finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_11_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 8-9
chapters 8-9
{"name": "Chapters 8-9", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-89", "summary": "Julien sees Mathilde after a period of separation, and she commands him to attend a ball with her brother. Julien is dazzled by the magnificence of the Hotel de Retz and by the brilliance of the aristocracy in attendance. Although Mathilde is the center of attraction, she is bored with the lack of color that characterizes all of her suitors. Julien and Altamira, a liberal condemned to die, are the only men present who intrigue her, and they seem unmoved by her charm, unlike Croisenois and the others of his ilk. In her boredom and because of her fascination with the unconventional, the exciting, the unusual, Mathilde seeks out the company of Julien and Altamira, who are deeply engrossed in a conversation about political expediency and idealism. They remain oblivious to her presence. Piqued, Mathilde seeks to tire herself by dancing and engages in a verbal bout with the impertinent Fervaques, a bout in which she is pitilessly victorious. Julien's admiration for Altamira is unbounded, and the day after the ball, as he works in the library, he is still engaged in an endless inner debate between expediency and idealism. Mathilde appears and reappears, hoping to attract his attention. When Julien deigns to answer her question about the object of his thoughts, he overwhelms her with his reflections. Mathilde hastily retires, realizing that she has interrupted his thoughts.", "analysis": "These chapters serve as preparation for the beginning of Julien's affair with Mathilde. Unaware that she is doing so, she will instinctively seek out Julien as a potential realization of the ideal she seeks -- a noble soul capable of self-sacrifice for great ideals. The chief point of view of narration is that of Mathilde. Stendhal's artistry as a psychological novelist requires that the reader supply the explicit formulation of the characters' motivation. Why does Mathilde command Julien's presence at the ball? We are to conclude that this is precipitated by her boredom and by the conversation she has had with her father concerning Julien. In that conversation, the marquis praised Julien for being capable of the unexpected and found his own son inferior by comparison. Stendhal transforms psychological analysis into action, expecting the reader to supply the explicit description of the psychological movement. Not even Mathilde arrives at an awareness of her own motivation. Stendhal creates the ball, in all its sterile glitter, as a fitting stage where Mathilde's boredom may be displayed as having reached its paroxysm. In this regard, the ball scene is the culmination of the salon scenes in the Hotel de la Mole. Stendhal takes little interest in describing the ball as such. He presents no exhaustive description of costumes, physical surroundings, or of guests. We have the impression of crowds mainly because Mathilde seems endlessly searching for Julien. Stendhal limits the point of view to that of Mathilde and Julien. The reader's appreciation of the ball is, therefore, limited to that of the characters. This represents a partial abandonment of the traditional omniscient point of view and previews more radical innovations in technique by late nineteenth- and twentieth-century novelists. Were Mathilde less appealing to her suitors, she would be less bored. Stendhal emphasizes her role as the most sought-after beauty of the season in order to put her boredom in relief. Any unearned victory, rather victory as such, is considered by Mathilde as a defeat since it supposes an end to battle. Happiness, for the \"beyliste,\" is no more than the search for happiness. Ironically, only those potential realizations of Mathilde's ideal are indifferent to her -- Altamira and Julien. It would be inexact to say that Mathilde is, at this stage, directing her attentions exclusively toward Julien as an individual. Julien and Altamira appear not as individuals but as a human type, a realization of her ideal. Mathilde's ideal will ultimately individualize itself into Julien. Julien finds a kindred soul in Altamira, the only individual in the novel who earns the hero's unreserved admiration. In these chapters, Stendhal gives more ample consideration to the conflict between idealism and expediency. Ironically, Julien aspires to revolutionary liberalism, but he is becoming more firmly entrenched in the home of an ultra. He, an ambitious pariah, idolizes Altamira, a liberal whose idealism has condemned him to death. This, Stendhal is saying, is the lamentable state to which the glorious revolutionary principles have degenerated during the autocratic Restoration. Altamira is Julien's double. Because of her pride and superiority, Mathilde is very worthy of Julien, although he continues to find her unattractive, and her pride offends his. Julien has become a dandy, Stendhal tells us, and he conducts himself coldly as a defense against Mathilde's haughtiness. He will not fail to notice, however, that others admire her, that, in fact, she is the attraction of the ball. He will begin to see her differently since, prized by others, she must be worthy. Note that Julien disagrees with Altamira, although the reader realizes that Julien is really undecided as he defends so forcibly the position of expediency. The graphic image of character disposition that may be seen in the ball scene is the following: Altamira is impassioned by his ideal of freedom; Julien shares this ideal and is only attentive to its exponent, Altamira; Mathilde instinctively pursues both as representatives of her own heroic ideal. The result, temporarily, is parallel and unfulfilled aspirations."}
CHAPTER XXXVIII

WHAT IS THE DECORATION WHICH CONFERS DISTINCTION?


    "Thy water refreshes me not," said the transformed genie.
    "'Tis nevertheless the freshest well in all Diar-Bekir"--_Pellico_.


One day Julien had just returned from the charming estate of Villequier
on the banks of the Seine, which was the especial subject of M. de la
Mole's interest because it was the only one of all his properties which
had belonged to the celebrated Boniface de la Mole.

He found the marquise and her daughter, who had just come back from
Hyeres, in the hotel. Julien was a dandy now, and understood the art of
Paris life. He manifested a perfect coldness towards mademoiselle de la
Mole. He seemed to have retained no recollection of the day when she
had asked him so gaily for details of his fall from his horse.

