes fell upon him.

Julien had understood nothing of the history of Mathilde's heart during
the last week, but he distinguished the contempt. He had the good sense
only to appear before her on the rarest possible occasions, and never
looked at her.

But it was not without a mortal anguish that he, as it were, deprived
himself of her presence. He thought he felt his unhappiness increasing
still further. "The courage of a man's heart cannot be carried
further," he said to himself. He passed his life seated at a little
window at the top of the hotel; the blind was carefully closed, and
from here at any rate he could see mademoiselle de la Mole when she
appeared in the garden.

What were his emotions when he saw her walking after dinner with M. de
Caylus, M. de Luz, or some other for whom she had confessed to him some
former amorous weakness!

Julien had no idea that unhappiness could be so intense; he was on
the point of shouting out. This firm soul was at last completely
overwhelmed.

Thinking about anything else except mademoiselle de la Mole had become
odious to him; he became incapable of writing the simplest letters.

"You are mad," the marquis said to him.

Julien was frightened that his secret might be guessed, talked
about illness and succeeded in being believed. Fortunately for him
the marquis rallied him at dinner about his next journey; Mathilde
understood that it might be a very long one. It was now several days
that Julien had avoided her, and the brilliant young men who had all
that this pale sombre being she had once loved was lacking, had no
longer the power of drawing her out of her reverie.

"An ordinary girl," she said to herself, "would have sought out the man
she preferred among those young people who are the cynosure of a salon;
but one of the characteristics of genius is not to drive its thoughts
over the rut traced by the vulgar.

"Why, if I were the companion of a man like Julien, who only lacks the
fortune that I possess, I should be continually exciting attention, I
should not pass through life unnoticed. Far from incessantly fearing
a revolution like my cousins who are so frightened of the people that
they have not the pluck to scold a postillion who drives them badly, I
should be certain of playing a role and a great role, for the man whom
I have chosen has a character and a boundless ambition. What does he
lack? Friends, money? I will give them him." But she treated Julien in
her thought as an inferior being whose love one could win whenever one
wanted.





CHAPTER XLIX

THE OPERA BOUFFE


    How the spring of love resembleth
    The uncertain glory of an April day,
    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
    And by and by a cloud takes all away.--_Shakespeare_.


Engrossed by thoughts of her future and the singular role which
she hoped to play, Mathilde soon came to miss the dry metaphysical
conversations which she had often had with Julien. Fatigued by
these lofty thoughts she would sometimes also miss those moments of
happiness which she had found by his side; these last memories were not
unattended by remorse which at certain times even overwhelmed her.

"But one may have a weakness," she said to herself, "a girl like I am
should only forget herself for a man of real merit; they will not say
that it is his pretty moustache or his skill in horsemanship which have
fascinated me, but rather his deep discussions on the future of France
and his ideas on the analogy between the events which are going to
burst upon us and the English revolution of 1688."

"I have been seduced," she answered in her remorse. "I am a weak
woman, but at least I have not been led astray like a doll by exterior
advantages."

"If there is a revolution why should not Julien Sorel play the role of
Roland and I the role of Madame Roland? I prefer that part to Madame de
Stael's; the immorality of my conduct will constitute an obstacle in
this age of ours. I will certainly not let them reproach me with an act
of weakness; I should die of shame."

Mathilde's reveries were not all as grave, one must admit, as the
thoughts which we have just transcribed.

She would look at Julien and find a charming grace in his slightest
action.

"I have doubtless," she would say, "succeeded in destroying in him the
very faintest idea he had of any one else's rights."

"The air of unhappiness and deep passion with which the poor boy
declared his love to me eight days ago proves it; I must own it was
very extraordinary of me to manifest anger at words in which there
shone so much respect and so much of passion. Am I not his real wife?
Those words of his were quite natural, and I must admit, were really
very nice. Julien still continued to love me, even after those eternal
conversations in which I had only spoken to him (cruelly enough I
admit), about those weaknesses of love which the boredom of the life
I lead had inspired me for those young society men of whom he is so
jealous. Ah, if he only knew what little danger I have to fear from
them; how withered and stereotyped they seem to me in comparison with
him."

While indulging in these reflections Mathilde made a random pencil
sketch of a profile on a page of her album. One of the profiles she
had just finished surprised and delighted her. It had a striking
resemblance to Julien. "It is the voice of heaven. That's one of the
miracles of love," she cried ecstatically; "Without suspecting it, I
have drawn his portrait."

She fled to her room, shut herself up in it, and with much application
made strenuous endeavours to draw Julien's portrait, but she was unable
to succeed; the profile she had traced at random still remained the
most like him. Mathilde was delighted with it. She saw in it a palpable
proof of the grand passion.

