CHAPTER LIV

STRASBOURG

        Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and
        all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only
        his enchanting pleasures, his sweet delights, which
        are outside thy sphere. When I saw her sleep I was
        made to say "With all her angelic beauty and her sweet
        weaknesses she is absolutely mine! There she is, quite
        in my power, such as Heaven made her in its pity in
        order to ravish a man's heart."--_Ode of Schiller_.

Julien was compelled to spend eight days in Strasbourg and tried to
distract himself by thoughts of military glory and patriotic devotion.
Was he in love then? he could not tell, he only felt in his tortured
soul that Mathilde was the absolute mistress both of his happiness
and of his imagination. He needed all the energy of his character
to keep himself from sinking into despair. It was out of his power
to think of anything unconnected with mademoiselle de la Mole. His
ambition and his simple personal successes had formerly distracted him
from the sentiments which madame de Renal had inspired. Mathilde was
all-absorbing; she loomed large over his whole future.

Julien saw failure in every phase of that future. This same individual
whom we remember to have been so presumptuous and haughty at Verrieres,
had fallen into an excess of grotesque modesty.

Three days ago he would only have been too pleased to have killed the
abbe Castanede, and now, at Strasbourg, if a child had picked a quarrel
with him he would have thought the child was in the right. In thinking
again about the adversaries and enemies whom he had met in his life he
always thought that he, Julien, had been in the wrong. The fact was
that the same powerful imagination which had formerly been continuously
employed in painting a successful future in the most brilliant colours
had now been transformed into his implacable enemy.

The absolute solicitude of a traveller's life increased the ascendancy
of this sinister imagination. What a boon a friend would have been!
But Julien said to himself, "Is there a single heart which beats with
affection for me? And even if I did have a friend, would not honour
enjoin me to eternal silence?"

He was riding gloomily in the outskirts of Kehl; it is a market town
on the banks of the Rhine and immortalised by Desaix and Gouvion
Saint-Cyr. A German peasant showed him the little brooks, roads and
islands of the Rhine, which have acquired a name through the courage of
these great generals. Julien was guiding his horse with his left hand,
while he held unfolded in his right the superb map which adorns the
_Memoirs of the Marshal Saint Cyr_. A merry exclamation made him lift
his head.

It was the Prince Korasoff, that London friend of his, who had
initiated him some months before into the elementary rules of high
fatuity. Faithful to his great art, Korasoff, who had just arrived at
Strasbourg, had been one hour in Kehl and had never read a single line
in his whole life about the siege of 1796, began to explain it all to
Julien. The German peasant looked at him in astonishment; for he knew
enough French to appreciate the enormous blunders which the prince was
making. Julien was a thousand leagues away from the peasant's thoughts.
He was looking in astonishment at the handsome young man and admiring
his grace in sitting a horse.

"What a lucky temperament," he said to himself, "and how his trousers
suit him and how elegantly his hair is cut! Alas, if I had been like
him, it might have been that she would not have come to dislike me
after loving me for three days."

When the prince had finished his siege of Kehl, he said to Julien,
"You look like a Trappist, you are carrying to excess that principle
of gravity which I enjoined upon you in London. A melancholy manner
cannot be good form. What is wanted is an air of boredom. If you are
melancholy, it is because you lack something, because you have failed
in something."

"That means showing one's own inferiority; if, on the other hand you
are bored, it is only what has made an unsuccessful attempt to please
you, which is inferior. So realise, my dear friend, the enormity of
your mistake."

Julien tossed a crown to the gaping peasant who was listening to them.

"Good," said the prince, "that shows grace and a noble disdain, very
good!" And he put his horse to the gallop. Full of a stupid admiration,
Julien followed him.

"Ah! if I have been like that, she would not have preferred Croisenois
to me!" The more his reason was offended by the grotesque affectations
of the prince the more he despised himself for not having them. It was
impossible for self-disgust to be carried further.

The prince still finding him distinctly melancholy, said to him as they
re-entered Strasbourg, "Come, my dear fellow, have you lost all your
money, or perhaps you are in love with some little actress.

"The Russians copy French manners, but always at an interval of fifty
years. They have now reached the age of Louis XV."

These jests about love brought the tears to Julien's eyes. "Why should
I not consult this charming man," he suddenly said to himself.

"Well, yes, my dear friend," he said to the prince, "you see in me a
man who is very much in love and jilted into the bargain. A charming
woman who lives in a neighbouring town has left me stranded here after
three passionate days, and the change kills me."

Using fictitious names, he described to the prince Mathilde's conduct
and character.

"You need not finish," said Korasoff. "In order to give you confidence
in your doctor, I will finish the story you have confided to me. This
young woman's husband enjoys an enormous income, or even more probably,
she belongs herself to the high nobility of the district. She must be
proud about something."

Julien nodded his head, he had no longer the courage to speak. "Very
good," said the prince, "here are three fairly bitter pills that you
will take without delay.

"1. See madame ----. What is her name, any way?"

"Madame de Dubois."

"What a name!" said the prince bursting into laughter. "But forgive me,
you find it sublime. Your tactics must be to see Madame de Dubois every
day; above all do not appear to be cold and piqued. Remember the great
principle of your century: be the opposite of what is expected. Be
exactly as you were the week before you were honoured by her favours."

"Ah! I was calm enough then," exclaimed Julien in despair, "I thought I
was taking pity on her...."

"The moth is burning itself at the candle," continued the prince using
a metaphor as old as the world.

"1. You will see her every day.