Mademoiselle de la Mole thought that he had grown taller and paler.
There was no longer anything of the provincial in his figure or his
appearance. It was not so with his conversation. Too much of the
serious and too much of the positive element were still noticeable. In
spite of these sober qualities, his conversation, thanks to his pride,
was destitute of any trace of the subordinate. One simply felt that
there were still too many things which he took seriously. But one saw
that he was the kind of man to stick to his guns.

"He lacks lightness of touch, but not brains," said mademoiselle de la
Mole to her father, as she rallied him on the cross that he had given
Julien. "My brother has been asking you for it for sixteen months, and
he is a La Mole."

"Yes, but Julien has surprises, and that's what the de la Mole, whom
you were referring to, has never been guilty of."

M. the duc de Retz was announced.

Mathilde felt herself seized by an irresistible attack of yawning. She
knew so well the old gildings and the old habitues of her father's
salon. She conjured up an absolutely boring picture of the life which
she was going to take up at Paris, and yet, when at Hyeres, she had
regretted Paris.

"And yet I am nineteen," she thought. "That's the age of happiness, say
all those gilt-edged ninnies."

She looked at eight or ten new volumes of poetry which had accumulated
on the table in the salon during her journey in Provence. She had the
misfortune to have more brains than M.M. de Croisnois, de Caylus, de
Luz, and her other friends. She anticipated all that they were going to
tell her about the fine sky of Provence, poetry, the South, etc., etc.

These fine eyes, which were the home of the deepest ennui, and worse
still, of the despair of ever finding pleasure, lingered on Julien. At
any rate, he was not exactly like the others.

"Monsieur Sorel," she said, in that short, sharp voice, destitute of
all femininity, which is so frequent among young women of the upper
class.

"Monsieur Sorel, are you coming to-night to M. de Retz's ball?"

"Mademoiselle, I have not had the honour of being presented to M. the
duke." (One would have said that these words and that title seared the
mouth of the proud provincial).

"He asked my brother to take you there, and if you go, you could
tell me some details about the Villequier estate. We are thinking of
going there in the spring, and I would like to know if the chateau is
habitable, and if the neighbouring places are as pretty as they say.
There are so many unmerited reputations."

Julien did not answer.

"Come to the ball with my brother," she added, very dryly. Julien bowed
respectfully.

"So I owe my due to the members of the family, even in the middle of a
ball. Am I not paid to be their business man?" His bad temper added,
"God knows, moreover, if what I tell the daughter will not put out the
plans of the father, brother, and mother. It is just like the court of
a sovereign prince. You have to be absolutely negative, and yet give no
one any right to complain."

"How that big girl displeases me!" he thought, as he watched the walk
of Mademoiselle de la Mole, whom her mother had called to present to
several women friends of hers. She exaggerates all the fashions. Her
dress almost falls down to her shoulders, she is even paler than before
she went away. How nondescript her hair has grown as the result of
being blonde! You would say that the light passed through it.

What a haughty way of bowing and of looking at you! What queenly
gestures! Mademoiselle de la Mole had just called her brother at the
moment when he was leaving the salon.

The comte de Norbert approached Julien.

"My dear Sorel," he said to him. "Where would you like me to pick you
up to-night for Monsieur's ball. He expressly asked me to bring you."

"I know well whom I have to thank for so much kindness," answered
Julien bowing to the ground.

His bad temper, being unable to find anything to lay hold of in the
polite and almost sympathetic tone in which Norbert had spoken to
him, set itself to work on the answer he had made to that courteous
invitation. He detected in it a trace of subservience.

When he arrived at the ball in the evening, he was struck with the
magnificence of the Hotel de Retz. The courtyard at the entrance was
covered with an immense tent of crimson with golden stars. Nothing
could have been more elegant. Beyond the tent, the court had been
transformed into a wood of orange trees and of pink laurels in full
flower. As they had been careful to bury the vases sufficiently deep,
the laurel trees and the orange trees appeared to come straight out of
the ground. The road which the carriages traversed was sanded.

All this seemed extraordinary to our provincial. He had never had any
idea of such magnificence. In a single instant his thrilled imagination
had left his bad temper a thousand leagues behind. In the carriage on
their way to the ball Norbert had been happy, while he saw everything
in black colours. They had scarcely entered the courtyard before the
roles changed.

Norbert was only struck by a few details which, in the midst of all
that magnificence, had not been able to be attended to. He calculated
the expense of each item, and Julien remarked that the nearer he got
to a sum total, the more jealous and bad-tempered he appeared.

As for himself, he was fascinated and full of admiration when he
reached the first of the salons where they were dancing. His emotion
was so great that it almost made him nervous. There was a crush at the
door of the second salon, and the crowd was so great that he found it
impossible to advance. The decorations of the second salon presented
the Alhambra of Grenada.

"That's the queen of the ball one must admit," said a young man with a
moustache whose shoulder stuck into Julien's chest.

"Mademoiselle Formant who has been the prettiest all the winter,
realises that she will have to go down to the second place. See how
strange she looks."

"In truth she is straining every nerve to please. Just look at that
gracious smile now that she is doing the figure in that quadrille all
alone. On my honour it is unique."

