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.

Julien gets back to Paris and tells the Marquis de La Mole all about his meeting with the duke. The marquis seems really agitated by what he hears, but Julien couldn't care less. He's more interested in fulfilling his plot to get Mathilde to love him again. Julien then visits Count Altamira, whose friend used to flirt with the woman whom Julien is going to court . The woman's name is Madame de Fervaques, and Julien needs to inside scoop if he's going to win her over. Julien goes to dinner with the de La Moles for the evening. Later that night, Madame de Fervaques enters the house for a visit. He makes sure to sit near her. He finds out that she plans on going to the opera that night, so he finds a way of getting a box at the show near hers. Seeing Julien happy that night, Mathilde wonders again whether she really loves him. Basically, she loves him whenever he proves he can be happy without her. Go figure. She expects Julien to come pleading to her, but he never pays her any attention. As we learn, it takes every ounce of strength in Julien's body to keep him from breaking down and blubbering in front of Mathilde about how much he misses her.


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."

Whenever Madame de Fervaques visits the de La Mole house, Julien always makes sure to seat himself in the place that makes Madame look most beautiful. Whenever he speaks to Madame, it is only to make Mathilde jealous. Julien then starts sending Madame letters, always hand-delivering them on horseback and looking sad like a doomed lover from a romance novel. At first, it looks like the letters have no effect. But the narrator tells us that Madame Fervaques has an improved opinion of Julien now that he's paying a lot of attention to her.


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.

Weeks go by and Julien keeps sending Madame Fervaques all the letters Prince Korasoff gave him. He's not sure if his plan is working, but he sticks with it. One of Julien's enemies, Monsieur Tanbeau, is jealous of the success he's clearly having with Madame Fervaques. He assumes that Julien is angling for a promotion in the church, which Madame has the power to grant him. But either way, Tanbeau half-hopes that Julien will be promoted so he'll leave the de La Mole house.


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?"

At this point, Julien is accompanying Madame Fervaques to the opera in her private box. They discuss things like music and novels together. Julien is pleased to find that Madame has a bit of an obscene vein in her. The next day, Julien is almost caught in a lie. In one of his letters to Fervaque, he forgot to change the names of certain places that Prince Korasoff used in his letters. He manages to lie his way out of it, though. Incidentally, it's the first time Madame has ever acknowledged the fact that she's read his letters. Mathilde responds to this apparent romance by paying more attention to Croisenois, the man who wants to marry her. This kills Julien, but he's not willing to back down until he's done everything Korasoff told him.


CHAPTER LIX

ENNUI

        Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass;
        but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not
        got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth century!
                                            _Girodet_.

Madame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any
pleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however,
grieved her. "What a pity that M. Sorel was not a real priest! He could
then be admitted to a kind of intimacy; but in view of that cross,
and that almost lay dress, one is exposed to cruel questions and what
is one to answer?" She did not finish the train of thought, "Some
malicious woman friend may think, and even spread it about that he is
some lower middle-class cousin or other, a relative of my father, some
tradesman who has been decorated by the National Guard." Up to the
time which she had seen Julien, madame de Fervaque's greatest pleasure
had been writing the word marechale after her name. Consequently a
morbid parvenu vanity, which was ready to take umbrage at everything,
combatted the awakening of her interest in him. "It would be so easy
for me," said the marechale, "to make him a grand vicar in some diocese
near Paris! but plain M. Sorel, and what is more, a man who is the
secretary of M. de la Mole! It is heart-breaking."