"2. You will pay court to a woman in her own set, but without
manifesting a passion, do you understand? I do not disguise from
you that your role is difficult; you are playing a part, and if she
realises you are playing it you are lost."

"She has so much intelligence and I have so little, I shall be lost,"
said Julien sadly.

"No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is
preoccupied with herself as are all women who have been favoured
by heaven either with too much pedigree or too much money. She
contemplates herself instead of contemplating you, consequently she
does not know you. During the two or three fits of love into which she
managed to work herself for your especial benefit, she saw in you the
hero of her dreams, and not the man you really are.

"But, deuce take it, this is elementary, my dear Sorel, are you an
absolute novice?

"Oddslife! Let us go into this shop. Look at that charming black
cravat, one would say it was made by John Anderson of Burlington
Street. Be kind enough to take it and throw far away that awful black
cord which you are wearing round your neck."

"And now," continued the prince as they came out of the shop of the
first hosier of Strasbourg, "what is the society in which madame de
Dubois lives? Great God, what a name, don't be angry, my dear Sorel, I
can't help it.... Now, whom are you going to pay court to?"

"To an absolute prude, the daughter of an immensely rich
stocking-merchant. She has the finest eyes in the world and they please
me infinitely; she doubtless holds the highest place in the society
of the district, but in the midst of all her greatness she blushes
and becomes positively confused if anyone starts talking about trade
or shops. And, unfortunately, her father was one of the best known
merchants in Strasbourg."

"So," said the prince with a laugh, "you are sure that when one talks
about trade your fair lady thinks about herself and not about you. This
silly weakness is divine and extremely useful, it will prevent you
from yielding to a single moment's folly when near her sparkling eyes.
Success is assured."

Julien was thinking of madame the marechale de Fervaques who often
came to the Hotel de la Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had
married the marechal a year before his death. The one object of her
whole life seemed to be to make people forget that she was the daughter
of a manufacturer. In order to cut some figure in Paris she had placed
herself at the head of the party of piety.

Julien sincerely admired the prince; what would he not have given to
have possessed his affectations! The conversation between the two
friends was interminable. Korasoff was delighted: No Frenchman had ever
listened to him for so long. "So I have succeeded at last," said the
prince to himself complacently, "in getting a proper hearing and that
too through giving lessons to my master."

"So we are quite agreed," he repeated to Julien for the tenth time.
"When you talk to the young beauty, I mean the daughter of the
Strasbourg stocking merchant in the presence of madame de Dubois, not
a trace of passion. But on the other hand be ardently passionate when
you write. Reading a well-written love-letter is a prude's supremest
pleasure. It is a moment of relaxation. She leaves off posing and dares
to listen to her own heart; consequently two letters a day."

"Never, never," said Julien despondently, "I would rather be ground in
a mortar than make up three phrases. I am a corpse, my dear fellow,
hope nothing from me. Let me die by the road side."

"And who is talking about making up phrases? I have got six volumes
of copied-out love-letters in my bag. I have letters to suit every
variation of feminine character, including the most highly virtuous.
Did not Kalisky pay court at Richmond-on-the-Thames at three leagues
from London, you know, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of
England?"

Julien was less unhappy when he left his friend at two o'clock in the
morning.

The prince summoned a copyist on the following day, and two days
afterwards Julien was the possessor of fifty-three carefully numbered
love-letters intended for the most sublime and the most melancholy
virtue.

"The reason why there is not fifty-four," said the prince "is because
Kalisky allowed himself to be dismissed. But what does it matter to
you, if you are badly treated by the stocking-merchant's daughter since
you only wish to produce an impression upon madame de Dubois' heart."

They went out riding every day, the prince was mad on Julien. Not
knowing how else to manifest his sudden friendship, he finished up by
offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich Moscow heiress;
"and once married," he added, "my influence and that cross of yours
will get you made a Colonel within two years."

"But that cross was not given me by Napoleon, far from it."

"What does it matter?" said the prince, "didn't he invent it. It is
still the first in Europe by a long way."

Julien was on the point of accepting; but his duty called him back to
the great personage. When he left Korasoff he promised to write. He
received the answer to the secret note which he had brought, and posted
towards Paris; but he had scarcely been alone for two successive days
before leaving France, and Mathilde seemed a worse punishment than
death. "I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me," he said to
himself, "and I will follow his advice.

"After all the art of seduction is his speciality. He has thought about
nothing else except that alone for more than fifteen years, for he is
now thirty.

"One can't say that he lacks intelligence; he is subtle and cunning;
enthusiasm and poetry are impossible in such a character. He is an
attorney: an additional reason for his not making a mistake.

"I must do it, I will pay court to madame de Fervaques.

"It is very likely she will bore me a little, but I will look at her
beautiful eyes which are so like those other eyes which have loved me
more than anyone in the world.

"She is a foreigner; she is a new character to observe.

"I feel mad, and as though I were going to the devil. I must follow the
advice of a friend and not trust myself."

CHAPTER LV

THE MINISTRY OF VIRTUE

        But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence
        and circumspection I shall no longer find it a
        pleasure.--_Lope de Vega_.

As soon as our hero had returned to Paris and had come out of the
study of the marquis de La Mole, who seemed very displeased with the
despatches that were given him, he rushed off for the comte Altamira.
This noble foreigner combined with the advantage of having once been
condemned to death a very grave demeanour together with the good
fortune of a devout temperament; these two qualities, and more than
anything, the comte's high birth, made an especial appeal to madame de
Fervaques who saw a lot of him.

Julien solemnly confessed to him that he was very much in love with her.