She only left her album very late when the marquise had her called to
go to the Italian Opera. Her one idea was to catch sight of Julien, so
that she might get her mother to request him to keep them company.

He did not appear, and the ladies had only ordinary vulgar creatures in
their box. During the first act of the opera, Mathilde dreamt of the
man she loved with all the ecstasies of the most vivid passion; but a
love-maxim in the second act sung it must be owned to a melody worthy
of Cimarosa pierced her heart. The heroine of the opera said "You must
punish me for the excessive adoration which I feel for him. I love him
too much."

From the moment that Mathilde heard this sublime song everything in
the world ceased to exist. She was spoken to, she did not answer; her
mother reprimanded her, she could scarcely bring herself to look at
her. Her ecstasy reached a state of exultation and passion analogous
to the most violent transports which Julien had felt for her for some
days. The divinely graceful melody to which the maxim, which seemed
to have such a striking application to her own position, was sung,
engrossed all the minutes when she was not actually thinking of Julien.
Thanks to her love for music she was on this particular evening like
madame de Renal always was, when she thought of Julien. Love of the
head has doubtless more intelligence than true love, but it only has
moments of enthusiasm. It knows itself too well, it sits in judgment on
itself incessantly; far from distracting thought it is made by sheer
force of thought.

On returning home Mathilde, in spite of madame de la Mole's
remonstrances, pretended to have a fever and spent a part of the night
in going over this melody on her piano. She sang the words of the
celebrated air which had so fascinated her:--

     Devo punirmi, devo punirmi.
     Se troppo amai, etc.

As the result of this night of madness, she imagined that she had
succeeded in triumphing over her love. This page will be prejudicial
in more than one way to the unfortunate author. Frigid souls will
accuse him of indecency. But the young ladies who shine in the Paris
salons have no right to feel insulted at the supposition that one of
their number might be liable to those transports of madness which have
been degrading the character of Mathilde. That character is purely
imaginary, and is even drawn quite differently from that social code
which will guarantee so distinguished a place in the world's history to
nineteenth century civilization.

The young girls who have adorned this winter's balls are certainly not
lacking in prudence.

I do not think either that they can be accused of being unduly scornful
of a brilliant fortune, horses, fine estates and all the guarantees
of a pleasant position in society. Far from finding these advantages
simply equivalent to boredom, they usually concentrate on them their
most constant desires and and devote to them such passion as their
hearts possess.

Nor again is it love which is the dominant principle in the career of
young men who, like Julien, are gifted with some talent; they attach
themselves with an irresistible grip to some coterie, and when the
coterie succeeds all the good things of society are rained upon them.
Woe to the studious man who belongs to no coterie, even his smallest
and most doubtful successes will constitute a grievance, and lofty
virtue will rob him and triumph. Yes, monsieur, a novel is a mirror
which goes out on a highway. Sometimes it reflects the azure of the
heavens, sometimes the mire of the pools of mud on the way, and the
man who carries this mirror in his knapsack is forsooth to be accused
by you of being immoral! His mirror shows the mire, and you accuse the
mirror! Rather accuse the main road where the mud is, or rather the
inspector of roads who allows the water to accumulate and the mud to
form.

Now that it is quite understood that Mathilde's character is impossible
in our own age, which is as discreet as it is virtuous, I am less
frightened of offence by continuing the history of the follies of this
charming girl.

During the whole of the following day she looked out for opportunities
of convincing herself of her triumph over her mad passion. Her great
aim was to displease Julien in everything; but not one of his movements
escaped her.

Julien was too unhappy, and above all too agitated to appreciate so
complicated a stratagem of passion. Still less was he capable of
seeing how favourable it really was to him. He was duped by it. His
unhappiness had perhaps never been so extreme. His actions were so
little controlled by his intellect that if some mournful philosopher
had said to him, "Think how to exploit as quickly as you can those
symptoms which promise to be favourable to you. In this kind of
head-love which is seen at Paris, the same mood cannot last more than
two days," he would not have understood him. But however ecstatic he
might feel, Julien was a man of honour. Discretion was his first duty.
He appreciated it. Asking advice, describing his agony to the first
man who came along would have constituted a happiness analogous to
that of the unhappy man who, when traversing a burning desert receives
from heaven a drop of icy water. He realised the danger, was frightened
of answering an indiscreet question by a torrent of tears, and shut
himself up in his own room.

He saw Mathilde walking in the garden for a long time. When she at last
left it, he went down there and approached the rose bush from which she
had taken a flower.