"Mademoiselle de la Mole looks as if she controlled the pleasure which
she derives from her triumph, of which she is perfectly conscious. One
might say that she fears to please anyone who talks to her."

"Very good. That is the art of alluring."

Julien vainly endeavoured to catch sight of the alluring woman. Seven
or eight men who were taller than he prevented him from seeing her.

"There is quite a lot of coquetry in that noble reserve," said the
young man with a moustache.

"And in those big blue eyes, which are lowered so slowly when one would
think they were on the point of betraying themselves," answered his
neighbour. "On my faith, nothing could be cleverer."

"See the pretty Formant looking quite common next to her," said the
first.

"That air of reserve means how much sweetness would I spend on you if
you were the man who was worthy of me."

"And who could be worthy of the sublime Mathilde," said the first man.
"Some sovereign prince, handsome, witty, well-made, a hero in war, and
twenty years old at the most."

"The natural son of the Emperor of Russia ... who would be made a
sovereign in honour of his marriage, or quite simply the comte de
Thaler, who looks like a dressed-up peasant."

The door was free, and Julien could go in.

"Since these puppets consider her so remarkable, it is worth while
for me to study her," he thought. "I shall then understand what these
people regard as perfection."

As his eyes were trying to find her, Mathilde looked at him. "My duty
calls me," said Julien to himself. But it was only his expression which
was bad-humoured.

His curiosity made him advance with a pleasure which the extremely low
cut dress on Mathilde's shoulder very quickly accentuated, in a manner
which was scarcely flattering for his own self-respect. "Her beauty has
youth," he thought. Five or six people, whom Julien recognised as those
who had been speaking at the door were between her and him.

"Now, Monsieur, you have been here all the winter," she said to him.
"Is it not true that this is the finest ball of the season."

He did not answer.

"This quadrille of Coulon's strikes me as admirable, and those ladies
dance it perfectly." The young men turned round to see who was the
happy man, an answer from whom was positively insisted on. The answer
was not encouraging.

"I shall not be able to be a good judge, mademoiselle, I pass my life
in writing. This is the first ball of this magnificence which I have
ever seen."

The young men with moustaches were scandalised.

"You are a wise man, Monsieur Sorel," came the answer with a more
marked interest. "You look upon all these balls, all these festivities,
like a philosopher, like J. J. Rousseau. All these follies astonish
without alluring you."

Julien's imagination had just hit upon an epigram which banished all
illusions from his mind. His mouth assumed the expression of a perhaps
slightly exaggerated disdain.

"J. J. Rousseau," he answered, "is in my view only a fool when he takes
it upon himself to criticise society. He did not understand it, and
he went into it with the spirit of a lackey who has risen above his
station."

"He wrote the _Contrat Social_," answered Mathilde reverently.

"While he preaches the Republic, and the overthrow of monarchical
dignities, the parvenu was intoxicated with happiness if a duke would
go out of his way after dinner to one of his friends."

"Oh yes, the Duke of Luxembourg at Montmorency, used to accompany a
Coindet from the neighbourhood of Paris," went on Mademoiselle de
la Mole, with all the pleasure and enthusiasm of her first flush of
pedantry. She was intoxicated with her knowledge, almost like the
academician who discovered the existence of King Feretrius.

Julien's look was still penetrating and severe. Mathilde had had
a moment's enthusiasm. Her partner's coldness disconcerted her
profoundly. She was all the more astonished, as it was she who was
accustomed to produce that particular effect on others.

At this moment the marquis de Croisenois was advancing eagerly towards
mademoiselle de la Mole. He was for a moment three yards away from her.
He was unable to get closer because of the crowd. He smiled at the
obstacle. The young marquise de Rouvray was near her. She was a cousin
of Mathilde. She was giving her arm to her husband who had only married
her a fortnight ago. The marquis de Rouvray, who was also very young,
had all the love which seizes a man who, having contracted a marriage
of convenience exclusively arranged by the notaries, finds a person who
is ideally pretty. M. de Rouvray would be a duke on the death of a very
old uncle.

While the marquis de Croisenois was struggling to get through the
crowd, and smiling at Mathilde she fixed her big divinely blue eyes
on him and his neighbours. "Could anything be flatter," she said to
herself. "There is Croisenois who wants to marry me, he is gentle and
polite, he has perfect manners like M. de Rouvray. If they did not
bore, those gentlemen would be quite charming. He too, would accompany
me to the ball with that smug limited expression. One year after the
marriage I shall have my carriage, my horses, my dresses, my chateau
twenty leagues from Paris. All this would be as nice as possible, and
enough to make a Countess de Roiville, for example, die of envy and
afterwards--"

Mathilde bored herself in anticipation. The marquis de Croisenois
managed to approach her and spoke to her, but she was dreaming and
did not listen to him. The noise of his words began to get mixed
with the buzz of the ball. Her eye mechanically followed Julien who
had gone away, with an air which, though respectful, was yet proud
and discontented. She noticed in a corner far from the moving crowd,
the comte Altamira who had been condemned to death in his own country
and whom the reader knows already. One of his relatives had married a
Prince de Conti in the reign of Louis XIV. This historical fact was
some protection against the police of the congregation.

"I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said
Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought."

"Why, that's an epigram, I just said, what a pity it did not come at a
moment when I could have reaped all the credit for it." Mathilde had
too much taste to work into the conversation a prepared epigram but
at the same time she was too vain not to be extremely pleased with
herself. A happy expression succeeded the palpable boredom of her face.
The marquis de Croisenois, who had never left off talking, saw a chance
of success and waxed twice as eloquent.

