finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_42_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 13
part 2, chapter 13
{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-13", "summary": "Julien drops in on a conversation between Mathilde and Norbert, who are speaking about him. They fall silent, and he wonders for a moment if they're conspiring to make fun of him. While doing some business for the Marquis de La Mole, Julien realizes that some of the man's private books are going missing. The books are especially racy, and Julien knows it's not Norbert who's taking them. It must be Mathilde. Julien learns that he'll have to make a trip to a place called Languedoc. He smiles to think that while he's gone, he'll know that he is first in Mathilde's heart. One night while walking, Mathilde grips him by the arm and tells him to expect a letter from her that night. An hour later, Julien receives a letter that plainly declares Mathilde's love for him. He decides to put off his trip to Languedoc. He revels in the fact that he, such a poor young man, has bested all the richest noblemen in Paris. Julien worries that he might be walking into a trap if he tries to visit Mathilde. After all, he has been shot at before for visiting a woman's bedroom. So he decides to send his letter from Mathilde to his buddy Fouqe for safekeeping, just in case something happens to him.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XLIII

A PLOT


        Disconnected remarks, casual meetings, become
        transformed in the eyes of an imaginative man into
        the most convincing proofs, if he has any fire in his
        temperament.--_Schiller_.


The following day he again caught Norbert and his sister talking about
him. A funereal silence was established on his arrival as on the
previous day. His suspicions were now unbounded. "Can these charming
young people have started to make fun of me? I must own this is much
more probable, much more natural than any suggested passion on the part
of mademoiselle de La Mole for a poor devil of a secretary. In the
first place, have those people got any passions at all? Mystification
is their strong point. They are jealous of my poor little superiority
in speaking. Being jealous again is one of their weaknesses. On that
basis everything is explicable. Mademoiselle de La Mole simply wants to
persuade me that she is marking me out for special favour in order to
show me off to her betrothed?"

This cruel suspicion completely changed Julien's psychological
condition. The idea found in his heart a budding love which it had no
difficulty in destroying. This love was only founded on Mathilde's rare
beauty, or rather on her queenly manners and her admirable dresses.
Julien was still a parvenu in this respect. We are assured that there
is nothing equal to a pretty society women for dazzling a peasant
who is at the same time a man of intellect, when he is admitted to
first class society. It had not been Mathilde's character which had
given Julien food for dreams in the days that had just passed. He had
sufficient sense to realise that he knew nothing about her character.
All he saw of it might be merely superficial.

For instance, Mathilde would not have missed mass on Sunday for
anything in the world. She accompanied her mother there nearly every
time. If when in the salon of the Hotel de La Mole some indiscreet man
forgot where he was, and indulged in the remotest allusion to any jest
against the real or supposed interests of Church or State, Mathilde
immediately assumed an icy seriousness. Her previously arch expression
re-assumed all the impassive haughtiness of an old family portrait.

But Julien had assured himself that she always had one or two of
Voltaire's most philosophic volumes in her room. He himself would
often steal some tomes of that fine edition which was so magnificently
bound. By moving each volume a little distance from the one next to it
he managed to hide the absence of the one he took away, but he soon
noticed that someone else was reading Voltaire. He had recourse to a
trick worthy of the seminary and placed some pieces of hair on those
volumes which he thought were likely to interest mademoiselle de La
Mole. They disappeared for whole weeks.

M. de La Mole had lost patience with his bookseller, who always sent
him all the spurious memoirs, and had instructed Julien to buy all the
new books, which were at all stimulating. But in order to prevent the
poison spreading over the household, the secretary was ordered to place
the books in a little book-case that stood in the marquis's own room.
He was soon quite certain that although the new books were hostile to
the interests of both State and Church, they very quickly disappeared.
It was certainly not Norbert who read them.

Julien attached undue importance to this discovery, and attributed to
mademoiselle de la Mole a Machiavellian role. This seeming depravity
constituted a charm in his eyes, the one moral charm, in fact, which
she possessed. He was led into this extravagance by his boredom with
hypocrisy and moral platitudes.

It was more a case of his exciting his own imagination than of his
being swept away by his love.

It was only after he had abandoned himself to reveries about the
elegance of mademoiselle de la Mole's figure, the excellent taste
of he dress, the whiteness of her hand, the beauty of her arm, the
_disinvoltura_ of all her movements, that he began to find himself in
love. Then in order to complete the charm he thought her a Catherine
de' Medici. Nothing was too deep or too criminal for the character
which he ascribed to her. She was the ideal of the Maslons, the
Frilairs, and the Castanedes whom he had admired so much in his youth.
To put it shortly, she represented in his eyes the Paris ideal.