The night was dark and he could abandon himself to his unhappiness
without fear of being seen. It was obvious to him that mademoiselle de
la Mole loved one of those young officers with whom she had chatted so
gaily. She had loved him, but she had realised his little merit, "and
as a matter of fact I had very little," Julien said to himself with
full conviction. "Taking me all round I am a very dull, vulgar person,
very boring to others and quite unbearable to myself." He was mortally
disgusted with all his good qualities, and with all the things which he
had once loved so enthusiastically; and it was when his imagination was
in this distorted condition that he undertook to judge life by means of
its aid. This mistake is typical of a superior man.

The idea of suicide presented itself to him several times; the idea was
full of charm, and like a delicious rest; because it was the glass of
iced water offered to the wretch dying of thirst and heat in the desert.

"My death will increase the contempt she has for me," he exclaimed.
"What a memory I should leave her."

Courage is the only resource of a human being who has fallen into this
last abyss of unhappiness. Julien did not have sufficient genius to say
to himself, "I must dare," but as he looked at the window of Mathilde's
room he saw through the blinds that she was putting out her light. He
conjured up that charming room which he had seen, alas! once in his
whole life. His imagination did not go any further.

One o'clock struck. Hearing the stroke of the clock and saying to
himself, "I will climb up the ladder," scarcely took a moment.

It was the flash of genius, good reasons crowded on his mind. "May I be
more fortunate than before," he said to himself. He ran to the ladder.
The gardener had chained it up. With the help of the cock of one of
his little pistols which he broke, Julien, who for the time being was
animated by a superhuman force, twisted one of the links of the chain
which held the ladder. He was master of it in a few minutes, and placed
it against Mathilde's window.

"She will be angry and riddle me with scornful words! What does it
matter? I will give her a kiss, one last kiss. I will go up to my room
and kill myself ... my lips will touch her cheek before I die."

He flew up the ladder and knocked at the blind; Mathilde heard him
after some minutes and tried to open the blind but the ladder was in
the way. Julien hung to the iron hook intending to keep the blind open,
and at the imminent risk of falling down, gave the ladder a violent
shake which moved it a little. Mathilde was able to open the blind.

He threw himself into the window more dead than alive.

"So it is you, dear," she said as she rushed into his arms.

       *       *       *       *       *

The excess of Julien's happiness was indescribable. Mathilde's almost
equalled his own.

She talked against herself to him and denounced herself.

"Punish me for my awful pride," she said to him, clasping him in her
arms so tightly as almost to choke him. "You are my master, dear, I
am your slave. I must ask your pardon on my knees for having tried to
rebel." She left his arms to fall at his feet. "Yes," she said to him,
still intoxicated with happiness and with love, "you are my master,
reign over me for ever. When your slave tries to revolt, punish her
severely."

In another moment she tore herself from his arms, and lit a candle,
and it was only by a supreme effort that Julien could prevent her from
cutting off a whole tress of her hair.

"I want to remind myself," she said to him, "that I am your handmaid.
If I am ever led astray again by my abominable pride, show me this hair
and say, 'It is not a question of the emotion which your soul may be
feeling at present, you have sworn to obey, obey on your honour.'"

But it is wiser to suppress the description of so intense a transport
of delirious happiness.

Julien's unselfishness was equal to his happiness. "I must go down by
the ladder," he said to Mathilde, when he saw the dawn of day appear
from the quarter of the east over the distant chimneys beyond the
garden. "The sacrifice that I impose on myself is worthy of you. I
deprive myself of some hours of the most astonishing happiness that a
human soul can savour, but it is a sacrifice I make for the sake of
your reputation. If you know my heart you will appreciate how violent
is the strain to which I am putting myself. Will you always be to me
what you are now? But honour speaks, it suffices. Let me tell you that
since our last interview, thieves have not been the only object of
suspicion. M. de la Mole has set a guard in the garden. M. Croisenois
is surrounded by spies: they know what he does every night."

Mathilde burst out laughing at this idea. Her mother and a chamber-maid
were woken up, they suddenly began to speak to her through the door.
Julien looked at her, she grew pale as she scolded the chamber-maid,
and she did not deign to speak to her mother. "But suppose they think
of opening the window, they will see the ladder," Julien said to her.

He clasped her again in his arms, rushed on to the ladder, and slid,
rather than climbed down; he was on the ground in a moment.

Three seconds after the ladder was in the avenue of pines, and
Mathilde's honour was saved. Julien returned to his room and found that
he was bleeding and almost naked. He had wounded himself in sliding
down in that dare-devil way.