"What objection could a caviller find with my epigram," said Mathilde
to herself. "I would answer my critic in this way: The title of baron
or vicomte is to be bought; a cross, why it is a gift. My brother
has just got one. What has he done? A promotion, why that can be
obtained by being ten years in a garrison or have the minister of war
for a relative, and you'll be a chief of a squadron like Norbert. A
great fortune! That's rather more difficult, and consequently more
meritorious. It is really quite funny. It's the opposite of what
the books say. Well, to win a fortune why you marry M. Rothschild's
daughter. Really my epigram is quite deep. Being condemned to death is
still the one privilege which one has never thought of canvassing."

"Do you know the comte Altamira," she said to M. de Croisenois.

Her thoughts seemed to have been so far away, and this question had
so little connection with all that the poor marquis had been saying
for the last five minutes, that his good temper was ruffled. He was
nevertheless a man of wit and celebrated for being so.

"Mathilde is eccentric," he thought, "that's a nuisance, but she will
give her husband such a fine social position. I don't know how the
marquis de la Mole manages. He is connected with all that is best in
all parties. He is a man who is bound to come out on top. And, besides,
this eccentricity of Mathilde's may pass for genius. Genius when allied
with good birth and a large fortune, so far from being ridiculous, is
highly distinguished. She has wit, moreover, when she wants to, that
mixture in fact of brains, character, and ready wit which constitute
perfection."

As it is difficult to do two things at the same time, the marquis
answered Mathilde with a vacant expression as though he were reciting a
lesson.

"Who does not know that poor Altamira?" and he told her the history of
his conspiracy, abortive, ridiculous and absurd.

"Very absurd," said Mathilde as if she were talking to herself, "but he
has done something. I want to see a man; bring him to me," she said to
the scandalized marquis.

Comte Altamira was one of the most avowed admirers of mademoiselle de
la Mole's haughty and impertinent manner. In his opinion she was one of
the most beautiful persons in Paris.

"How fine she would be on a throne," he said to M. de Croisenois; and
made no demur at being taken up to Mathilde.

There are a good number of people in society who would like to
establish the fact that nothing is in such bad form as a conspiracy, in
the nineteenth century; it smacks of Jacobinism. And what could be more
sordid than unsuccessful Jacobinism.

Mathilde's expression made fun a little of Altamira and M. de
Croisenois, but she listened to him with pleasure.

"A conspirator at a ball, what a pretty contrast," she thought. She
thought that this man with his black moustache looked like a lion at
rest, but she soon perceived that his mind had only one point of view:
_utility, admiration for utility_.

The young comte thought nothing worthy his attention except what tended
to give his country two chamber government. He left Mathilde, who was
the prettiest person at the ball, with alacrity, because he saw a
Peruvian general come in. Desparing of Europe such as M. de Metternich
had arranged it, poor Altamira had been reduced to thinking that when
the States of South America had become strong and powerful they could
restore to Europe the liberty which Mirabeau has given it.

A crowd of moustachised young men had approached Mathilde. She realized
that Altamira had not felt allured, and was piqued by his departure.
She saw his black eye gleam as he talked to the Peruvian general.
Mademoiselle de la Mole looked at the young Frenchmen with that
profound seriousness which none of her rivals could imitate, "which
of them," she thought, "could get himself condemned to death, even
supposing he had a favourable opportunity?"

This singular look flattered those who were not very intelligent, but
disconcerted the others. They feared the discharge of some stinging
epigram that would be difficult to answer.

"Good birth vouchsafes a hundred qualities whose absence would offend
me. I see as much in the case of Julien," thought Mathilde, "but it
withers up those qualities of soul which make a man get condemned to
death."

At that moment some one was saying near her: "Comte Altamira is the
second son of the Prince of San Nazaro-Pimentel; it was a Pimentel who
tried to save Conradin, was beheaded in 1268. It is one of the noblest
families in Naples."

"So," said Mathilde to herself, "what a pretty proof this is of my
maxim, that good birth deprives a man of that force of character
in default of which a man does not get condemned to death. I seem
doomed to reason falsely to-night. Since I am only a woman like any
other, well I must dance." She yielded to the solicitations of M. de
Croisenois who had been asking for a gallop for the last hour. To
distract herself from her failure in philosophy, Mathilde made a point
of being perfectly fascinating. M. de Croisenois was enchanted. But
neither the dance nor her wish to please one of the handsomest men at
court, nor anything at all, succeeded in distracting Mathilde. She
could not possibly have been more of a success. She was the queen of
the ball. She coldly appreciated the fact.

"What a blank life I shall pass with a person like Croisenois," she
said to herself as he took her back to her place an hour afterwards.
"What pleasure do I get," she added sadly, "if after an absence of
six months I find myself at a ball which all the women of Paris were
mad with jealousy to go to? And what is more I am surrounded by the
homage of an ideally constituted circle of society. The only bourgeois
are some peers and perhaps one or two Juliens. And yet," she added
with increasing sadness, "what advantages has not fate bestowed upon
me! Distinction, fortune, youth, everything except happiness. My most
dubious advantages are the very ones they have been speaking to me
about all the evening. Wit, I believe I have it, because I obviously
frighten everyone. If they venture to tackle a serious subject, they
will arrive after five minutes of conversation and as though they had
made a great discovery at a conclusion which we have been repeating to
them for the last hour. I am beautiful, I have that advantage for which
madame de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet I'm dying of
boredom. Shall I have reason to be less bored when I have changed my
name for that of the marquis de Croisenois?