For the first time in her life this soul, which was afraid of
everything, was moved by an interest which was alien to its own
pretensions to rank and superiority. Her old porter noticed that
whenever he brought a letter from this handsome young man, who always
looked so sad, he was certain to see that absent, discontented
expression, which the marechale always made a point of assuming on the
entry of any of her servants, immediately disappear. The boredom of a
mode of life whose ambitions were concentrated on impressing the public
without her having at heart any real faculty of enjoyment for that kind
of success, had become so intolerable since she had begun to think of
Julien that, all that was necessary to prevent her chambermaids being
bullied for a whole day, was that their mistress should have passed
an hour in the society of this strange young man on the evening of
the preceding day. His budding credit was proof against very cleverly
written anonymous letters. It was in vain that Tanbeau supplied M. de
Luz, de Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three very clever calumnies
which these gentlemen were only too glad to spread, without making
too many enquiries of the actual truth of the charges. The marechale,
whose temperament was not calculated to be proof against these vulgar
expedients related her doubts to Mathilde, and was always consoled by
her.

One day, madame de Fervaques, after having asked three times if there
were any letters for her, suddenly decided to answer Julien. It was a
case of the triumph of ennui. On reaching the second letter in his name
the marechale almost felt herself pulled up sharp by the unbecomingness
of writing with her own hand so vulgar an address as to M. Sorel, care
of M. le Marquis de la Mole.

"You must bring me envelopes with your address on," she said very drily
to Julien in the evening. "Here I am appointed lover and valet in one,"
thought Julien, and he bowed, amused himself by wrinkling his face up
like Arsene, the old valet of the marquis.

He brought the envelopes that very evening, and he received the third
letter very early on the following day: he read five or six lines at
the beginning, and two or three towards the end. There were four pages
of a small and very close writing. The lady gradually developed the
sweet habit of writing nearly every day. Julien answered by faithful
copies of the Russian letters; and such is the advantage of the
bombastic style that madame de Fervaques was not a bit astonished by
the lack of connection between his answers and her letters. How gravely
irritated would her pride have been if the little Tanbeau who had
constituted himself a voluntary spy on all Julien's movements had been
able to have informed her that all these letters were left unsealed and
thrown haphazard into Julien's drawer.

One morning the porter was bringing into the library a letter to him
from the marechale. Mathilde met the man, saw the letter together with
the address in Julien's handwriting. She entered the library as the
porter was leaving it, the letter was still on the edge of the table.
Julien was very busy with his work and had not yet put it in his drawer.

"I cannot endure this," exclaimed Mathilde, as she took possession
of the letter, "you are completely forgetting me, me your wife, your
conduct is awful, monsieur."

At these words her pride, shocked by the awful unseemliness of her
proceeding, prevented her from speaking. She burst into tears, and soon
seemed to Julien scarcely able to breathe.

Julien was so surprised and embarrassed that he did not fully
appreciate how ideally fortunate this scene was for himself. He helped
Mathilde to sit down; she almost abandoned herself in his arms.

The first minute in which he noticed this movement, he felt an extreme
joy. Immediately afterwards, he thought of Korasoff: "I may lose
everything by a single word."

The strain of carrying out his tactics was so great that his arms
stiffened. "I dare not even allow myself to press this supple, charming
frame to my heart, or she will despise me or treat me badly. What an
awful character!" And while he cursed Mathilde's character, he loved
her a hundred times more. He thought he had a queen in his arms.

Julien's impassive coldness intensified the anguished pride which was
lacerating the soul of mademoiselle de la Mole. She was far from having
the necessary self-possession to try and read in his eyes what he felt
for her at that particular moment. She could not make up her mind to
look at him. She trembled lest she might encounter a contemptuous
expression.

Seated motionless on the library divan, with her head turned in the
opposite direction to Julien, she was a prey to the most poignant
anguish that pride and love can inflict upon a human soul. What an
awful step had she just slipped into taking! "It has been reserved
for me, unhappy woman that I am, to see my most unbecoming advances
rebuffed! and rebuffed by whom?" added her maddened and wounded pride;
"rebuffed by a servant of my father's! That's more than I will put up
with," she said aloud, and rising in a fury, she opened the drawer of
Julien's table, which was two yards in front of her.

She stood petrified with horror when she saw eight or ten unopened
letters, completely like the one the porter had just brought up. She
recognised Julien's handwriting, though more or less disguised, on all
the addresses.