"Her virtue is the purest and the highest," answered Altamira, "only it
is a little Jesuitical and dogmatic.

"There are days when, though I understand each of the expressions which
she makes use of, I never understand the whole sentence. She often
makes me think that I do not know French as well as I am said to. But
your acquaintance with her will get you talked about; it will give you
weight in the world. But let us go to Bustos," said Count Altamira
who had a methodical turn of mind; "he once paid court to madame la
marechale."

Don Diego Bustos had the matter explained to him at length, while he
said nothing, like a barrister in his chambers. He had a big monk-like
face with black moustaches and an inimitable gravity; he was, however,
a good carbonaro.

"I understand," he said to Julien at last. "Has the marechale de
Fervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you consequently any hope
of success? That is the question. I don't mind telling you, for my own
part, that I have failed. Now that I am no more piqued I reason it out
to myself in this way; she is often bad tempered, and as I will tell
you in a minute, she is quite vindictive.

"I fail to detect in her that bilious temperament which is the sign of
genius, and shows as it were a veneer of passion over all its actions.
On the contrary, she owes her rare beauty and her fresh complexion to
the phlegmatic, tranquil character of the Dutch."

Julien began to lose patience with the phlegmatic slowness of the
imperturbable Spaniard; he could not help giving vent to some
monosyllables from time to time.

"Will you listen to me?" Don Diego Bustos gravely said to him.

"Forgive the _furia franchese_; I am all ears," said Julien.

"The marechale de Fervaques then is a great hater; she persecutes
ruthlessly people she has never seen--advocates, poor devils of men of
letters who have composed songs like Colle, you know?

    "J'ai la marotte
     D'aimer Marote, etc."

And Julien had to put up with the whole quotation.

The Spaniard was very pleased to get a chance of singing in French.

That divine song was never listened to more impatiently. When it was
finished Don Diego said--"The marechale procured the dismissal of the
author of the song:

    "Un jour l'amour au cabaret."

Julien shuddered lest he should want to sing it. He contented himself
with analysing it. As a matter of fact, it was blasphemous and somewhat
indecent.

"When the marechale become enraged against that song," said Don Diego,
"I remarked to her that a woman of her rank ought not to read all the
stupid things that are published. Whatever progress piety and gravity
may make France will always have a cabaret literature.

"'Be careful,' I said to madame de Fervaques when she had succeeded
in depriving the author, a poor devil on half-pay, of a place worth
eighteen hundred francs a year, 'you have attacked this rhymster with
your own arms, he may answer you with his rhymes; he will make a song
about virtue. The gilded salons will be on your side; but people who
like to laugh will repeat his epigrams.' Do you know, monsieur, what
the marechale answered? 'Let all Paris come and see me walking to my
martyrdom for the sake of the Lord. It will be a new spectacle for
France. The people will learn to respect the quality. It will be the
finest day of my life.' Her eyes never looked finer."

"And she has superb ones," exclaimed Julien.

"I see that you are in love. Further," went on Don Diego Bustos
gravely, "she has not the bilious constitution which causes
vindictiveness. If, however, she likes to do harm, it is because she is
unhappy, I suspect some secret misfortune. May it not be quite well a
case of prude tired of her role?"

The Spaniard looked at him in silence for a good minute.

"That's the whole point," he added gravely, "and that's what may give
you ground for some hope. I have often reflected about it during the
two years that I was her very humble servant. All your future, my
amorous sir, depends on this great problem. Is she a prude tired of her
role and only malicious because she is unhappy?"

"Or," said Altamira emerging at last from his deep silence, "can it be
as I have said twenty times before, simply a case of French vanity; the
memory of her father, the celebrated cloth merchant, constitutes the
unhappiness of this frigid melancholy nature. The only happiness she
could find would be to live in Toledo and to be tortured by a confessor
who would show her hell wide open every day."

"Altamira informs me you are one of us," said Don Diego, whose
demeanour was growing graver and graver to Julien as he went out. "You
will help us one day in re-winning our liberty, so I would like to help
you in this little amusement. It is right that you should know the
marechale's style; here are four letters in her hand-writing."

"I will copy them out," exclaimed Julien, "and bring them back to you."

"And you will never let anyone know a word of what we have been
saying."

"Never, on my honour," cried Julien.

"Well, God help you," added the Spaniard, and he silently escorted
Altamira and Julien as far as the staircase.

This somewhat amused our hero; he was on the point of smiling. "So
we have the devout Altamira," he said to himself, "aiding me in an
adulterous enterprise."

During Don Diego's solemn conversation Julien had been attentive to the
hours struck by the clock of the Hotel d'Aligre.

The dinner hour was drawing near, he was going to see Mathilde again.
He went in and dressed with much care.

"Mistake No. 1," he said to himself as he descended the staircase: "I
must follow the prince's instructions to the letter."

He went up to his room again and put on a travelling suit which was as
simple as it could be. "All I have to do now," he thought, "is to keep
control of my expression." It was only half-past five and they dined at
six. He thought of going down to the salon which he found deserted. He
was moved to the point of tears at the sight of the blue sofa. "I must
make an end of this foolish sensitiveness," he said angrily, "it will
betray me." He took up a paper in order to keep himself in countenance
and passed three or four times from the salon into the garden.

It was only when he was well concealed by a large oak and was trembling
all over, that he ventured to raise his eyes at mademoiselle de la
Mole's window. It was hermetically sealed; he was on the point of
fainting and remained for a long time leaning against the oak; then
with a staggering step he went to have another look at the gardener's
ladder.