Extreme happiness had made him regain all the energy of his character.
If twenty men had presented themselves it would have proved at this
moment only an additional pleasure to have attacked them unaided.
Happily his military prowess was not put to the proof. He laid the
ladder in its usual place and replaced the chain which held it. He did
not forget to efface the mark which the ladder had left on the bed of
exotic flowers under Mathilde's window.

As he was moving his hand over the soft ground in the darkness and
satisfying himself that the mark had entirely disappeared, he felt
something fall down on his hands. It was a whole tress of Mathilde's
hair which she had cut off and thrown down to him.

She was at the window.

"That's what your servant sends you," she said to him in a fairly loud
voice, "It is the sign of eternal gratitude. I renounce the exercise of
my reason, be my master."

Julien was quite overcome and was on the point of going to fetch the
ladder again and climbing back into her room. Finally reason prevailed.

Getting back into the hotel from the garden was not easy. He succeeded
in forcing the door of a cellar. Once in the house he was obliged to
break through the door of his room as silently as possible. In his
agitation he had left in the little room which he had just abandoned so
rapidly, the key which was in the pocket of his coat. "I only hope she
thinks of hiding that fatal trophy," he thought.

Finally fatigue prevailed over happiness, and as the sun was rising he
fell into a deep sleep.

The breakfast bell only just managed to wake him up. He appeared in the
dining-room. Shortly afterwards Mathilde came in. Julien's pride felt
deliciously flattered as he saw the love which shone in the eyes of
this beautiful creature who was surrounded by so much homage; but soon
his discretion had occasion to be alarmed.

Making an excuse of the little time that she had had to do her hair,
Mathilde had arranged it in such a way that Julien could see at the
first glance the full extent of the sacrifice that she had made for his
sake, by cutting off her hair on the previous night.

If it had been possible to spoil so beautiful a face by anything
whatsoever, Mathilde would have succeeded in doing it. A whole tress
of her beautiful blonde hair was cut off to within half an inch of the
scalp.

Mathilde's whole manner during breakfast was in keeping with this
initial imprudence. One might have said that she had made a specific
point of trying to inform the whole world of her mad passion for
Julien. Happily on this particular day M. de la Mole and the marquis
were very much concerned about an approaching bestowal of "blue
ribbons" which was going to take place, and in which M. de Chaulnes was
not comprised. Towards the end of the meal, Mathilde, who was talking
to Julien, happened to call him "My Master." He blushed up to the
whites of his eyes.

Mathilde was not left alone for an instant that day, whether by chance
or the deliberate policy of madame de la Mole. In the evening when she
passed from the dining-room into the salon, however, she managed to say
to Julien: "You may be thinking I am making an excuse, but mamma has
just decided that one of her women is to spend the night in my room."

This day passed with lightning rapidity. Julien was at the zenith of
happiness. At seven o'clock in the morning of the following day he
installed himself in the library. He hoped the mademoiselle de la Mole
would deign to appear there; he had written her an interminable letter.
He only saw her several hours afterwards at breakfast. Her hair was
done to-day with the very greatest care; a marvellous art had managed
to hide the place where the hair had been cut. She looked at Julien
once or twice, but her eyes were polite and calm, and there was no
question of calling him "My Master."

Julien's astonishment prevented him from breathing--Mathilde was
reproaching herself for all she had done for him. After mature
reflection, she had come to the conclusion that he was a person who,
though not absolutely commonplace, was yet not sufficiently different
from the common ruck to deserve all the strange follies that she
had ventured for his sake. To sum up she did not give love a single
thought; on this particular day she was tired of loving.

As for Julien, his emotions were those of a child of sixteen. He was a
successive prey to awful doubt, astonishment and despair during this
breakfast which he thought would never end.

As soon as he could decently get up from the table, he flew rather than
ran to the stable, saddled his horse himself, and galloped off. "I
must kill my heart through sheer force of physical fatigue," he said
to himself as he galloped through the Meudon woods. "What have I done,
what have I said to deserve a disgrace like this?"

"I must do nothing and say nothing to-day," he thought as he re-entered
the hotel. "I must be as dead physically as I am morally." Julien saw
nothing any more, it was only his corpse which kept moving.





CHAPTER L

THE JAPANESE VASE


        His heart does not first realise the full extremity of
        his unhappiness: he is more troubled than moved. But as
        reason returns he feels the depth of his misfortune. All
        the pleasures of life seem to have been destroyed, he
        can only feel the sharp barbs of a lacerating despair.
        But what is the use of talking of physical pain? What
        pain which is only felt by the body can be compared to
        this pain?--_Jean Paul_.


The dinner bell rang, Julien had barely time to dress: he found
Mathilde in the salon. She was pressing her brother and M. de
Croisenois to promise her that they would not go and spend the evening
at Suresnes with madame the marechale de Fervaques.

