A PlotDisconnected remarks, chance meetings turn into proofs of theutmost clarity in the eyes of the imaginative man, if he has anyfire in his heart.
SCHILLEROn the following day he again surprised Norbert and his sister, whowere talking about him. On his arrival, a deathly silence fell, as on theday before. His suspicions knew no bounds. 'Can these charming youngpeople be planning to make a fool of me? I must own, that is far moreprobable, far more natural than a pretended passion on the part of Mademoiselle de La Mole, for a poor devil of a secretary. For one thing, dothese people have passions? Mystification is their specialty. They arejealous of my wretched little superiority in language. Being jealous, thatis another of their weaknesses. That explains everything. Mademoisellede La Mole hopes to persuade me that she is singling me out, simply tooffer me as a spectacle to her intended.'
This cruel suspicion completely changed Julien's moral attitude. Theidea encountered in his heart a germ of love which it had no difficulty indestroying. This love was founded only upon Mathilde's rare beauty, orrather upon her regal manner and her admirable style in dress. In this respect Julien was still an upstart. A beautiful woman of fashion is, we areassured, the sight that most astonishes a clever man of peasant originwhen he arrives amid the higher ranks of society. It was certainly notMathilde's character that had set Julien dreaming for days past. He hadenough sense to grasp that he knew nothing about her character.
Everything that he saw of it might be only a pretence.
For instance, Mathilde would not for anything in the world have failedto hear mass on a Sunday; almost every day she went to church with hermother. If, in the drawing-room of the Hotel de La Mole, some impudentfellow forgot where he was and allowed himself to make the remotest allusion to some jest aimed at the real or supposed interests of Throne orAltar, Mathilde would at once assume an icy severity. Her glance, whichwas so sparkling, took on all the expressionless pride of an old familyportrait.
But Julien knew for certain that she always had in her room one or twoof the most philosophical works of Voltaire. He himself frequently abstracted a volume or two of the handsome edition so magnificentlybound. By slightly separating the other volumes on the shelf, he concealed the absence of the volume he was taking away; but soon he discovered that someone else was reading Voltaire. He had recourse to atrick of the Seminary, he placed some little pieces of horsehair across thevolumes which he supposed might interest Mademoiselle de La Mole.
They vanished for weeks at a time.
M. de La Mole, losing patience with his bookseller, who kept sendinghim all the sham Memoirs, gave Julien orders to buy every new book thatwas at all sensational. But, so that the poison might not spread throughthe household, the secretary was instructed to place these books in alittle bookcase that stood in the Marquis's own room. He soon acquiredthe certainty that if any of these books were hostile to the interests ofThrone and Altar, they were not long in vanishing. It was certainly notNorbert that was reading them.
Julien, exaggerating the importance of this discovery, credited Mademoiselle de La Mole with a Machiavellian duplicity. This feignedcriminality wa a charm in his eyes, almost the only moral charm that shepossessed. The tediousness of hypocrisy and virtuous conversationdrove him to this excess.
He excited his imagination rather than let himself be carried away bylove.
It was after he had lost himself in dreams of the elegance of Mademoiselle de La Mole's figure, the excellent taste of her toilet, the whiteness of her hand, the beauty of her arm, the disinvoltura of all her movements, that he found himself in love. Then, to complete her charm, heimagined her to be a Catherine de' Medici. Nothing was too profound ortoo criminal for the character that he assigned to her. It was the ideal ofthe Maslons, the Frilairs and Castanedes whom he had admired in hisyounger days. It was, in short, the ideal, to him, of Paris.
Was ever anything so absurd as to imagine profundity or criminalityin the Parisian character?
'It is possible that this trio may be making a fool of me,' he thought.
The reader has learned very little of Julien's nature if he has not alreadyseen the sombre, frigid expression that he assumed when his eyes metthose of Mathilde. A bitter irony repulsed the assurances of friendshipwith which Mademoiselle de La Mole in astonishment ventured on twoor three occasions, to try him.