The chain which he had once forced asunder--in, alas, such different
circumstances--had not yet been repaired. Carried away by a moment of
madness, Julien pressed it to his lips.

After having wandered about for a long time between the salon and the
garden, Julien felt horribly tired; he was now feeling acutely the
effects of a first success. My eyes will be expressionless and will not
betray me! The guests gradually arrived in the salon; the door never
opened without instilling anxiety into Julien's heart.

They sat down at table. Mademoiselle de la Mole, always faithful to her
habit of keeping people waiting, eventually appeared. She blushed a
great deal on seeing Julien, she had not been told of his arrival. In
accordance with Prince Korasoff's recommendation, Julien looked at his
hands. They were trembling. Troubled though he was beyond words by this
discovery, he was sufficiently happy to look merely tired.

M. de la Mole sang his praises. The marquise spoke to him a minute
afterwards and complimented him on his tired appearance. Julien said to
himself at every minute, "I ought not to look too much at mademoiselle
de la Mole, I ought not to avoid looking at her too much either. I must
appear as I was eight days before my unhappiness----" He had occasion
to be satisfied with his success and remained in the salon. Paying
attention for the first time to the mistress of the house, he made
every effort to make the visitors speak and to keep the conversation
alive.

His politeness was rewarded; madame la marechale de Fervaques was
announced about eight o'clock. Julien retired and shortly afterwards
appeared dressed with the greatest care. Madame de la Mole was
infinitely grateful to him for this mark of respect and made a point
of manifesting her satisfaction by telling madame de Fervaques about
his journey. Julien established himself near the marechale in such a
position that Mathilde could not notice his eyes. In this position he
lavished in accordance with all the rules in the art of love, the most
abject admiration on madame de Fervaques. The first of the 53 letters
with which Prince Korasoff had presented him commenced with a tirade on
this sentiment.

The marechale announced that she was going to the Opera-Bouffe. Julien
rushed there. He ran across the Chevalier de Beauvoisis who took him
into a box occupied by Messieurs the Gentlemen of the Chamber, just
next to madame de Fervaques's box. Julien constantly looked at her. "I
must keep a siege-journal," he said to himself as he went back to the
hotel, "otherwise I shall forget my attacks." He wrote two or three
pages on this boring theme, and in this way achieved the admirable
result of scarcely thinking at all about mademoiselle de la Mole.

Mathilde had almost forgotten him during his journey. "He is simply
a commonplace person after all," she thought, "his name will always
recall to me the greatest mistake in my life. I must honestly go back
to all my ideas about prudence and honour; a woman who forgets them has
everything to lose." She showed herself inclined to allow the contract
with the marquis de Croisenois, which had been prepared so long ago, to
be at last concluded. He was mad with joy; he would have been very much
astonished had he been told that there was an element of resignation at
the bottom of those feelings of Mathilde which made him so proud.

All mademoiselle de la Mole's ideas changed when she saw Julien. "As a
matter of fact he is my husband," she said to herself. "If I am sincere
in my return to sensible notions, he is clearly the man I ought to
marry."

She was expecting importunities and airs of unhappiness on the part of
Julien; she commenced rehearsing her answers, for he would doubtless
try to address some words to her when they left the dinner table. Far
from that he remained stubbornly in the salon and did not even look in
the direction of the garden, though God knows what pain that caused him!

"It is better to have this explanation out all at once," thought
mademoiselle de la Mole; she went into the garden alone, Julien did not
appear. Mathilde went and walked near the salon window. She found him
very much occupied in describing to madame de Fervaques the old ruined
chateau which crown the banks along the Rhine and invest them with so
much atmosphere. He was beginning to acquit himself with some credit
in that sentimental picturesque jargon which is called wit in certain
salons. Prince Korasoff would have been very proud if he had been at
Paris. This evening was exactly what he had predicted.

He would have approved the line of conduct which Julien followed on the
subsequent days.

An intrigue among the members of the secret government was going to
bestow a few blue ribbons; madame marechale de Fervaques was insisting
on her great uncle being made a chevalier of the order. The marquis de
la Mole had the same pretensions for his father-in-law; they joined
forces and the marechale came to the Hotel de la Mole nearly every day.
It was from her that Julien learned that the marquis was going to be
a minister. He was offering to the _Camarilla_ a very ingenious plan
for the annihilation of the charter within three years without any
disturbance.

If M. de la Mole became a minister, Julien could hope for a bishopric:
but all these important interests seemed to be veiled and hazy. His
imagination only perceived them very vaguely, and so to speak, in
the far distance. The awful unhappiness which was making him into a
madman could find no other interest in life except the character of his
relations with mademoiselle de la Mole. He calculated that after five
or six careful years he would manage to get himself loved again.

This cold brain had been reduced, as one sees, to a state of complete
disorder. Out of all the qualities which had formerly distinguished
him, all that remained was a little firmness. He was literally faithful
to the line of conduct which prince Korasoff had dictated, and placed
himself every evening near madame Fervaques' armchair, but he found it
impossible to think of a word to say to her.

The strain of making Mathilde think that he had recovered exhausted his
whole moral force, and when he was with the marechale he seemed almost
lifeless; even his eyes had lost all their fire, as in cases of extreme
physical suffering.

As madame de la Mole's views were invariably a counterpart of the
opinions of that husband of hers who could make her into a Duchess, she
had been singing Julien's praises for some days.

CHAPTER LVI

MORAL LOVE

    There also was of course in Adeline
    That calm patrician polish in the address,
    Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
    Of anything which Nature would express;
    Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine.
    At least his manner suffers not to guess
    That anything he views can greatly please.
                            _Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84.