"So," she cried, quite beside herself, "you are not only on good terms
with her, but you actually despise her. You, a nobody, despise madame
la marechale de Fervaques!"

"Oh, forgive me, my dear," she added, throwing herself on her knees;
"despise me if you wish, but love me. I cannot live without your love."
And she fell down in a dead faint.

"So our proud lady is lying at my feet," said Julien to himself.

Madame de Fervques is starting to find Julien's letters interesting. This is because Prince Korasoff intentionally wrote them to get better over time, nurturing love from a little seed. She is so bored one day that she finally writes a reply letter to Julien. After that, they get into the habit of writing to one another every day. Little does Madame know that all of her letters are tossed into Julien's desk without being read. Mathilde notices the letters coming to her house from Madame and finally snaps. She grabs one of the letters and confronts Julien about it, accusing him of adultery. She thinks that because they've had sex, they are now married. She begs Julien to take her back.


CHAPTER LX

A BOX AT THE BOUFFES

   As the blackest sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest
               _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76.

In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than
happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian
tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation."
He picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the
divan. She was gradually being overcome by tears.

In order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques'
letters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable
nervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She
turned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of
them were six pages.

"At least answer me," Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory
tone, but without daring to look at Julien: "You know how proud I am.
It is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I
confess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made
the sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?"

A dismal silence was all Julien's answer. "By what right," he thought,
"does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?"
Mathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears
that it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a
month past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own
feelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion.
For one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She
was sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her
alabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He
passed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast.

She slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the
extreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual
expression.

Julien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of
the courageous feat which he was imposing on himself.

"Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain," said
Julien to himself, "if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness
of loving her." She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this
moment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the
strength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her
inordinate pride had dictated.

"I, too, have pride," said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate
voice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical
prostration.

Mathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a
happiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only
thought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to
have found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove
to him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself.

"That pride is probably the reason," continued Julien, "why you singled
me out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is
certainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the
marechale."

Mathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was
going to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape
Julien. He felt his courage weaken.

"Ah," he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words
which his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange
sound, "if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without
your feeling it."

"I may entertain love for the marechale," he continued, while his voice
became weaker and weaker, "but I certainly have no definite proof of
her interest in me."

Mathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate,
that his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a
love that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart.
He had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If
she had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he
would have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He
had sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: "Ah, Korasoff,"
he exclaimed mentally, "why are you not here? How I need a word from
you to guide me in my conduct." During this time his voice was saying,

"In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to
attach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has
consoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith
in certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but
possibly very fleeting."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Mathilde.

"Well, what guarantee will you give me?" replied Julien with a sharp,
firm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms
of diplomacy. "What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position
to which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will
last more than two days?"

"The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me," she
said to him, taking his hands and turning towards him.

The spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced
her tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her
slightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory....

He was on the point of succumbing. "One imprudent word," he said to
himself, "and I have to start all over again that long series of days
which I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons
for doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society
never allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to
herself by sound logic that it ought to be moved."

He saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling
of an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which
Mathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with
a marked respect.

Human courage could not go further. He then busied himself with
putting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on
the divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness
that he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding,

"Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this." He
went rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the
doors one after the other.

"The monster is not the least bit troubled," she said to herself. "But
what am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself
who have committed more wrong than one can imagine."

This point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she
gave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this
soul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!)

She shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques
into the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister.
She could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly.
Julien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared
to face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole.

His love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time
that elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself
already. "How could I resist her?" he said to himself. "Suppose she
were to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that
haughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully."

In the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in
an appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had
expressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence
or his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic,
he could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge
into society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock
struck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he
found the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a
place near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This
position saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of
despair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame
de Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast
with the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul
of the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years
with all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less
touched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed
impelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at
this moment.

"Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?" she said to him. "They are
in the third tier." Julien immediately craned out over the theatre,
leaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her
eyes were shining with tears.

"And yet it is not their Opera day," thought Julien; "how eager she
must be!"

Mathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite
of the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the
family had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would
pass the evening with the marechale.

After telling Julien she wants him back, Mathilde asks if he has had sex with Madame de Fervaques yet. He decides not to answer, which just twists the knife in her all the more. Julien is conflicted. He wants to take Mathilde in his arms, but knows that she'll despise him in only a few days if he declares his love for her. Julien tells Mathilde straight up that he doesn't trust her. She's too fickle for him and he won't let himself love her anymore. With that, he leaves Mathilde to cry all by her lonesome self. Julien goes to the opera that night with Madame de Fervaques and cries because he's thinking of Mathilde. Madame thinks that he's just showing his sensitivity as a man because the opera is sad. It makes her like him even more. Of course, Mathilde is at the opera to see whether Julien is there with Fervaques.


CHAPTER LXI

FRIGHTEN HER

        So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you
        have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_.

Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the
tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were
only insignificant personages present, the friend who had leant her
box, and some men whom she knew. Mathilde placed her hand on Julien's;
she seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother. Almost stifled as
she was by her tears, she said nothing but this one word: "Guarantees!"

"So long as I don't speak to her," said Julien to himself. He was
himself very moved, and concealed his eyes with his hand as best
he could under the pretext of avoiding the dazzling light of the
third tier of boxes. "If I speak she may suspect the excess of my
emotion, the sound of my voice will betray me. All may yet be lost."
His struggles were more painful than they had been in the morning,
his soul had had the time to become moved. He had been frightened at
seeing Mathilde piqued with vanity. Intoxicated as he was with love and
pleasure he resolved not to speak.

In my view this is one of the finest traits in his character, an
individual capable of such an effort of self-control may go far si
_fata sinant_.

Mademoiselle de la Mole insisted on taking Julien back to the hotel.
Luckily it was raining a great deal, but the marquise had him placed
opposite her, talked to him incessantly, and prevented him saying a
single word to her daughter. One might have thought that the marquise
was nursing Julien's happiness for him; no longer fearing to lose
everything through his excessive emotion, he madly abandoned himself to
his happiness.

Shall I dare to say that when he went back to his room Julien fell
on his knees and covered with kisses the love letters which prince
Korasoff had given him.

"How much I owe you, great man," he exclaimed in his madness. Little
by little he regained his self-possession. He compared himself to a
general who had just won a great battle. "My advantage is definite and
immense," he said to himself, "but what will happen to-morrow? One
instant may ruin everything."

With a passionate gesture he opened the _Memoirs_ which Napoleon had
dictated at St. Helena and for two long hours forced himself to read
them. Only his eyes read; no matter, he made himself do it. During this
singular reading his head and his heart rose to the most exalted level
and worked unconsciously. "Her heart is very different from madame de
Renal's," he said to himself, but he did not go further.

"Frighten her!" he suddenly exclaimed, hurling away the book. "The
enemy will only obey me in so far as I frighten him, but then he will
not dare to show contempt for me."

Intoxicated with joy he walked up and down his little room. In point of
fact his happiness was based rather on pride than on love.

"Frighten her!" he repeated proudly, and he had cause to be proud.

"Madame de Renal always doubted even in her happiest moments if my
love was equal to her own. In this case I have to subjugate a demon,
consequently I must subjugate her." He knew quite well that Mathilde
would be in the library at eight o'clock in the morning of the
following day. He did not appear before nine o'clock. He was burning
with love, but his head dominated his heart.

Scarcely a single minute passed without his repeating to himself. "Keep
her obsessed by this great doubt. Does he love me?" Her own brilliant
position, together with the flattery of all who speak to her, tend a
little too much to make her reassure herself.

He found her sitting on the divan pale and calm, but apparently
completely incapable of making a single movement. She held out her
hand,

"Dear one, it is true I have offended you, perhaps you are angry with
me."

Julien had not been expecting this simple tone. He was on the point of
betraying himself.