Piqued by his sudden eccentricity, the heart of this girl, naturally cold,bored, responsive to intelligence, became as passionate as it was in hernature to be. But there was also a great deal of pride in Mathilde'snature, and the birth of a sentiment which made all her happiness dependent upon another was attended by a sombre melancholy.
Julien had made sufficient progress since his arrival in Paris to discernthat this was not the barren melancholy of boredom. Instead of beingeager, as in the past, for parties, shows and distractions of every kind,she avoided them.
Music performed by French singers bored Mathilde to death, and yetJulien, who made it his duty to be present at the close of the Opera, observed that she made her friends take her there as often as possible. Hethought he could detect that she had lost a little of the perfect balancewhich shone in all her actions. She would sometimes reply to her friendswith witticisms that were offensive in their pointed emphasis. It seemedto him that she had taken a dislike to the Marquis de Croisenois. 'Thatyoung man must have a furious passion for money, not to go off andleave a girl like that, however rich she may be!' thought Julien. As forhimself, indignant at the insults offered to masculine dignity, his coldness towards her increased. Often he went the length of replying withpositive discourtesy.
However determined he might be not to be taken in by the signs of interest shown by Mathilde, they were so evident on certain days, and Julien, from whose eyes the scales were beginning to fall, found her so attractive, that he was at times embarrassed by them.
'The skill and forbearance of these young men of fashion will end bytriumphing over my want of experience,' he told himself; 'I must goaway, and put an end to all this.' The Marquis had recently entrusted tohim the management of a number of small properties and houses whichhe owned in lower Languedoc. A visit to the place became necessary: M.
de La Mole gave a reluctant consent. Except in matters of high ambition,Julien had become his second self.
'When all is said and done, they have not managed to catch me,' Julientold himself as he prepared for his departure. 'Whether the jokes whichMademoiselle de La Mole makes at the expense of these gentlemen bereal, or only intended to inspire me with confidence, I have been amusedby them.
'If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter's son, Mademoiselle deLa Mole is inexplicable, but she is just as much so to the Marquis deCroisenois as to me. Yesterday, for instance, her ill humour was quitegenuine, and I had the pleasure of seeing discomfited in my favour ayoung man as noble and rich as I am penniless and plebeian. That is myfinest triumph. It will keep me in good spirits in my post-chaise, as Iscour the plains of Languedoc.'
He had kept his departure secret, but Mathilde knew better than hethat he was leaving Paris next day, and for a long time. She pleaded asplitting headache, which was made worse by the close atmosphere ofthe drawing-room. She walked for hours in the garden, and so pursuedwith her mordant pleasantries Norbert, the Marquis de Croisenois,Caylus, de Luz and various other young men who had dined at theHotel de La Mole, that she forced them to take their leave. She looked atJulien in a strange fashion.
'This look is perhaps a piece of play-acting,' thought he; 'but her quickbreathing, all that emotion! Bah!' he said to himself, 'who am I to judge ofthese matters? This is an example of the most consummate, the most artificial behaviour to be found among the women of Paris. That quickbreathing, which so nearly proved too much for me, she will havelearned from Leontine Fay, whom she admires so.'
They were now left alone; the conversation was plainly languishing.
'No! Julien has no feeling for me,' Mathilde told herself with genuinedistress.
As he took leave of her, she clutched his arm violently:
'You will receive a letter from me this evening,' she told him in a voiceso strained as to be barely audible.
This had an immediate effect on Julien.
'My father,' she went on, 'has a most natural regard for the servicesthat you render him. You must not go tomorrow; find some excuse.' Andshe ran from the garden.
Her figure was charming. It would have been impossible to have aprettier foot, she ran with a grace that enchanted Julien; but guess what was his second thought when she had quite vanished. He was offendedby the tone of command in which she had uttered the words, you must.
Similarly Louis XV, as he breathed his last, was keenly annoyed by thewords you must awkwardly employed by his Chief Physician, and yetLouis XV was no upstart.
An hour later, a footman handed Julien a letter; it was nothing lessthan a declaration of love.
'The style is not unduly affected,' he said to himself, seeking by literaryobservations to contain the joy that was contorting his features and forcing him to laugh in spite of himself.