"There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at
things," thought the marechale; "they are infatuated with their young
abbe, whose only accomplishment is to be a good listener, though his
eyes are fine enough, it is true."

Julien, on his side, found in the marechale's manners an almost perfect
instance of that patrician calm which exhales a scrupulous politeness;
and, what is more, announces at the same time the impossibility of
any violent emotion. Madame de Fervaques would have been as much
scandalised by any unexpected movement or any lack of self-control, as
by a lack of dignity towards one's inferiors. She would have regarded
the slightest symptom of sensibility as a kind of moral drunkenness
which puts one to the blush and was extremely prejudicial to what a
person of high rank owed to herself. Her great happiness was to talk of
the king's last hunt; her favourite book, was the Memoirs of the Duke
de Saint Simon, especially the genealogical part.

Julien knew the place where the arrangement of the light suited madame
de Fervaques' particular style of beauty. He got there in advance, but
was careful to turn his chair in such a way as not to see Mathilde.

Astonished one day at this consistent policy of hiding himself from
her, she left the blue sofa and came to work by the little table near
the marechale's armchair. Julien had a fairly close view of her over
madame de Fervaques' hat.

Those eyes, which were the arbiters of his fate, frightened him, and
then hurled him violently out of his habitual apathy. He talked, and
talked very well.

He was speaking to the marechale, but his one aim was to produce an
impression upon Mathilde's soul. He became so animated that eventually
madame de Fervaques did not manage to understand a word he said.

This was a prime merit. If it had occurred to Julien to follow it up by
some phrases of German mysticism, lofty religion, and Jesuitism, the
marechale would have immediately given him a rank among the superior
men whose mission it was to regenerate the age.

"Since he has bad enough taste," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "to talk
so long and so ardently to madame de Fervaques, I shall not listen to
him any more." She kept her resolution during the whole latter part of
the evening, although she had difficulty in doing so.

At midnight, when she took her mother's candle to accompany her to
her room, madame de la Mole stopped on the staircase to enter into an
exhaustive eulogy of Julien. Mathilde ended by losing her temper. She
could not get to sleep. She felt calmed by this thought: "the very
things which I despise in a man may none the less constitute a great
merit in the eyes of the marechale."

As for Julien, he had done something, he was less unhappy; his eyes
chanced to fall on the Russian leather portfolio in which prince
Korasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters which he had presented
to him. Julien saw a note at the bottom of the first letter: No. 1 is
sent eight days after the first meeting.

"I am behind hand," exclaimed Julien. "It is quite a long time since I
met madame de Fervaques." He immediately began to copy out this first
love letter. It was a homily packed with moral platitudes and deadly
dull. Julien was fortunate enough to fall asleep at the second page.

Some hours afterwards he was surprised to see the broad daylight as he
lent on his desk. The most painful moments in his life were those when
he woke up every morning to realise his unhappiness. On this particular
day he finished copying out his letter in a state verging on laughter.
"Is it possible," he said to himself, "that there ever lived a young
man who actually wrote like that." He counted several sentences of nine
lines each. At the bottom of the original he noticed a pencilled note.
"These letters are delivered personally, on horseback, black cravat,
blue tail-coat. You give the letter to the porter with a contrite air;
expression of profound melancholy. If you notice any chambermaid, dry
your eyes furtively and speak to her."

All this was duly carried out.

"I am taking a very bold course!" thought Julien as he came out of the
Hotel de Fervaques, "but all the worse for Korasoff. To think of daring
to write to so virtuous a celebrity. I shall be treated with the utmost
contempt, and nothing will amuse me more. It is really the only comedy
that I can in any way appreciate. Yes, it will amuse me to load with
ridicule that odious creature whom I call myself. If I believed in
myself, I would commit some crime to distract myself."

The moment when Julien brought his horse back to the stable was the
happiest he had experienced for a whole month. Korasoff had expressly
forbidden him to look at the mistress who had left him, on any pretext
whatsoever. But the step of that horse, which she knew so well, and
Julien's way of knocking on the stable door with his riding-whip to
call a man, sometimes attracted Mathilde to behind the window-curtain.
The muslin was so light that Julien could see through it. By looking
under the brim of his hat in a certain way, he could get a view of
Mathilde's figure without seeing her eyes. "Consequently," he said to
himself, "she cannot see mine, and that is not really looking at her."

In the evening madame de Fervaques behaved towards him, exactly as
though she had never received the philosophic mystical and religious
dissertation which he had given to her porter in the morning with so
melancholy an air. Chance had shown Julien on the preceding day how
to be eloquent; he placed himself in such a position that he could
see Mathilde's eyes. She, on her side, left the blue sofa a minute
after the marechale's arrival; this involved abandoning her usual
associates. M. de Croisenois seemed overwhelmed by this new caprice:
his palpable grief alleviated the awfulness of Julien's agony.

This unexpected turn in his life made him talk like an angel, and
inasmuch as a certain element of self-appreciation will insinuate
itself even into those hearts which serve as a temple for the
most august virtue, the marechale said to herself as she got into
her carriage, "Madame de la Mole is right, this young priest has
distinction. My presence must have overawed him at first. As a matter
of fact, the whole tone of this house is very frivolous; I can see
nothing but instances of virtue helped by oldness, and standing in
great need of the chills of age. This young man must have managed to
appreciate the difference; he writes well, but I fear very much that
this request of his in his letter for me to enlighten him with my
advice, is really nothing less than an, as yet, unconscious sentiment.