"You want guarantees, my dear, she added after a silence which she had
hoped would be broken. Take me away, let us leave for London. I shall
be ruined, dishonoured for ever." She had the courage to take her hand
away from Julien to cover her eyes with it.

All her feelings of reserve and feminine virtue had come back into her
soul. "Well, dishonour me," she said at last with a sigh, "that will be
a guarantee."

"I was happy yesterday, because I had the courage to be severe with
myself," thought Julien. After a short silence he had sufficient
control over his heart to say in an icy tone,

"Once we are on the road to London, once you are dishonoured, to employ
your own expression, who will answer that you will still love me? that
my very presence in the post-chaise will not seem importunate? I am not
a monster; to have ruined your reputation will only make me still more
unhappy. It is not your position in society which is the obstacle, it
is unfortunately your own character. Can you yourself guarantee that
you will love me for eight days?"

"Ah! let her love me for eight days, just eight days," whispered
Julien to himself, "and I will die of happiness. What do I care for
the future, what do I care for life? And yet if I wish that divine
happiness can commence this very minute, it only depends on me."

Mathilde saw that he was pensive.

"So I am completely unworthy of you," she said to him, taking his hand.

Julien kissed her, but at the same time the iron hand of duty gripped
his heart. If she sees how much I adore her I shall lose her. And
before leaving her arms, he had reassumed all that dignity which is
proper to a man.

He managed on this and the following days to conceal his inordinate
happiness. There were moments when he even refused himself the pleasure
of clasping her in his arms. At other times the delirium of happiness
prevailed over all the counsels of prudence.

He had been accustomed to station himself near a bower of honeysuckle
in the garden arranged in such a way so as to conceal the ladder when
he had looked up at Mathilde's blind in the distance, and lamented her
inconstancy. A very big oak tree was quite near, and the trunk of that
tree prevented him from being seen by the indiscreet.

As he passed with Mathilde over this very place which recalled his
excessive unhappiness so vividly, the contrast between his former
despair and his present happiness proved too much for his character.
Tears inundated his eyes, and he carried his sweetheart's hand to his
lips: "It was here I used to live in my thoughts of you, it was from
here that I used to look at that blind, and waited whole hours for the
happy moment when I would see that hand open it."

His weakness was unreserved. He portrayed the extremity of his former
despair in genuine colours which could not possibly have been invented.
Short interjections testified to that present happiness which had put
an end to that awful agony.

"My God, what am I doing?" thought Julien, suddenly recovering himself.
"I am ruining myself."

In his excessive alarm he thought that he already detected a diminution
of the love in mademoiselle de la Mole's eyes. It was an illusion, but
Julien's face suddenly changed its expression and became overspread
by a mortal pallor. His eyes lost their fire, and an expression of
haughtiness touched with malice soon succeeded to his look of the most
genuine and unreserved love.

"But what is the matter with you, my dear," said Mathilde to him, both
tenderly and anxiously.

"I am lying," said Julien irritably, "and I am lying to you. I am
reproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you
sufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and
I have no need of praises in order to please you."

"Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me
for the last two minutes mere phrases?"

"And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for
a woman who loved me, and bored me--it is the weakness of my character.
I denounce myself to you, forgive me."

Bitter tears streamed over Mathilde's cheeks.

"As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my
meditation," continued Julien, "my abominable memory, which I curse at
this very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it."

"So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has
displeased you," said Mathilde with a charming simplicity.

"I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you
picked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I
was two paces away."

"M. de Luz? It is impossible," replied Mathilde with all her natural
haughtiness. "I do not do things like that."

"I am sure of it," Julien replied sharply.

"Well, my dear, it is true," said Mathilde, as she sadly lowered her
eyes. She knew positively that many months had elapsed since she had
allowed M. de Luz to do such a thing.

Julien looked at her with ineffable tenderness, "No," he said to
himself, "she does not love me less."

In the evening she rallied him with a laugh on his fancy for madame de
Fervaques. "Think of a bourgeois loving a parvenu, those are perhaps
the only type of hearts that my Julien cannot make mad with love. She
has made you into a real dandy," she said playing with his hair.