"My God though," she added, while she almost felt as if she would like
to cry, "isn't he really quite perfect? He's a paragon of the education
of the age; you can't look at him without his finding something
charming and even witty to say to you; he is brave. But that Sorel is
strange," she said to herself, and the expression of her eyes changed
from melancholy to anger. "I told him that I had something to say to
him and he hasn't deigned to reappear."





CHAPTER XXXIX

THE BALL


        The luxurious dresses, the glitter of the candles; all
        those pretty arms and fine shoulders; the bouquets,
        the intoxicating strains of Rossini, the paintings of
        Ciceri. I am beside myself.--_Journeys of Useri_.


"You are in a bad temper," said the marquise de la Mole to her; "let me
caution you, it is ungracious at a ball."

"I only have a headache," answered Mathilde disdainfully, "it is too
hot here."

At this moment the old Baron Tolly became ill and fell down, as though
to justify mademoiselle de la Mole's remark. They were obliged to carry
him away. They talked about apoplexy. It was a disagreeable incident.

Mathilde did not bother much about it.

She made a point of never looking at old men, or at anyone who had the
reputation of being bad company.

She danced in order to escape the conversation about the apoplexy,
which was not apoplexy inasmuch as the baron put in an appearance the
following day.

"But Sorel does not come," she said to herself after she had danced.
She was almost looking round for him when she found him in another
salon. Astonishing, but he seemed to have lost that impassive coldness
that was so natural to him; he no longer looked English.

"He is talking to comte Altamira who was sentenced to death," said
Mathilde to herself. "His eye is full of a sombre fire; he looks like a
prince in disguise; his haughtiness has become twice as pronounced."

Julien came back to where she was, still talking to Altamira. She
looked at Altamira fixedly, studying his features in order to trace
those lofty qualities which can earn a man the honour of being
condemned to death.

"Yes," he was saying to comte Altamira as he passed by her, "Danton was
a real man."

"Heavens can he be a Danton?" said Mathilde to herself, "but he has
so noble a face, and that Danton was so horribly ugly, a butcher I
believe." Julien was still fairly near her. She did not hesitate to
call him; she had the consciousness and the pride of putting a question
that was unusual for a young girl.

"Was not Danton a butcher?" she said to him.

"Yes, in the eyes of certain persons," Julien answered her with the
most thinly disguised expression of contempt. His eyes were still
ardent from his conversation with Altamira, "but unfortunately for
the people of good birth he was an advocate at Mery-sur-Seine, that
is to say, mademoiselle," he added maliciously, "he began like many
peers whom I see here. It was true that Danton laboured under a great
disadvantage in the eyes of beauty; he was ugly."

These last few words were spoken rapidly in an extraordinary and indeed
very discourteous manner.

Julien waited for a moment, leaning slightly forward and with an air of
proud humility. He seemed to be saying, "I am paid to answer you and I
live on my pay." He did not deign to look up at Mathilde. She looked
like his slave with her fine eyes open abnormally wide and fixed on
him. Finally as the silence continued he looked at her, like a valet
looking at his master to receive orders. Although his eyes met the full
gaze of Mathilde which were fixed on him all the time with a strange
expression, he went away with a marked eagerness.

"To think of a man who is as handsome as he is," said Mathilde to
herself as she emerged from her reverie, "praising ugliness in such a
way, he is not like Caylus or Croisenois. This Sorel has something like
my father's look when he goes to a fancy dress ball as Napoleon." She
had completely forgotten Danton. "Yes, I am decidedly bored to-night."
She took her brother's arm and to his great disgust made him take
her round the ball-room. The idea occurred to her of following the
conversation between Julien and the man who had been condemned to
death.

The crowd was enormous. She managed to find them, however, at the
moment when two yards in front of her Altamira was going near a
dumb-waiter to take an ice. He was talking to Julien with his body half
turned round. He saw an arm in an embroidered coat which was taking an
ice close by. The embroidery seemed to attract his attention. He turned
round to look at the person to whom the arm belonged. His noble and yet
simple eyes immediately assumed a slightly disdainful expression.

"You see that man," he said to Julien in a low voice; "that is the
Prince of Araceli Ambassador of ----. He asked M. de Nerval, your
Minister for Foreign Affairs, for my extradition this morning. See,
there he is over there playing whist. Monsieur de Nerval is willing
enough to give me up, for we gave up two or three conspirators to you
in 1816. If I am given up to my king I shall be hanged in twenty-four
hours. It will be one of those handsome moustachioed gentlemen who will
arrest me."

"The wretches!" exclaimed Julien half aloud.

Mathilde did not lose a syllable of their conversation. Her ennui had
vanished.

"They are not scoundrels," replied Count Altamira. "I talk to you about
myself in order to give you a vivid impression. Look at the Prince of
Araceli. He casts his eyes on his golden fleece every five minutes; he
cannot get over the pleasure of seeing that decoration on his breast.
In reality the poor man is really an anachronism. The fleece was a
signal honour a hundred years ago, but he would have been nowhere
near it in those days. But nowadays, so far as people of birth are
concerned, you have to be an Araceli to be delighted with it. He had a
whole town hanged in order to get it."