It would have been difficult to have shown herself more amiable or
fascinating to them. M. de Luz, de Caylus and several of their friends
came in after dinner. One would have said that mademoiselle de la Mole
had commenced again to cultivate the most scrupulous conventionality
at the same time as her sisterly affection. Although the weather was
delightful this evening, she refused to go out into the garden, and
insisted on their all staying near the arm-chair where madame de la
Mole was sitting. The blue sofa was the centre of the group as it had
been in the winter.

Mathilde was out of temper with the garden, or at any rate she found it
absolutely boring: it was bound up with the memory of Julien.

Unhappiness blunts the edge of the intellect. Our hero had the bad
taste to stop by that little straw chair which had formerly witnessed
his most brilliant triumphs. To-day none spoke to him, his presence
seemed to be unnoticed, and worse than that. Those of mademoiselle de
la Mole's friends who were sitting near him at the end of the sofa,
made a point of somehow or other turning their back on him, at any rate
he thought so.

"It is a court disgrace," he thought. He tried to study for a moment
the people who were endeavouring to overwhelm him with their contempt.
M. de Luz had an important post in the King's suite, the result of
which was that the handsome officer began every conversation with
every listener who came along by telling him this special piece of
information. His uncle had started at seven o'clock for St. Cloud
and reckoned on spending the night there. This detail was introduced
with all the appearance of good nature but it never failed to be
worked in. As Julien scrutinized M. de Croisenois with a stern gaze of
unhappiness, he observed that this good amiable young man attributed
a great influence to occult causes. He even went so far as to become
melancholy and out of temper if he saw an event of the slightest
importance ascribed to a simple and perfectly natural cause.

"There is an element of madness in this," Julien said to himself.
This man's character has a striking analogy with that of the Emperor
Alexander, such as the Prince Korasoff described it to me. During the
first year of his stay in Paris poor Julien, fresh from the seminary
and dazzled by the graces of all these amiable young people, whom he
found so novel, had felt bound to admire them. Their true character was
only beginning to become outlined in his eyes.

"I am playing an undignified role here," he suddenly thought. The
question was, how he could leave the little straw chair without undue
awkwardness. He wanted to invent something, and tried to extract some
novel excuse from an imagination which was otherwise engrossed. He was
compelled to fall back on his memory, which was, it must be owned,
somewhat poor in resources of this kind.

The poor boy was still very much out of his element, and could not have
exhibited a more complete and noticeable awkwardness when he got up to
leave the salon. His misery was only too palpable in his whole manner.
He had been playing, for the last three quarters of an hour, the role
of an officious inferior from whom one does not take the trouble to
hide what one really thinks.

The critical observations he had just made on his rivals prevented
him, however, from taking his own unhappiness too tragically. His pride
could take support in what had taken place the previous day. "Whatever
may be their advantages over me," he thought, as he went into the
garden alone, "Mathilde has never been to a single one of them what,
twice in my life, she has deigned to be to me!" His penetration did not
go further. He absolutely failed to appreciate the character of the
extraordinary person whom chance had just made the supreme mistress of
all his happiness.

He tried, on the following day, to make himself and his horse dead
tired with fatigue. He made no attempt in the evening to go near the
blue sofa to which Mathilde remained constant. He noticed that comte
Norbert did not even deign to look at him when he met him about the
house. "He must be doing something very much against the grain," he
thought; "he is naturally so polite."

Sleep would have been a happiness to Julien. In spite of his physical
fatigue, memories which were only too seductive commenced to invade his
imagination. He had not the genius to see that, inasmuch as his long
rides on horseback over forests on the outskirts of Paris only affected
him, and had no affect at all on Mathilde's heart or mind, he was
consequently leaving his eventual destiny to the caprice of chance. He
thought that one thing would give his pain an infinite relief: it would
be to speak to Mathilde. Yet what would he venture to say to her?

He was dreaming deeply about this at seven o'clock one morning when he
suddenly saw her enter the library.

"I know, monsieur, that you are anxious to speak to me."

"Great heavens! who told you?"

"I know, anyway; that is enough. If you are dishonourable, you can
ruin me, or at least try to. But this danger, which I do not believe
to be real, will certainly not prevent me from being sincere. I do
not love you any more, monsieur, I have been led astray by my foolish
imagination."

Distracted by love and unhappiness, as a result of this terrible blow,
Julien tried to justify himself. Nothing could have been more absurd.
Does one make any excuses for failure to please? But reason had no
longer any control over his actions. A blind instinct urged him to get
the determination of his fate postponed. He thought that, so long as
he kept on speaking, all could not be over. Mathilde had not listened
to his words; their sound irritated her. She could not conceive how he
could have the audacity to interrupt her.