"Nevertheless how many conversions have begun like that! What makes me
consider this a good omen is the difference between his style and that
of the young people whose letters I have had an opportunity of seeing.
One cannot avoid recognising unction, profound seriousness, and much
conviction in the prose of this young acolyte; he has no doubt the
sweet virtue of a Massillon."

CHAPTER LVII

THE FINEST PLACES IN THE CHURCH

    Services! talents! merits! bah! belong to a coterie.
                                               _Telemaque_.

The idea of a bishopric had thus become associated with the idea of
Julien in the mind of a woman, who would sooner or later have at her
disposal the finest places in the Church of France. This idea had not
struck Julien at all; at the present time his thoughts were strictly
limited to his actual unhappiness. Everything tended to intensify
it. The sight of his room, for instance, had become unbearable. When
he came back in the evening with his candle, each piece of furniture
and each little ornament seemed to become articulate, and to announce
harshly some new phase of his unhappiness.

"I have a hard task before me today," he said to himself as he came in
with a vivacity which he had not experienced for a long time; "let us
hope that the second letter will be as boring as the first."

It was more so. What he was copying seemed so absurd that he finished
up by transcribing it line for line without thinking of the sense.

"It is even more bombastic," he said to himself, "than those official
documents of the treaty of Munster which my professor of diplomacy made
me copy out at London."

It was only then that he remembered madame de Fervaque's letters which
he had forgotten to give back to the grave Spaniard Don Diego Bustos.
He found them. They were really almost as nonsensical as those of
the young Russian nobleman. Their vagueness was unlimited. It meant
everything and nothing. "It's the AEolian harp of style," thought
Julien. "The only real thing I see in the middle of all these lofty
thoughts about annihilation, death, infinity, etc., is an abominable
fear of ridicule."

The monologue which we have just condensed was repeated for fifteen
days on end. Falling off to sleep as he copied out a sort of commentary
on the Apocalypse, going with a melancholy expression to deliver it
the following day, taking his horse back to the stable in the hope
of catching sight of Mathilde's dress, working, going in the evening
to the opera on those evenings when madame de Fervaques did not come
to the Hotel de la Mole, such were the monotonous events in Julien's
life. His life had more interest, when madame la Fervaques visited the
marquise; he could then catch a glimpse of Mathilde's eyes underneath
a feather of the marechale's hat, and he would wax eloquent. His
picturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a style, which was
both more striking and more elegant.

He quite realised that what he said was absurd in Mathilde's eyes, but
he wished to impress her by the elegance of his diction. "The falser my
speeches are the more I ought to please," thought Julien, and he then
had the abominable audacity to exaggerate certain elements in his own
character. He soon appreciated that to avoid appearing vulgar in the
eyes of the marechale it was necessary to eschew simple and rational
ideas. He would continue on these lines, or would cut short his grand
eloquence according as he saw appreciation or indifference in the eyes
of the two great ladies whom he had set out to please.

Taking it all round, his life was less awful than when his days were
passed in inaction.

"But," he said to himself one evening, "here I am copying out the
fifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have
been duly delivered to the marechale's porter. I shall have the honour
of filling all the drawers in her escritoire. And yet she treats me
as though I never wrote. What can be the end of all this? Will my
constancy bore her as much as it does me? I must admit that that
Russian friend of Korasoff's who was in love with the pretty Quakeress
of Richmond, was a terrible man in his time; no one could be more
overwhelming."

Like all mediocre individuals, who chance to come into contact with the
manoeuvres of a great general, Julien understood nothing of the attack
executed by the young Russian on the heart of the young English girl.
The only purpose of the first forty letters was to secure forgiveness
for the boldness of writing at all. The sweet person, who perhaps lived
a life of inordinate boredom, had to be induced to contract the habit
of receiving letters, which were perhaps a little less insipid than her
everyday life.

One morning a letter was delivered to Julien. He recognised the arms
of madame la Fervaques, and broke the seal with an eagerness which
would have seemed impossible to him some days before. It was only an
invitation to dinner.

He rushed to prince Korasoffs instructions. Unfortunately the young
Russian had taken it into his head to be as flippant as Dorat, just
when he should have been simple and intelligible! Julien was not able
to form any idea of the moral position which he ought to take up at the
marechale's dinner.

The salon was extremely magnificent and decorated like the gallery de
Diane in the Tuileries with panelled oil-paintings.

There were some light spots on these pictures. Julien learnt later that
the mistress of the house had thought the subject somewhat lacking in
decency and that she had had the pictures corrected. "What a moral
century!" he thought.

He noticed in this salon three of the persons who had been present
at the drawing up of the secret note. One of them, my lord bishop of
---- the marechale's uncle had the disposition of the ecclesiastical
patronage, and could, it was said, refuse his niece nothing. "What
immense progress I have made," said Julien to himself with a melancholy
smile, "and how indifferent I am to it. Here I am dining with the
famous bishop of ----."

The dinner was mediocre and the conversation wearisome.

"It's like the small talk in a bad book," thought Julien. "All the
greatest subjects of human thought are proudly tackled. After listening
for three minutes one asks oneself which is greater--the speaker's
bombast, or his abominable ignorance?"

The reader has doubtless forgotten the little man of letters named
Tanbeau, who was the nephew of the Academician, and intended to be
professor, who seemed entrusted with the task of poisoning the salon of
the Hotel de la Mole with his base calumnies.