'And so I,' he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement being too strong tobe held in check, 'I, a poor peasant, have received a declaration of lovefrom a great lady!
'As for myself, I have not done badly,' he went on, controlling his joyas far as was possible. 'I have succeeded in preserving the dignity of mycharacter. I have never said that I was in love.' He began to study theshapes of her letters; Mademoiselle de La Mole wrote in a charming littleEnglish hand. He required some physical occupation to take his mindfrom a joy which was bordering on delirium.
'Your departure obliges me to speak … It would be beyond my endurance not to see you any more.'
A sudden thought occurred to strike Julien as a discovery, interruptthe examination that he was making of Mathilde's letter, and intensifyhis joy. 'I am preferred to the Marquis de Croisenois,' he cried, 'I, whonever say anything that is not serious! And he is so handsome! He wearsmoustaches, a charming uniform; he always manages to say, just at theright moment, something witty and clever.'
It was an exquisite moment for Julien; he roamed about the garden,mad with happiness.
Later, he went upstairs to his office, and sent in his name to the Marquis de La Mole, who fortunately had not gone out. He had no difficultyin proving to him, by showing him various marked papers that had arrived from Normandy, that the requirements of his employer's lawsuitsthere obliged him to postpone his departure for Languedoc.
'I am very glad you are not going,' the Marquis said to him, when theyhad finished their business, 'I like to see you.' Julien left the room; thisspeech disturbed him.
'And I am going to seduce his daughter! To render impossible, perhaps, that marriage with the Marquis de Croisenois, which is the brightspot in his future: if he is not made Duke, at least his daughter will be entitled to a tabouret.' Julien thought of starting for Languedoc in spite ofMathilde's letter, in spite of the explanation he had given the Marquis.
This virtuous impulse soon faded.
'How generous I am,' he said to himself; 'I, a plebeian, to feel pity for afamily of such high rank! I, whom the Duc de Chaulnes calls a domestic!
How does the Marquis increase his vast fortune? By selling national securities, when he hears at the Chateau that there is to be the threat of aCoup d' Etat next day. And I, cast down to the humblest rank by a step-motherly Providence, I, whom Providence has endowed with a nobleheart and not a thousand francs of income, that is to say not enough formy daily bread, literally speaking, not enough for my daily bread; am I to refuse a pleasure that is offered me? A limpid spring which wells up toquench my thirst in the burning desert of mediocrity over which I tracemy painful course! Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in thisdesert of selfishness which is called life.'
And he reminded himself of several disdainful glances aimed at himby Madame de La Mole, and especially by the ladies, her friends.
The pleasure of triumphing over the Marquis de Croisenois completedthe rout of this lingering trace of virtue.
'How I should love to make him angry!' said Julien; 'with what assurance would I now thrust at him with my sword.' And he struck a sweeping blow at the air. 'Until now, I was a smug, basely profiting by a traceof courage. After this letter, I am his equal.
'Yes,' he said to himself with an infinite delight, dwelling on thewords, 'our merits, the Marquis's and mine, have been weighed, and thepoor carpenter from the Jura wins the day.
'Good!' he cried, 'here is the signature to my reply ready found. Do notgo and imagine, Mademoiselle de La Mole, that I am forgetting my station. I shall make you realise and feel that it is for the son of a carpenterthat you are betraying a descendant of the famous Guy de Croisenois,who followed Saint Louis on his Crusade.'
Julien was unable to contain his joy. He was obliged to go down to thegarden. His room, in which he had locked himself up, seemed too confined a space for him to breathe in.
'I, a poor peasant from the Jura,' he kept on repeating, 'I, I condemnedalways to wear this dismal black coat! Alas, twenty years ago, I shouldhave worn uniform like them! In those days a man of my sort was eitherkilled, or a General at six and thirty.' The letter, which he kept tightlyclasped in his hand, gave him the bearing and pose of a hero.
'Nowadays, it is true, with the said black coat, at the age of forty, a manhas emoluments of one hundred thousand francs and the Blue Riband,like the Bishop of Beauvais.