"Is that the price he had to pay?" said Julien anxiously.

"Not exactly," answered Altamira coldly, "he probably had about thirty
rich landed proprietors in his district who had the reputation of being
Liberals thrown into the river."

"What a monster!" pursued Julien.

Mademoiselle de la Mole who was leaning her head forward with keenest
interest was so near him that her beautiful hair almost touched his
shoulder.

"You are very young," answered Altamira. "I was telling you that I had
a married sister in Provence. She is still pretty, good and gentle; she
is an excellent mother, performs all her duties faithfully, is pious
but not a bigot."

"What is he driving at?" thought mademoiselle de la Mole.

"She is happy," continued the comte Altamira; "she was so in 1815. I
was then in hiding at her house on her estate near the Antibes. Well
the moment she learnt of marshall Ney's execution she began to dance."

"Is it possible?" said Julien, thunderstruck.

"It's party spirit," replied Altamira. "There are no longer any real
passions in the nineteenth century: that's why one is so bored in
France. People commit acts of the greatest cruelty, but without any
feeling of cruelty."

"So much the worse," said Julien, "when one does commit a crime one
ought at least to take pleasure in committing it; that's the only good
thing they have about them and that's the only way in which they have
the slightest justification."

Mademoiselle de la Mole had entirely forgotten what she owed to herself
and placed herself completely between Altamira and Julien. Her brother,
who was giving her his arm, and was accustomed to obey her, was
looking at another part of the room, and in order to keep himself in
countenance was pretending to be stopped by the crowd.

"You are right," Altamira went on, "one takes pleasure in nothing one
does, and one does not remember it: this applies even to crimes. I can
show you perhaps ten men in this ballroom who have been convicted of
murder. They have forgotten all about it and everybody else as well."

"Many are moved to the point of tears if their dog breaks a paw.
When you throw flowers on their grave at Pere-la-Chaise, as you say
so humorously in Paris, we learn they united all the virtues of the
knights of chivalry, and we speak about the noble feats of their
great-grandfather who lived in the reign of Henri IV. If, in spite of
the good offices of the Prince de Araceli, I escape hanging and I ever
manage to enjoy the use of my money in Paris, I will get you to dine
with eight or ten of these respected and callous murderers.

"At that dinner you and I will be the only ones whose blood is pure,
but I shall be despised and almost hated as a monster, while you will
be simply despised as a man of the people who has pushed his way into
good society."

"Nothing could be truer," said mademoiselle de la Mole.

Altamira looked at her in astonishment; but Julien did not deign to
look at her.

"Observe that the revolution, at whose head I found myself," continued
the comte Altamira, "only failed for the one reason that I would not
cut off three heads and distribute among our partisans seven or eight
millions which happened to be in a box of which I happened to have the
key. My king, who is burning to have me hanged to-day, and who called
me by my christian name before the rebellion, would have given me the
great ribbon of his order if I had had those three heads cut off and
had had the money in those boxes distributed; for I should have had at
least a semi-success and my country would have had a charta like ----.
So wags the world; it's a game of chess."

"At that time," answered Julien with a fiery eye, "you did not know the
game; now...."

"You mean I would have the heads cut off, and I would not be a
Girondin, as you said I was the other day? I will give you your
answer," said Altamira sadly, "when you have killed a man in a duel--a
far less ugly matter than having him put to death by an executioner."

"Upon my word," said Julien, "the end justifies the means. If instead
of being an insignificant man I had some power I would have three men
hanged in order to save four men's lives."

His eyes expressed the fire of his own conscience; they met the eyes of
mademoiselle de la Mole who was close by him, and their contempt, so
far from changing into politeness seemed to redouble.

She was deeply shocked; but she found herself unable to forget Julien;
she dragged her brother away and went off in a temper.

"I must take some punch and dance a lot," she said to herself. "I will
pick out the best partner and cut some figure at any price. Good, there
is that celebrated cynic, the comte de Fervaques." She accepted his
invitation; they danced. "The question is," she thought, "which of us
two will be the more impertinent, but in order to make absolute fun
of him, I must get him to talk." Soon all the other members of the
quadrille were dancing as a matter of formality, they did not want to
lose any of Mathilde's cutting reparte. M. de Fervaques felt uneasy and
as he could only find elegant expressions instead of ideas, began to
scowl. Mathilde, who was in a bad temper was cruel, and made an enemy
of him. She danced till daylight and then went home terribly tired.
But when she was in the carriage the little vitality she had left, was
still employed in making her sad and unhappy. She had been despised by
Julien and could not despise him.

Julien was at the zenith of his happiness. He was enchanted without
his knowing it by the music, the flowers, the pretty women, the
general elegance, and above all by his own imagination which dreamt of
distinctions for himself and of liberty for all.

"What a fine ball," he said to the comte. "Nothing is lacking."

"Thought is lacking" answered Altamira, and his face betrayed that
contempt which is only more deadly from the very fact that a manifest
effort is being made to hide it as a matter of politeness.

"You are right, monsieur the comte, there isn't any thought at all, let
alone enough to make a conspiracy."