Could anything possibly be more humorous than believing in the depth or
in the depravity of the Parisian character?

It is impossible that this _trio_ is making fun of me thought Julien.
The reader knows little of his character if he has not begun already
to imagine his cold and gloomy expression when he answered Mathilde's
looks. A bitter irony rebuffed those assurances of friendship which the
astonished mademoiselle de la Mole ventured to hazard on two or three
occasions.

Piqued by this sudden eccentricity, the heart of this young girl,
though naturally cold, bored and intellectual, became as impassioned as
it was naturally capable of being. But there was also a large element
of pride in Mathilde's character, and the birth of a sentiment which
made all her happiness dependent on another, was accompanied by a
gloomy melancholy.

Julien had derived sufficient advantage from his stay in Paris to
appreciate that this was not the frigid melancholy of ennui. Instead
of being keen as she had been on at homes, theatres, and all kinds of
distractions, she now shunned them.

Music sung by Frenchmen bored Mathilde to death, yet Julien, who
always made a point of being present when the audience came out of the
Opera, noticed that she made a point of getting taken there as often
as she could. He thought he noticed that she had lost a little of that
brilliant neatness of touch which used to be manifest in everything
she did. She would sometimes answer her friends with jests rendered
positively outrageous through the sheer force of their stinging energy.
He thought that she made a special butt of the marquis de Croisenois.
That young man must be desperately in love with money not to give the
go-by to that girl, however rich she maybe, thought Julien. And as for
himself, indignant at these outrages on masculine self-respect, he
redoubled his frigidity towards her. Sometimes he went so far as to
answer her with scant courtesy.

In spite of his resolution not to become the dupe of Mathilde's signs
of interest, these manifestations were so palpable on certain days, and
Julien, whose eyes were beginning to be opened, began to find her so
pretty, that he was sometimes embarrassed.

"These young people of society will score in the long run by their
skill and their coolness over my inexperience," he said to himself. "I
must leave and put an end to all this." The marquis had just entrusted
him with the administration of a number of small estates and houses
which he possessed in Lower Languedoc. A journey was necessary; M. de
la Mole reluctantly consented. Julien had become his other self, except
in those matters which concerned his political career.

"So, when we come to balance the account," Julien said to himself,
as he prepared his departure, "they have not caught me. Whether the
jests that mademoiselle de la Mole made to those gentlemen are real,
or whether they were only intended to inspire me with confidence, they
have simply amused me.

"If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter's son, mademoiselle de
la Mole is an enigma, but at any rate, she is quite as much an enigma
for the marquis de Croisenois as she is to me. Yesterday, for instance,
her bad temper was very real, and I had the pleasure of seeing her
snub, thanks to her favour for me, a young man who is as noble and as
rich as I am a poor scoundrel of a plebeian. That is my finest triumph;
it will divert me in my post-chaise as I traverse the Languedoc plains."

He had kept his departure a secret, but Mathilde knew, even better than
he did himself, that he was going to leave Paris the following day for
a long time. She developed a maddening headache, which was rendered
worse by the stuffy salon. She walked a great deal in the garden, and
persecuted Norbert, the marquis de Croisenois, Caylus, de Luz, and
some other young men who had dined at the Hotel de la Mole, to such an
extent by her mordant witticisms, that she drove them to take their
leave. She kept looking at Julien in a strange way.

"Perhaps that look is a pose," thought Julien, "but how about that
hurried breathing and all that agitation? Bah," he said to himself,
"who am I to judge of such things? We are dealing with the cream of
Parisian sublimity and subtlety. As for that hurried breathing which
was on the point of affecting me, she no doubt studied it with Leontine
Fay, whom she likes so much."

They were left alone; the conversation was obviously languishing. "No,
Julien has no feeling for me," said Mathilde to herself, in a state of
real unhappiness.

As he was taking leave of her she took his arm violently.

"You will receive a letter from me this evening," she said to him in a
voice that was so changed that its tone was scarcely recognisable.

This circumstance affected Julien immediately.

"My father," she continued, "has a proper regard for the services you
render him. You must not leave to-morrow; find an excuse." And she ran
away.

Her figure was charming. It was impossible to have a prettier foot. She
ran with a grace which fascinated Julien, but will the reader guess
what he began to think about after she had finally left him? He felt
wounded by the imperious tone with which she had said the words, "you
must." Louis XV. too, when on his death-bed, had been keenly irritated
by the words "you must," which had been tactlessly pronounced by his
first physician, and yet Louis XV. was not a parvenu.