During the period when he thought himself scorned by Mathilde, Julien
had become one of the best dressed men in Paris. He had, moreover,
a further advantage over other dandies, in as much as once he had
finished dressing he never gave a further thought to his appearance.

One thing still piqued Mathilde, Julien continued to copy out the
Russian letters and send them to the marechale.

Julien checks Mathilde's box at the opera and sees her crying. He finds it more difficult than ever to tell her he loves her. The next day, he finds Mathilde sitting on a couch in the library. She says she's willing to offer him proof of her commitment. She offers to run away with him to London. The scandal this would cause would mean they basically have to get married. Julien wants to accept this offer, but he's still skeptical about her fickleness. One day, he can't take it anymore and kisses Mathilde's hand while they're walking in the garden. He says he totally can't live without her. Then he takes it all back and leaves Mathilde feeling crushed. By the end of their conversation, Mathilde thinks that Julien's heart might be swinging her way again. But she's irritated by the way he keeps sending letters to Madame de Fervaques.


CHAPTER LXII

THE TIGER

        Alas, why these things and not other
        things?--_Beaumarchais_.

An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a
tiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a
cocked pistol on his table.

Julien only abandoned himself to the fulness of his happiness in those
moments when Mathilde could not read the expression in his eyes. He
scrupulously performed his duty of addressing some harsh word to her
from time to time.

When Mathilde's sweetness, which he noticed with some surprise,
together with the completeness of her devotion were on the point of
depriving him of all self-control, he was courageous enough to leave
her suddenly.

Mathilde loved for the first time in her life.

Life had previously always dragged along at a tortoise pace, but now it
flew.

As, however, her pride required to find a vent in some way or other,
she wished to expose herself to all the dangers in which her love could
involve her. It was Julien who was prudent, and it was only when it was
a question of danger that she did not follow her own inclination; but
submissive, and almost humble as she was when with him, she only showed
additional haughtiness to everyone in the house who came near her,
whether relatives or friends.

In the evening she would call Julien to her in the salon in the
presence of sixty people, and have a long and private conversation with
him.

The little Tanbeau installed himself one day close to them. She
requested him to go and fetch from the library the volume of Smollet
which deals with the revolution of 1688, and when he hesitated, added
with an expression of insulting haughtiness, which was a veritable balm
to Julien's soul, "Don't hurry."

"Have you noticed that little monster's expression?" he said to her.

"His uncle has been in attendance in this salon for ten or twelve
years, otherwise I would have had him packed off immediately."

Her behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, etc., though outwardly
perfectly polite, was in reality scarcely less provocative. Mathilde
keenly reproached herself for all the confidential remarks about them
which she had formerly made to Julien, and all the more so since she
did not dare to confess that she had exaggerated to him the, in fact,
almost absolutely innocent manifestations of interest of which these
gentlemen had been the objects. In spite of her best resolutions her
womanly pride invariably prevented her from saying to Julien, "It was
because I was talking to you that I found a pleasure in describing my
weakness in not drawing my hand away, when M. de Croisenois had placed
his on a marble table and had just touched it."

But now, as soon as one of these gentlemen had been speaking to her for
some moments, she found she had a question to put to Julien, and she
made this an excuse for keeping him by her side.

She discovered that she was _enceinte_ and joyfully informed Julien of
the fact.

"Do you doubt me now? Is it not a guarantee? I am your wife for ever."

This announcement struck Julien with profound astonishment. He was on
the point of forgetting the governing principle of his conduct. How am
I to be deliberately cold and insulting towards this poor young girl,
who is ruining herself for my sake. And if she looked at all ill,
he could not, even on those days when the terrible voice of wisdom
made itself heard, find the courage to address to her one of those
harsh remarks which his experience had found so indispensable to the
preservation of their love.

"I will write to my father," said Mathilde to him one day, "he is
more than a father to me, he is a friend; that being so, I think it
unworthy both of you and of myself to try and deceive him, even for a
single minute."