She was rendered equally unhappy this morning by remorseful virtue and
remorseful pride. She felt to some extent pulverised by the idea of
having given a little abbe, who was the son of a peasant, rights over
her. "It is almost," she said to herself, in those moments when she
exaggerated her own misfortune, "as though I had a weakness for one of
my footmen to reproach myself with." In bold, proud natures there is
only one step from anger against themselves to wrath against others. In
these cases the very transports of fury constitute a vivid pleasure.

In a single minute mademoiselle de la Mole reached the point of loading
Julien with the signs of the most extreme contempt. She had infinite
wit, and this wit was always triumphant in the art of torturing vanity
and wounding it cruelly.

For the first time in his life Julien found himself subjected to
the energy of a superior intellect, which was animated against him
by the most violent hate. Far from having at present the slightest
thought of defending himself, he came to despise himself. Hearing
himself overwhelmed with such marks of contempt which were so cleverly
calculated to destroy any good opinion that he might have of himself,
he thought that Mathilde was right, and that she did not say enough.

As for her, she found it deliciously gratifying to her pride to punish
in this way both herself and him for the adoration that she had felt
some days previously.

She did not have to invent and improvise the cruel remarks which she
addressed to him with so much gusto.

All she had to do was to repeat what the advocate of the other side had
been saying against her love in her own heart for the last eight days.

Each word intensified a hundredfold Julien's awful unhappiness. He
wanted to run away, but mademoiselle de la Mole took hold of his arm
authoritatively.

"Be good enough to remark," he said to her, "that you are talking very
loud. You will be heard in the next room."

"What does it matter?" mademoiselle de la Mole answered haughtily. "Who
will dare to say they have heard me? I want to cure your miserable
vanity once and for all of any ideas you may have indulged in on my
account."

When Julien was allowed to leave the library he was so astonished
that he was less sensitive to his unhappiness. "She does not love me
any more," he repeated to himself, speaking aloud as though to teach
himself how he stood. "It seems that she has loved me eight or ten
days, but I shall love her all my life."

"Is it really possible she was nothing to me, nothing to my heart so
few days back?"

Mathilde's heart was inundated by the joy of satisfied pride. So she
had been able to break with him for ever! So complete a triumph over so
strong an inclination rendered her completely happy. "So this little
gentleman will understand, once and for all, that he has not, and will
never have, any dominion over me." She was so happy that in reality she
ceased to love at this particular moment.

In a less passionate being than Julien love would have become
impossible after a scene of such awful humiliation. Without deviating
for a single minute from the requirements of her own self-respect,
mademoiselle de la Mole had addressed to him some of those unpleasant
remarks which are so well thought out that they may seem true, even
when remembered in cold blood.

The conclusion which Julien drew in the first moment of so surprising a
scene, was that Mathilde was infinitely proud. He firmly believed that
all was over between them for ever, and none the less, he was awkward
and nervous towards her at breakfast on the following day. This was a
fault from which up to now he had been exempt.

Both in small things as in big it was his habit to know what he ought
and wanted to do, and he used to act accordingly.

The same day after breakfast madame de la Mole asked him for a fairly
rare, seditious pamphlet which her cure had surreptitiously brought her
in the morning, and Julien, as he took it from a bracket, knocked over
a blue porcelain vase which was as ugly as it could possibly be.

Madame de la Mole got up, uttering a cry of distress, and proceeded to
contemplate at close quarters the ruins of her beloved vase. "It was
old Japanese," she said. "It came to me from my great aunt, the abbess
of Chelles. It was a present from the Dutch to the Regent, the Duke of
Orleans, who had given it to his daughter...."

Mathilde had followed her mother's movements, and felt delighted at
seeing that the blue vase, that she had thought horribly ugly, was
broken. Julien was taciturn, and not unduly upset. He saw mademoiselle
de la Mole quite near him.

"This vase," he said to her, "has been destroyed for ever. The same is
the case with the sentiment which was once master of my heart. I would
ask you to accept my apologies for all the pieces of madness which it
has made me commit." And he went out.

"One would really say," said madame de la Mole, as he went out of the
room, "that this M. Sorel is quite proud of what he has just done."

These words went right home to Mathilde's heart. "It is true," she
said to herself; "my mother has guessed right. That is the sentiment
which animates him." It was only then that she ceased rejoicing over
yesterday's scene. "Well, it is all over," she said to herself, with
an apparent calm. "It is a great lesson, anyway. It is an awful and
humiliating mistake! It is enough to make me prudent all the rest of my
life."