"I am here because of my name, but thought is hated in your salons.
Thought must not soar above the level of the point of a Vaudeville
couplet: it is then rewarded. But as for your man who thinks, if he
shows energy and originality we call him a cynic. Was not that name
given by one of your judges to Courier. You put him in prison as
well as Beranger. The priestly congregation hands over to the police
everyone who is worth anything amongst you individually; and good
society applauds.

"The fact is your effete society prizes conventionalism above
everything else. You will never get beyond military bravery. You will
have Murats, never Washingtons. I can see nothing in France except
vanity. A man who goes on speaking on the spur of the moment may easily
come to make an imprudent witticism and the master of the house thinks
himself insulted."

As he was saying this, the carriage in which the comte was seeing
Julien home stopped before the Hotel de la Mole. Julien was in love
with his conspirator. Altamira had paid him this great compliment which
was evidently the expression of a sound conviction. "You have not got
the French flippancy and you understand the principle of _utility_."
It happened that Julien had seen the day before _Marino Faliero_, a
tragedy, by Casmir Delavigne.

"Has not Israel Bertuccio got more character than all those noble
Venetians?" said our rebellious plebeian to himself, "and yet those
are the people whose nobility goes back to the year seven hundred, a
century before Charlemagne, while the cream of the nobility at M. de
Ritz's ball to-night only goes back, and that rather lamely, to the
thirteenth century. Well, in spite of all the noble Venetians whose
birth makes so great, it is Israel Bertuccio whom one remembers.

"A conspiracy annihilates all titles conferred by social caprice.
There, a man takes for his crest the rank that is given him by the way
in which he faces death. The intellect itself loses some of its power.

"What would Danton have been to-day in this age of the Valenods and the
Renals? Not even a deputy for the Public Prosecutor.

"What am I saying? He would have sold himself to the priests, he
would have been a minister, for after all the great Danton did steal.
Mirabeau also sold himself. Napoleon stole millions in Italy, otherwise
he would have been stopped short in his career by poverty like
Pichegru. Only La Fayette refrained from stealing. Ought one to steal,
ought one to sell oneself?" thought Julien. This question pulled him up
short. He passed the rest of the night in reading the history of the
revolution.

When he wrote his letters in the library the following day, his mind
was still concentrated on his conversation with count Altamira.

"As a matter of fact," he said to himself after a long reverie, "If the
Spanish Liberals had not injured their nation by crimes they would not
have been cleared out as easily as they were.

"They were haughty, talkative children--just like I am!" he suddenly
exclaimed as though waking up with a start.

"What difficulty have I surmounted that entitles me to judge such
devils who, once alive, dared to begin to act. I am like a man who
exclaims at the close of a meal, 'I won't dine to-morrow; but that
won't prevent me from feeling as strong and merry like I do to-day.'
Who knows what one feels when one is half-way through a great action?"

These lofty thoughts were disturbed by the unexpected arrival in
the library of mademoiselle de la Mole. He was so animated by his
admiration for the great qualities of such invincibles as Danton,
Mirabeau, and Carnot that, though he fixed his eyes on mademoiselle de
la Mole, he neither gave her a thought nor bowed to her, and scarcely
even saw her. When finally his big, open eyes realized her presence,
their expression vanished. Mademoiselle de la Mole noticed it with
bitterness.

It was in vain that she asked him for Vely's History of France which
was on the highest shelf, and thus necessitated Julien going to fetch
the longer of the two ladders. Julien had brought the ladder and had
fetched the volume and given it to her, but had not yet been able to
give her a single thought. As he was taking the ladder back he hit
in his hurry one of the glass panes in the library with his elbow;
the noise of the glass falling on the floor finally brought him to
himself. He hastened to apologise to mademoiselle de la Mole. He tried
to be polite and was certainly nothing more. Mathilde saw clearly that
she had disturbed him, and that he would have preferred to have gone
on thinking about what he had been engrossed in before her arrival,
to speaking to her. After looking at him for some time she went
slowly away. Julien watched her walk. He enjoyed the contrast of her
present dress with the elegant magnificence of the previous night. The
difference between the two expressions was equally striking. The young
girl who had been so haughty at the Duke de Retz's ball, had, at the
present moment, an almost plaintive expression. "As a matter of fact,"
said Julien to himself, "that black dress makes the beauty of her
figure all the more striking. She has a queenly carriage; but why is
she in mourning?"

"If I ask someone the reason for this mourning, they will think I am
putting my foot in it again." Julien had now quite emerged from the
depth of his enthusiasm. "I must read over again all the letters I have
written this morning. God knows how many missed out words and blunders
I shall find. As he was forcing himself to concentrate his mind on the
first of these letters he heard the rustle of a silk dress near him.
He suddenly turned round, mademoiselle de la Mole was two yards from
his table, she was smiling. This second interruption put Julien into a
bad temper. Mathilde had just fully realized that she meant nothing to
this young man. Her smile was intended to hide her embarrassment; she
succeeded in doing so.

"You are evidently thinking of something very interesting, Monsieur
Sorel. Is it not some curious anecdote about that conspiracy which
is responsible for comte Altamira being in Paris? Tell me what it is
about, I am burning to know. I will be discreet, I swear it." She was
astonished at hearing herself utter these words. What! was she asking a
favour of an inferior! Her embarrassment increased, and she added with
a little touch of flippancy,

"What has managed to turn such a usually cold person as yourself, into
an inspired being, a kind of Michael Angelo prophet?"