"Great heavens, what are you going to do?" said Julien in alarm.

"My duty," she answered with eyes shining with joy.

She thought she was showing more nobility than her lover.

"But he will pack me off in disgrace."

"It is his right to do so, we must respect it. I will give you my arm,
and we will go out by the front door in full daylight."

Julien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week.

"I cannot," she answered, "it is the voice of honour, I have seen my
duty, I must follow it, and follow it at once."

"Well, I order you to put it off," said Julien at last. "Your honour
is safe for the present. I am your husband. The position of us will be
changed by this momentous step. I too am within my rights. To-day is
Tuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole
comes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter.
His only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of
his unhappiness."

"You mean, think of his vengeance?"

"It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him,
but I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone."

Mathilde yielded. This was the first occasion, since she had informed
Julien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively.
She had never loved him so much. The tender part of his soul had
found happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse
for refraining from his cruel remarks to her. The question of the
confession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him. Was he going to be
separated from Mathilde? And, however grieved she would be to see him
go, would she have a thought for him after his departure?

He was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified
reproaches which the marquis might address to him.

In the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his
anxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well.

She changed colour. "Would it really make you unhappy," she said to
him, "to pass six months far away from me?"

"Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me."

Mathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that
he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two
who loved the more.

The fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he
found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself
when no one was there:--

        "My father,

        "All social ties have been broken between us, only those
        of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always
        will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My
        eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that
        I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented
        from becoming public, and you were to be given time to
        reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the
        confession that I owe you. If your affection for me,
        which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant
        me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my
        husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance.
        His name is so obscure that no one would recognize
        in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres
        carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have
        so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against
        Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess,
        my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was
        the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him.
        I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my
        attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It
        is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view
        to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my
        eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres,
        'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the
        poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the
        pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you
        being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend.

        "Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me,
        it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards
        yourself, for the natural dignity of his character
        induces him to keep to his official capacity in any
        answers he may make to anyone who is so much above
        him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the
        difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a
        blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a
        confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day
        in the garden.

        "Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four
        hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you
        insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and
        of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can
        be conveyed to you through me. You need not see him at
        all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes.
        It is his right and it is my duty. He is the father of
        my child. If your kindness will go so far as to grant
        us six thousand francs to live on, I will receive it
        with gratitude; if not, Julien reckons on establishing
        himself at Besancon, where he will set up as a Latin and
        literature master. However low may have been the station
        from which he springs, I am certain he will raise
        himself. With him I do not fear obscurity. If there is
        a revolution, I am sure that he will play a prime part.
        Can you say as much for any of those who have asked
        for my hand? They have fine estates, you say. I cannot
        consider that circumstance a reason for admiring them.
        My Julien would attain a high position, even under the
        present regime, if he had a million and my father's
        protection...."

Mathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned
himself to his first impulse, had written eight pages.

"What am I to do?" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was
reading this letter. "Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest?
My debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial
scoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and
persecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The
villainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent;
(second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million.
I am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having
rendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of
the ruck.

"If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he
prescribe?"

Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. "The
marquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed." The valet
added in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, "He is beside
himself: look out!"

Mathilde and Julien exist on fairly decent terms as friends, since they both seem to feel secure about their love for one another. Now it's more a matter of sitting on it and seeing where it goes with time. But here comes the plot bomb: Mathilde realizes that she's pregnant. Yup. She uses this fact as leverage to finally make Julien believe that they'll be together forever. She says she's going to tell her father immediately and she's going to leave the house to marry Julien, even if she does it in disgrace. Mathilde writes a letter to her father announcing her pregnancy and saying that she's going to marry Julien. She'd prefer it if her father could provide Julien with some money to start their new life together, but she understands if he is too angry. Not long after, the marquis summons Julien for a little chat.


CHAPTER LXIII

THE HELL OF WEAKNESS

        A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived
        it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle
        ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had
        _force of will_.--_Mirabeau_.

Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his
life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the
insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his
patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken.

"The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all
the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it
to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of
Tartuffe supplied the answer;

"I am not an angel.... I served you well; you paid me generously.... I
was grateful, but I am twenty-two.... Only you and that charming person
understood my thoughts in this household."

"Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The
day when you found her charming you ought to have fled."

"I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for
Languedoc."

Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw
himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No,
no, he is not a wicked man."

"No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees.
But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly
got up again.

The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he
began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of
the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a
distraction.

"What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my
daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented
themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture,
and lost all power over the movements of his mind.

Julien was afraid of being beaten.

In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his
unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were
reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your
duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men."

Julien approached the table and wrote:

        "I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am
        putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to
        accept my apologies (together with the expression of my
        infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be
        occasioned by my death in his hotel."

"Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien.
"Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the
morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall
at the bottom."

"Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away.

"I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to
spare his valet the trouble of killing me....

"Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer
him.... But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son."

This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much
definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his
walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his
danger.

This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to
how to behave towards this infuriated man.... He is devoid of reason;
he is capable of everything. Fouque is too far away; besides, he would
not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's."

"Count Altamira ... am I certain of eternal silence? My request
for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further
complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbe Pirard. His
mind is crabbed by Jansenism.... A damned Jesuit would know the world,
and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the
very mention of my crime."

The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and
confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked
about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about
being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy.

Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris
and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great
astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence.

"I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more
anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection
for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father."

"What will he do?" said Julien keenly.

At that moment he loved the abbe, and would have found a scene between
them very painful.

"I see three alternatives," continued Julien.

"M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide
letter which he had left with the Marquis; (2) "He can get Count
Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank."

"You would accept?" said the abbe furiously as he got up.

"You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my
benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh
or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la
Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son."

"Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that
depraved man."

At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven
o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might
have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my
permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger.

"If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you
who will be the cause of his death.... Perhaps you will rejoice at
it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning,
and shall publicly appear as _Madame the widow Sorel_, I shall send
out my invitations, you can count on it.... You will find me neither
pusillanimous nor cowardly."

Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted
in his turn.

He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic.
Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense
weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed
that she had said nothing to her mother.

Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and
threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her
chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had
come away from his long consultation with the abbe Pirard in a very
diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had
killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that
she had read his suicide letter.

"My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for
Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the
hotel before they get up from table."

When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement,
she burst into tears.

"Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped
him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that
I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a
strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee."

This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will
be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these
aristocrats manage to shock me."

Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would
not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be
Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in
Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the
suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to
be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go
travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will
be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time."

This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger,
eventually made the marquis hesitate.

"Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of
ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly
make it impossible for me to retract it."

In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien
had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts
of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of
the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbe
Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence.
Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him
that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the
eyes of God.

"And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in
agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's
passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which
she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself
to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much
longer with this strange mesalliance__. Everything must be said all
at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest
mystery."

"It is true," said the marquis pensively.

Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the
abbe Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided
character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul
could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his
daughter.

He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of
knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to
necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for
a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those
enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in
which he had indulged for the last ten years.

"Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so
proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than
I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked
for by all the cream of the nobility of France."

"We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound
everything. We are marching towards chaos."

The Marquis de La Mole showers Julien with every insult he can think of. Julien tries to smooth things out, but it isn't easy. Julien goes to his old mentor, Father Pirard, the next day and tells him what has happened. Pirard isn't surprised, though he's disappointed in Julien. Back in Paris, Mathilde reads a letter that Julien has given to the marquis. It suggests that Julien might be going off to commit suicide. When Julien comes back safe and sound, Mathilde tells him to ride off to a nearby village called Villequier and wait for her there. While Julien is gone, Mathilde convinces her father that the only way forward is for her to marry Julien. She won't consent to any sort of secret birth. She needs to be with him. The marquis reflects on all the big plans he used to have for Mathilde's future. But now they've all gone up in smoke.