It was this little man who gave Julien the first inkling that though,
madame de Fervaques did not answer, she might quite well take an
indulgent view of the sentiment which dictated them. M. Tanbeau's
sinister soul was lacerated by the thought of Julien's success; "but
since, on the other hand, a man of merit cannot be in two places at the
same time any more than a fool," said the future professor to himself,
"if Sorel becomes the lover of the sublime marechale, she will obtain
some lucrative position for him in the church, and I shall be rid of
him in the Hotel de la Mole."

M. the abbe Pirard addressed long sermons to Julien concerning his
success at the hotel de Fervaques. There was a sectarian jealousy
between the austere Jansenist and the salon of the virtuous marechale
which was Jesuitical, reactionary, and monarchical.

CHAPTER LVIII

MANON LESCAUT

        Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the
        asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed
        well enough by calling white black, and black white.
        _Lichtenberg_.

The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever
contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext
could excuse any deviation from the role of that most ecstatic
admiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis.

One evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien
spoke of the ballet of _Manon Lescaut_ in the most enthusiastic terms.
His only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought
it insignificant.

The marechale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbe
Prevost's novel.

"The idea," thought Julien, both surprised and amused, "of so highly
virtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess
two or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers,
who, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is,
alas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses."

"_Manon Lescaut_" continued the marechale, "is said to be one of the
best of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the
deserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a
truth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your
Bonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written
for lackeys."

The word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind.
"They have tried to ruin me with the marechale; they have told her of
my enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to
make her yield to the temptation to make me feel it." This discovery
amused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave
of the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him,
"Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at
the best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence.
Besides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate
masterpieces of art."

"When you like me," Julien kept on repeating to himself, "that means
nothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which
are beyond us poor provincials." And he thought a great deal about
madame de Renal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the
marechale.

"How is it," she said to him the following day, with an assumed
indifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, "that you talk to
me about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I
think, when you came back from the opera?"

Julien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without
thinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to
substitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond
which occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences,
but found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of
succumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words
he succeeded in formulating this inspiration: "Exalted as I was by the
discussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human
soul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you."

"I am making an impression," he said to himself, "so I can spare myself
the boredom of the rest of the evening." He left the Hotel de Fervaques
at a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the
letter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to
the fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of
Richmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender.

It had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his
conversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of
his letters which had marked him out for favour. The marechale was
particularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very
far from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire
had brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human
effort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it
still preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which
did not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons
who, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a
whole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling
a novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to
be offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the
lightness of the age.

But such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to
procure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless
life which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of
our journey.

Mademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid
thinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques
episode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued
herself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation
captivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by
his absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the marechale
which was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own
way of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This
Machiavellianism impressed her. "What subtlety," she said to herself.
"What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common
rascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain."

Nevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish
the most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the
marechale's salon.

The strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its
strength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the Hotel
de Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic
that he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair.

"I overcame despair at the seminary," he said, "yet what an awful
prospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or
come to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my
life in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting
things in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short
months later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own
age."

But very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful
reality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew
from the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was
on the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called
twice a day at the Hotel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover
was alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed
that mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended,
Julien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to
his room.

"Ah," he said to himself, "would it not be much wiser to take the marks
out of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from
Paris to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the
district, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would
bother about me after a fortnight?"

This reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of
Mathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed
to plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising,
none the less gave him a hold on life. "Well," he said to himself, "I
will follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?"

"So far as the marechale is concerned, after I have copied out these
fifty-three letters, I shall not write any others.

"As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave
her anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great
God! I should die of happiness." And he could not finish his train of
thought.

After a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his
argument. "In that case," he said to himself, "I should win one day of
happiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my
lack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing
left to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character
as hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt
lacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous.
Great God, why am I myself?"

Smitten by love, Julien is unable to amuse himself in Strasbourg. He encounters his London friend, the Russian Prince Korasov, who befriends and undertakes to cheer him. The prince advises Julien how to proceed in his love affair with Mathilde. He must resort to inspiring jealousy in the woman he loves by courting another. The prince gives Julien a series of love letters with directions as to how and when they are to be delivered to the lady. Julien intends to court Mme. de Fervaques, a beautiful widow of a marshal of bourgeois lineage, a prude who is influential in the Congregation. Julien agrees to the stratagem. At the same time, he turns down an offer made by Korasov for the hand of the latter's cousin, a match that would facilitate a glorious military career for Julien in Russia. Upon returning to Paris, Julien asks advice of Altamira in his courting of Mme. de Fervaques. Altamira introduces him to Don Diego Bustos, who had unsuccessfully attempted to court this lady. From Bustos, Julien learns how to go about the conquest. At the Moles', Julien must exert much self-control to begin his campaign. Civil but not attentive to Mathilde, he seeks out Mme. de Fervaques and spends the evening in conversation with her. At the theater, his eyes remain fixed on Mme. de Fervaques. Upon seeing Julien again, Mathilde, who has sworn to forget him, to return to virtue, and to hasten her marriage to Croisenois, now reverses her position, seeing in Julien her real husband. Mathilde is consternated by Julien's indifference for her. Mme. de la Mole now looks upon Julien more favorably since he seems to be interested in Mme. de Fervaques. Julien copies the first letter and delivers it, following the directions of the prince. During his evening conversations, Julien places himself in such a way that he can observe Mathilde without being seen. Mme. de Fervaques is quite favorably impressed with Julien, in whose eloquence, metaphysical bent, and mystical preoccupation she thinks she sees the making of a great churchman. Two weeks and many letters later, Julien receives an invitation to dinner at the home of Mme. de Fervaques. Julien finds the dinner, the conversation, and the guests insipid. Tanbeau, his rival at the Hotel de la Mole, encourages him in his conquest of Mme. de Fervaques. One evening at the opera, Mme. de Fervaques intimates that whoever loves her must not love Napoleon. Julien interprets this as an avowal of a certain success in his campaign. Julien's carelessness in copying a letter almost causes Mme. de Fervaques to doubt his sincerity, but he succeeds in excusing the blunder. Mathilde is succumbing to his strategy. She admires his Machiavellianism in telling Mme. de Fervaques things he obviously does not believe. Mathilde's marriage with Croisenois is imminent, and Julien thinks again of suicide.