This sharp and indiscreet question wounded Julien deeply, and rendered
him madder than ever.

"Was Danton right in stealing?" he said to her brusquely in a manner
that grew more and more surly. "Ought the revolutionaries of Piedmont
and of Spain to have injured the people by crimes? To have given all
the places in the army and all the orders to undeserving persons? Would
not the persons who wore these orders have feared the return of the
king? Ought they to have allowed the treasure of Turin to be looted?
In a word, mademoiselle," he said, coming near her with a terrifying
expression, "ought the man who wishes to chase ignorance and crime from
the world to pass like the whirlwind and do evil indiscriminately?"

Mathilde felt frightened, was unable to stand his look, and retreated a
couples of paces. She looked at him a moment, and then ashamed of her
own fear, left the library with a light step.






Chapters 8-9
Julien sees Mathilde after a period of separation, and she commands him to attend a ball with her brother. Julien is dazzled by the magnificence of the Hotel de Retz and by the brilliance of the aristocracy in attendance. Although Mathilde is the center of attraction, she is bored with the lack of color that characterizes all of her suitors. Julien and Altamira, a liberal condemned to die, are the only men present who intrigue her, and they seem unmoved by her charm, unlike Croisenois and the others of his ilk. In her boredom and because of her fascination with the unconventional, the exciting, the unusual, Mathilde seeks out the company of Julien and Altamira, who are deeply engrossed in a conversation about political expediency and idealism. They remain oblivious to her presence. Piqued, Mathilde seeks to tire herself by dancing and engages in a verbal bout with the impertinent Fervaques, a bout in which she is pitilessly victorious. Julien's admiration for Altamira is unbounded, and the day after the ball, as he works in the library, he is still engaged in an endless inner debate between expediency and idealism. Mathilde appears and reappears, hoping to attract his attention. When Julien deigns to answer her question about the object of his thoughts, he overwhelms her with his reflections. Mathilde hastily retires, realizing that she has interrupted his thoughts.
These chapters serve as preparation for the beginning of Julien's affair with Mathilde. Unaware that she is doing so, she will instinctively seek out Julien as a potential realization of the ideal she seeks -- a noble soul capable of self-sacrifice for great ideals. The chief point of view of narration is that of Mathilde. Stendhal's artistry as a psychological novelist requires that the reader supply the explicit formulation of the characters' motivation. Why does Mathilde command Julien's presence at the ball? We are to conclude that this is precipitated by her boredom and by the conversation she has had with her father concerning Julien. In that conversation, the marquis praised Julien for being capable of the unexpected and found his own son inferior by comparison. Stendhal transforms psychological analysis into action, expecting the reader to supply the explicit description of the psychological movement. Not even Mathilde arrives at an awareness of her own motivation. Stendhal creates the ball, in all its sterile glitter, as a fitting stage where Mathilde's boredom may be displayed as having reached its paroxysm. In this regard, the ball scene is the culmination of the salon scenes in the Hotel de la Mole. Stendhal takes little interest in describing the ball as such. He presents no exhaustive description of costumes, physical surroundings, or of guests. We have the impression of crowds mainly because Mathilde seems endlessly searching for Julien. Stendhal limits the point of view to that of Mathilde and Julien. The reader's appreciation of the ball is, therefore, limited to that of the characters. This represents a partial abandonment of the traditional omniscient point of view and previews more radical innovations in technique by late nineteenth- and twentieth-century novelists. Were Mathilde less appealing to her suitors, she would be less bored. Stendhal emphasizes her role as the most sought-after beauty of the season in order to put her boredom in relief. Any unearned victory, rather victory as such, is considered by Mathilde as a defeat since it supposes an end to battle. Happiness, for the "beyliste," is no more than the search for happiness. Ironically, only those potential realizations of Mathilde's ideal are indifferent to her -- Altamira and Julien. It would be inexact to say that Mathilde is, at this stage, directing her attentions exclusively toward Julien as an individual. Julien and Altamira appear not as individuals but as a human type, a realization of her ideal. Mathilde's ideal will ultimately individualize itself into Julien. Julien finds a kindred soul in Altamira, the only individual in the novel who earns the hero's unreserved admiration. In these chapters, Stendhal gives more ample consideration to the conflict between idealism and expediency. Ironically, Julien aspires to revolutionary liberalism, but he is becoming more firmly entrenched in the home of an ultra. He, an ambitious pariah, idolizes Altamira, a liberal whose idealism has condemned him to death. This, Stendhal is saying, is the lamentable state to which the glorious revolutionary principles have degenerated during the autocratic Restoration. Altamira is Julien's double. Because of her pride and superiority, Mathilde is very worthy of Julien, although he continues to find her unattractive, and her pride offends his. Julien has become a dandy, Stendhal tells us, and he conducts himself coldly as a defense against Mathilde's haughtiness. He will not fail to notice, however, that others admire her, that, in fact, she is the attraction of the ball. He will begin to see her differently since, prized by others, she must be worthy. Note that Julien disagrees with Altamira, although the reader realizes that Julien is really undecided as he defends so forcibly the position of expediency. The graphic image of character disposition that may be seen in the ball scene is the following: Altamira is impassioned by his ideal of freedom; Julien shares this ideal and is only attentive to its exponent, Altamira; Mathilde instinctively pursues both as representatives of her own heroic ideal. The result, temporarily, is parallel and unfulfilled aspirations.