An hour afterwards a footman gave Julien a letter. It was quite simply
a declaration of love.

"The style is too affected," said Julien to himself, as he endeavoured
to control by his literary criticism the joy which was spreading over
his cheeks and forcing him to smile in spite of himself.

At last his passionate exultation was too strong to be controlled. "So
I," he suddenly exclaimed, "I, the poor peasant, get a declaration of
love from a great lady."

"As for myself, I haven't done so badly," he added, restraining his
joy as much as he could. "I have managed to preserve my self-respect.
I did not say that I loved her." He began to study the formation of
the letters. Mademoiselle de la Mole had a pretty little English
handwriting. He needed some concrete occupation to distract him from a
joy which verged on delirium.

"Your departure forces me to speak.... I could not bear not to see you
again."

A thought had just struck Julien like a new discovery. It interrupted
his examination of Mathilde's letter, and redoubled his joy. "So I
score over the marquis de Croisenois," he exclaimed. "Yes, I who could
only talk seriously! And he is so handsome. He has a moustache and a
charming uniform. He always manages to say something witty and clever
just at the psychological moment."

Julien experienced a delightful minute. He was wandering at random in
the garden, mad with happiness.

Afterwards he went up to his desk, and had himself ushered in to the
marquis de la Mole, who was fortunately still in. He showed him several
stamped papers which had come from Normandy, and had no difficulty
in convincing him that he was obliged to put off his departure for
Languedoc in order to look after the Normandy lawsuits.

"I am very glad that you are not going," said the marquis to him, when
they had finished talking business. "I like seeing you." Julien went
out; the words irritated him.

"And I--I am going to seduce his daughter! and perhaps render
impossible that marriage with the marquis de Croisenois to which the
marquis looks forward with such delight. If he does not get made a
duke, at any rate his daughter will have a coronet." Julien thought of
leaving for Languedoc in spite of Mathilde's letter, and in spite of
the explanation he had just given to the marquis. This flash of virtue
quickly disappeared.

"How kind it is of me," he said to himself, "me ... a plebeian, takes
pity on a family of this rank! Yes, me, whom the duke of Chaulnes
calls a servant! How does the marquis manage to increase his immense
fortune? By selling stock when he picks up information at the castle
that there will be a panic of a _coup d'etat_ on the following day.
And shall I, who have been flung down into the lowest class by a cruel
providence--I, whom providence has given a noble heart but not an
income of a thousand francs, that is to say, not enough to buy bread
with, literally not enough to buy bread with--shall I refuse a pleasure
that presents itself? A limpid fountain which will quench my thirst in
this scorching desert of mediocrity which I am traversing with such
difficulty! Upon my word, I am not such a fool! Each man for himself in
that desert of egoism which is called life."

And he remembered certain disdainful looks which madame de la Mole, and
especially her lady friends, had favoured him with.

The pleasure of scoring over the marquis de Croisenois completed the
rout of this echo of virtue.

"How I should like to make him angry," said Julien. "With what
confidence would I give him a sword thrust now!" And he went through
the segoon thrust. "Up till now I have been a mere usher, who exploited
basely the little courage he had. After this letter I am his equal.

"Yes," he slowly said to himself, with an infinite pleasure, "the
merits of the marquis and myself have been weighed in the balance, and
it is the poor carpenter from the Jura who turns the scale.

"Good!" he exclaimed, "this is how I shall sign my answer. Don't
imagine, mademoiselle de la Mole, that I am forgetting my place. I will
make you realise and fully appreciate that it is for a carpenter's son
that you are betraying a descendant of the famous Guy de Croisenois who
followed St. Louis to the Crusade."

Julien was unable to control his joy. He was obliged to go down into
the garden. He had locked himself in his room, but he found it too
narrow to breathe in.

"To think of it being me, the poor peasant from the Jura," he kept
on repeating to himself, "to think of it being me who am eternally
condemned to wear this gloomy black suit! Alas twenty years ago I would
have worn a uniform like they do! In those days a man like me either
got killed or became a general at thirty-six. The letter which he held
clenched in his hand gave him a heroic pose and stature. Nowadays, it
is true, if one sticks to this black suit, one gets at forty an income
of a hundred thousand francs and the blue ribbon like my lord bishop of
Beauvais.

"Well," he said to himself with a Mephistophelian smile, "I have more
brains than they. I am shrewd enough to choose the uniform of my
century. And he felt a quickening of his ambition and of his attachment
to his ecclesiastical dress. What cardinals of even lower birth than
mine have not succeeded in governing! My compatriot Granvelle, for
instance."