"Why didn't I speak the truth?" thought Julien. "Why am I still
tortured by the love which I once had for that mad woman?"

Far, however, from being extinguished as he had hoped it would be, his
love grew more and more rapidly. "She is mad, it is true," he said
to himself. "Is she any the less adorable for that? Is it possible
for anyone to be prettier? Is not mademoiselle de la Mole the ideal
quintessence of all the most vivid pleasures of the most elegant
civilisation?" These memories of a bygone happiness seized hold of
Julien's mind, and quickly proceeded to destroy all the work of his
reason.

It is in vain that reason wrestles with memories of this character. Its
stern struggles only increase the fascination.

Twenty-four hours after the breaking of the Japanese vase, Julien was
unquestionably one of the most unhappy men in the world.






Chapters 17-20
In the days following the rendezvous, Mathilde is distant and cold toward Julien. He is perplexed and discovers that he is hopelessly in love with her. Confronting her one day in the library, Julien asks directly if she does not love him anymore. Mathilde answers that she is horrified at having given herself to the first one to come along. Julien's reaction is spontaneous: He rushes upon a medieval sword hanging in the room and, after unsheathing it, stops, checks his impulse to kill Mathilde, examines the blade curiously, and puts it back. Mathilde sees in the act a truly heroic gesture worthy of her ancestors. In desperation, Julien announces to the marquis that he is going on a business trip to Languedoc. The marquis has other plans for Julien, who is confined to his quarters to be available at any time for an important mission. Mathilde now considers Julien worthy of being her master and for a week permits him to walk with her in the garden while she passionately talks of the love she felt in the past for his rivals. This is torture for Julien, who is suffering all the pangs of jealousy and unhappiness, thinking himself not loved. Blurting out his love for her, Julien finds himself hated again. The course of events increasingly depends upon Julien's imminent departure on the marquis' mission. By a happy accident, Julien and Mathilde come quite independently to a state of mind propitious to a second midnight rendezvous. Mathilde begins to reproach herself for having been so unkind, then is carried away by the mood and sentiment that an opera inspires in her. Julien, for his part, is in the depths of despair and contemplates suicide as he daringly puts up the ladder and presents himself uninvited at Mathilde's window. Their second rendezvous is less studied and more successful than the previous one. Soon thereafter, however, Mathilde regrets having succumbed and having shorn her locks and presented them to Julien in a submissive gesture. Julien has again known, but lost, happiness. At dinner, Julien finds that he has lost favor at court. He rides all day in an effort to numb his mind through physical exhaustion. As she confronts him one morning in the library, Mathilde tells him pitilessly that she does not love him. She overwhelms him with her vehemence. Julien accidentally breaks an antique Japanese vase, and his apology to Mme. de la Mole, made in the presence of Mathilde, intimates that his love, like the vase, has been irreparably shattered.
This four-chapter episode might well have been subtitled their war in love. Viewed as a whole, it consists of the ups and downs of the stormy relationship between Julien and Mathilde. Their love undergoes a reversal from the previous stage. Here, Julien falls madly in love with Mathilde because of her continued coldness and unavailability. He undergoes all the anguish, uncertainty, and torment that Mme. de Renal felt in his affair with her. Julien has lost his advantage; his triumph has turned to ashes. Several explanations are possible. Both egotists, the two are so similar in nature that they are bound to experience love unsuccessfully. Then, too, this is how love develops, according to Stendhal: It is an autonomous emotion that reserves unexpected developments for us. It dies, is revived, overpowers the victim. It is true that in this couple Stendhal has chosen extreme examples for the demonstration of love. Mathilde, previously so ardent and the initiator of the rendezvous, flees Julien, insults and humiliates him. She denies even that she loves him. Paradoxical in nature, their love resembles that between Rodrique and Chimnene in Corneille's Cid: At moments when they are farthest apart and when their love seems impossible, they love each other most since it is during these moments that they are the most worthy of each other. Again, Stendhal reminds us that happiness is the energy expended in the pursuit of happiness. Unwittingly, Julien has magically dispelled the idealization that constituted Mathilde's love for him. Since Mathilde has ceased to feel boredom for the last few months, Stendhal explains, she forgets what it was like and is now bored by Julien. Mathilde exists only for "magic moments" when she is placing her entire existence at stake. Once happiness is realized, it ceases to be interesting. In such a proud soul as Mathilde, the idea that another would be her master is unbearable. This fear of domination is another reason for Mathilde's rejection of Julien. The sword incident demonstrates the paradoxical nature of their relationship: Mathilde scorns Julien and insults his honor. Julien reaches blindly for the sword to do her harm, so great is his anger. From this act of malicious intent results a temporary advantage in Mathilde's