These chapters relate the next stage in the love of Julien and Mathilde, in which Julien initiates action and painfully gains an ascendancy over Mathilde. In the form of Korasov, another father-image reappears to take Julien in hand and teach him the art of seduction. Korasov sees Julien's problem immediately. It will be necessary to attract Mathilde's attention to himself away from herself. Julien must make Mathilde see him not as an ideal she has created but as he is. Korasov's offer to Julien should remind the reader of a similar one made by Fouque in Part I. The identity of circumstances points up Julien's contrasting situations: In Verrieres, he refused happiness because he was goaded by ambition; here, he refuses to satisfy that ambition, now silenced by a love of which he is the victim. Julien is so much the victim of his love that he adopts the point of view of the woman who scorns him to deprecate himself pitilessly. This period of depression that Julien is experiencing Stendhal had analyzed in his treatise on love. Julien sees himself as the most abject of beings, as inferior to Korasov, and at fault for not being loved by the perfect Mathilde. It is not by chance that Julien chooses Mme. de Fervaques as his instrument. He admits that her beautiful eyes remind him of those loving and passionate eyes of Mme. de Renal. He longs unconsciously for that experience where he was loved. Two more mentors are introduced to guide Julien. Altamira and Bustos provide Julien with the necessary information for a seduction. Note that Julien is hypocritical even with his friend Altamira, who is not advised of Julien's stratagem. Stendhal doubtless delights in the dissection of the prude. It is reminiscent of the seduction undertaken in Laclos' Liaisons Dangereuses by Valmont of his prudish victim, more sincere, however, in her religious principles than is Mme. de Fervaques. Stendhal's portrayal of the latter as somewhat of an imposter absolves Julien of any guilt, since she is not truly a victim. The abrupt images betraying Julien's extreme sensibility are meant to convince the reader of the hero's great effort in playing his role. Julien is moved by the sight of the sofa and ladder in the true romantic tradition. Note, however, that the rapid narration and abrupt sentences betoken restraint and a refusal on the part of Stendhal to fall into the raptures and effusiveness of the hyperbole a la Chateaubriand. Julien remains the passive actor of the role carefully outlined by Korasov, acting as a sort of robot. Another note is inserted by Stendhal to show to what extent Julien's ambition is dead. The possibility that the marquis might be named as a minister would give Julien an opportunity to become a bishop. Such a possibility is very far from Julien's present aspiration. Julien's return has sufficed to change the impetuous Mathilde's plans completely. Mathilde has rationalized her interpretation of virtue to justify her reversal in position She had decided to return to virtue, but now virtue means legitimizing her love for Julien through marriage: "He's my real husband," blurts out Mathilde. Note Stendhal's "peeping Tom" tendency . The privilege of the superior soul is that he may observe others observing him without their knowledge. Julien is protected by hat brims, his own and that of Mme. de Fervaques, as he observed Mathilde watching him. Although his love at first incapacitates him for creative action, Julien nonetheless makes progress as an actor and conversationalist. Again, Stendhal states this fact without offering a demonstration of it. Profiting from his knowledge of Mathilde's character, Julien decides that she will admire him for uttering absurdities with eloquence. The dinner at the home of Mme. de Fervaques is similar to the one Julien attended in Part I at the Valenods'. Both present Julien appearing in the enemy camp, and his refusal to take a stand politically is thereby underlined. In Verrieres, Julien frequented the society of both liberal and monarchists; here, in spite of his Jansenistic mentor, Pirard, Julien is frequenting the Jesuit milieu. Julien experiences the same feeling of superiority at the two dinners. He had scorned the materialism and bad taste of the Valenods; here, he is disgusted by the pompousness of the guests and by the sterility of the conversation. Stendhal again underlines Julien's lack of ambition by intimating how he could, were he so inclined, profit from his relationship with Mme. de Fervaques to have himself named a bishop. One aspect of the tragedy of Julien Sorel begins to become apparent. Ironically, he abandoned the tender love of Mme. de Renal because of his insatiable ambition. He is now reaping the fruits of this ambition -- or he could, but he no longer hears that voice -- in favor of a love inferior to the one he abandoned. There is another advantage to feigning a courtship other than the obvious purpose, which is to inspire jealousy in the real love object. If the victim responds, one may observe the mechanism of love and its progress objectively and with a cool head, hardly possible if one is really in love. Stendhal's own ambition was to achieve an impossible synthesis: to love passionately but without the enslavement of his will and mind. Mathilde is being taken in by Julien's stratagem in a different way than he had anticipated, however. She admires his duplicity as she observes him courting Mme. de Fervaques. This means simply that she sees through the stratagem but that it is nonetheless successful because she is able to relegate this newly discovered quality of Julien to her idealization of him. Julien's despair reaches its greatest intensity as he again contemplates suicide. Even if he succeeds in reviving Mathilde's love, he knows that it will not produce a lasting effect. He concludes by condemning himself: Why am I myself?