Julien's agitation became gradually calmed! Prudence emerged to the
top. He said to himself like his master Tartuffe whose part he knew by
heart:

    Je puis croire ces mots, un artifice honnete.
    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
    Je ne me firai point a des propos si doux,
    Qu'un peu de ses faveurs apres quoi je soupire
    Ne vienne m'assurer tout ce qu'ils m'ont pudire.
                                  _Tartuffe, act iv. Scene v_.

"Tartuffe, too, was ruined by a woman, and he was as good as most
men.... My answer may be shown.... and the way out of that is this," he
added pronouncing his words slowly with an intonation of deliberate and
restrained ferocity. "We will begin by quoting the most vivid passages
from the letter of the sublime Mathilde."

"Quite so, but M. de Croisenois' lackeys will hurl themselves upon me
and snatch the original away."

"No, they won't, for I am well armed, and as we know I am accustomed to
firing on lackeys."

"Well, suppose one of them has courage, and hurls himself upon me. He
has been promised a hundred napoleons. I kill him, or wound him, good,
that's what they want. I shall be thrown into prison legally. I shall
be had up in the police court and the judges will send me with all
justice and all equity to keep Messieurs Fontan and Magalon company
in Poissy. There I shall be landed in the middle of four hundred
scoundrels.... And am I to have the slightest pity on these people,"
he exclaimed getting up impetuously! "Do they show any to persons of
the third estate when they have them in their power!" With these words
his gratitude to M. de la Mole, which had been in spite of himself
torturing his conscience up to this time, breathed its last.

"Softly, gentlemen, I follow this little Machiavellian trick, the abbe
Maslon or M. Castanede of the seminary could not have done better. You
will take the provocative letter away from me and I shall exemplify the
second volume of Colonel Caron at Colmar."

"One moment, gentlemen, I will send the fatal letter in a well-sealed
packet to M. the abbe Pirard to take care of. He's an honest man, a
Jansenist, and consequently incorruptible. Yes, but he will open the
letters.... Fouque is the man to whom I must send it."

We must admit that Julien's expression was awful, his countenance
ghastly; it breathed unmitigated criminality. It represented the
unhappy man at war with all society.

"To arms," exclaimed Julien. And he bounded up the flight of steps
of the hotel with one stride. He entered the stall of the street
scrivener; he frightened him. "Copy this," he said, giving him
mademoiselle de la Mole's letter.

While the scrivener was working, he himself wrote to Fouque. He asked
him to take care of a valuable deposit. "But he said to himself,"
breaking in upon his train of thought, "the secret service of the
post-office will open my letter, and will give you gentlemen the one
you are looking for ... not quite, gentlemen." He went and bought an
enormous Bible from a Protestant bookseller, skillfully hid Mathilde's
letter in the cover, and packed it all up. His parcel left by the
diligence addressed to one of Fouque's workmen, whose name was known to
nobody at Paris.

This done, he returned to the Hotel de la Mole, joyous and buoyant.

Now it's our turn he exclaimed as he locked himself into the room and
threw off his coat.

"What! mademoiselle," he wrote to Mathilde, "is it mademoiselle de la
Mole who gets Arsene her father's lackey to hand an only too flattering
letter to a poor carpenter from the Jura, in order no doubt to make
fun of his simplicity?" And he copied out the most explicit phrases in
the letter which he had just received. His own letter would have done
honour to the diplomatic prudence of M. the Chevalier de Beauvoisis.
It was still only ten o'clock when Julien entered the Italian opera,
intoxicated with happiness and that feeling of his own power which was
so novel for a poor devil like him. He heard his friend Geronimo sing.
Music had never exalted him to such a pitch.






Part 2, Chapter 13
Julien drops in on a conversation between Mathilde and Norbert, who are speaking about him. They fall silent, and he wonders for a moment if they're conspiring to make fun of him. While doing some business for the Marquis de La Mole, Julien realizes that some of the man's private books are going missing. The books are especially racy, and Julien knows it's not Norbert who's taking them. It must be Mathilde. Julien learns that he'll have to make a trip to a place called Languedoc. He smiles to think that while he's gone, he'll know that he is first in Mathilde's heart. One night while walking, Mathilde grips him by the arm and tells him to expect a letter from her that night. An hour later, Julien receives a letter that plainly declares Mathilde's love for him. He decides to put off his trip to Languedoc. He revels in the fact that he, such a poor young man, has bested all the richest noblemen in Paris. Julien worries that he might be walking into a trap if he tries to visit Mathilde. After all, he has been shot at before for visiting a woman's bedroom. So he decides to send his letter from Mathilde to his buddy Fouqe for safekeeping, just in case something happens to him.