estimation of Julien, thus in her love for him. She is able to relegate this scene to the medieval past that is the basis of her idealization of their love. She is overjoyed at being on the verge of being killed by her lover. Hurriedly, however, she flees after having recaptured her vision lest Julien destroy it. Note that the entire dramatic effect of the scene depends upon the image of the sword, chosen with care by Stendhal to jolt the reader. No novelist succeeds as well as Stendhal in forcing the reader's complicity. In effect, appreciation of Stendhal depends upon the active participation of the reader, who must supply the motivation for the acts that Stendhal has his characters commit. The resulting complicity between Stendhal and the reader is particularly operative in episodes such as the love duel between Julien and Mathilde. Her ideal partially salvaged, Mathilde now readmits Julien to her presence for walks in the garden, where she sadistically forces Julien to listen to her passionate narration of feelings she has felt for his rivals. Mathilde must keep the upper hand, with herself as master and Julien as victim. Only by seeing herself as the master is she able to permit herself to love him. Julien's admission of love to her is a blunder on his part. Sure that he loves her, Mathilde utterly despises him. Mathilde resorts instinctively to these stratagems to keep her love alive in its ideal state. She half hopes that Julien doesn't love her any more since that would furnish her with a new adventure, permitting her to experience new emotions. The two characters seem to be looking for a safe way to love themselves through the eyes of the other. Julien has never known such unhappiness. The jealousy that he feels is reminiscent of that felt by Mme. de Renal. And just as the latter felt pleasure pleading the cause of her rival's, the servant girl's, love for Julien, the hero now praises his rivals in order to "share" the love he thinks Mathilde feels for them. Stendhal is preparing for Julien's departure, which will occur at the end of Chapter 20, the lowest point and end of Julien's subordinate role in their hateful love. Mathilde projects the future of their relationship, trying to see it as a glorious one, worthy of the ancestry she reveres. Chapter 19 portrays another partially gratuitous victory for Julien. The thought of suicide inspires him with a courageous act. He will visit Mathilde's room again, then kill himself after she has rebuffed him. Mathilde might well have rebuffed him had she not been once again at the "high point" of the idealization cycle. Mathilde arrives at this point of intoxication in three ways. She continues to project a glorious future for Julien in which she will play a part, then reproaches herself for having acted so cruelly toward him. Second, her idle daydreaming prompts her unconsciously to draw a sketch of Julien. Such an imaginative and romantic nature as Mathilde's could only see this as an almost supernatural sign and proof of her love. The third event congenial to the creation of a receptive frame of mind is the opera that she attends, where again she is able to participate safely, at a distance, idealizing her own love by seeing it in the opera. Stendhal himself sees Mathilde's love as intellectual and contrasts it unfavorably with that felt by Mme. de Renal. The latter's love comes from the heart and does not need to see itself, to examine itself. Stendhal's intervention to justify Mathilde's character represents an ironic way of condemning those who would condemn his portrait of the times. Mathilde's adventurous and fanciful flights are certainly not to be found in the conduct of the young ladies of his age, he continues, since nineteenth-century France is incapable of great passion. Then, in an apparent contradiction, he introduces his definition of the novel as a mirror carried along a highway. Should it reflect the mire it encounters, the novelist is not to blame, but the mire. Balzac, Stendhal's great contemporary, defends his realism on similar grounds, as had the eighteenth-century French realistic novelists. The point is that even though Mathilde cerebrates her passion, she is capable of one. She, like Stendhal, scorns the apathy and sterility of society. Discreetly, Stendhal hardly alludes to the rendezvous. By chance, the lovers' exalted moments coincide, and Julien knows happiness reminiscent of that with Mme. de Renal. The unsolicited avowal of servitude made by Mathilde, betraying her chief concern, Julien will find almost immediately afterward disavowed by her. After having almost half shorn her head and thrown him the locks in a romantic gesture symbolic of her submission, Mathilde, by the next evening, regrets her conduct. She is again at another low ebb in her love, having found only banal reality, much to the bewilderment of Julien. Chapter 20 confirms the view that Mathilde is playing a game with herself, and Julien is but an instrument. She congratulates herself on the power of her will, which has dominated her love and which has finally permitted her to announce to Julien that she was only deluded into believing that she loved him. Although a conflict is waged in Mathilde's mind between her love and her pride and modesty, she does not appear to be a real victim of love at this stage in their relationship. Julien's symbolic remark about the vase represents another accidental, clever move. He regrets later having claimed that he no longer loves her, but the avowal, no matter how feigned and insincere, is actually the type of strategy needed to revive Mathilde's love for him.