'Oh, well!' he said to himself, laughing like Mephistopheles, 'I havemore sense than they; I know how to choose the uniform of my generation.' And he felt an intensification of his ambition and of his attachmentto the clerical habit. 'How many Cardinals have there been of humblerbirth than mine, who have risen to positions of government! My fellow-countryman Granvelle, for instance.' 12Gradually Julien's agitation subsided; prudence rose to the surface. Hesaid to himself, like his master Tartuffe, whose part he knew by heart:
'I might suppose these words an honest artifice … Nay, I shall not believe so flattering a speech Unless some favour shown by her for whom Isigh Assure me that they mean all that they might imply.' (Tartuffe, ActIV, Scene V)'Tartuffe also was ruined by a woman, and he was as good a man asmost … My answer may be shewn … a mishap for which we find thisremedy,' he went on, pronouncing each word slowly, and in accents ofrestrained ferocity, 'we begin it by quoting the strongest expressionsfrom the letter of the sublime Mathilde.
'Yes, but then four of M. de Croisenois's flunkeys will spring upon me,and tear the original from me.
'No, for I am well armed, and am accustomed, as they know, to firingon flunkeys.
'Very well! Say, one of them has some courage; he springs upon me.
He has been promised a hundred napoleons. I kill or injure him, all thebetter, that is what they want. I am flung into prison with all the forms oflaw; I appear in the police court, and they send me, with all justice andequity on the judges' part, to keep MM. Fontan and Magalon company atPoissy. There, I lie upon straw with four hundred poor wretches, pellmell … And I am to feel some pity for these people,' he cried, springing12.Antoine de Granvelle, born at Besancon in 1517, was Minister to Charles V andPhilip II and Governor of the Netherlands. C. K. S. M.
impetuously to his feet. 'What pity do they show for the Third Estatewhen they have us in their power?' These words were the dying breathof his gratitude to M. de La Mole which, in spite of himself, had tormented him until then.
'Not so fast, my fine gentlemen, I understand this little stroke of Machiavellianism; the abbe Maslon or M. Castanede of the Seminary couldnot have been more clever. You rob me of my incitement, the letter, and Ibecome the second volume of Colonel Caron at Colmar.
'One moment, gentlemen, I am going to send the fatal letter in a carefully sealed packet to the custody of M. l'abbe Pirard. He is an honestman, a Jansenist, and as such out of reach of the temptations of theBudget. Yes, but he opens letters … it is to Fouque that I must send thisone.'
It must be admitted the glare in Julien's eyes was ghastly, his expression hideous; it was eloquent of unmitigated crime. He was an unhappyman at war with the whole of society.
'To arms!' cried Julien. And he sprang with one bound down the stepsthat led from the house. He entered the letter-writer's booth at the streetcorner; the man was alarmed. 'Copy this,' said Julien, giving him Mademoiselle de La Mole's letter.
While the writer was thus engaged, he himself wrote to Fouque; hebegged him to keep for him a precious article. 'But,' he said to himself,laying down his pen, 'the secret room in the post office will open my letter, and give you back the one you seek; no, gentlemen.' He went andbought an enormous Bible from a Protestant bookseller, skilfully concealed Mathilde's letter in the boards, had it packed up with his own letter, and his parcel went off by the mail, addressed to one of Fouque'sworkmen, whose name was unknown to anybody in Paris.
This done, he returned joyful and brisk to the Hotel de La Mole. 'It isour turn, now,' he exclaimed, as he locked himself into his room, andflung off his coat:
'What, Mademoiselle,' he wrote to Mathilde, 'it is Mademoiselle de LaMole who, by the hand of Arsene, her father's servant, transmits a lettercouched in too seductive terms to a poor carpenter from the Jura, doubtless to play a trick upon his simplicity … ' And he transcribed the mostunequivocal sentences from the letter he had received.
His own would have done credit to the diplomatic prudence of M. leChevalier de Beauvoisis. It was still only ten o'clock; Julien, intoxicated with happiness and with the sense of his own power, so novel to a poordevil like himself, went off to the Italian opera. He heard his friend Geronimo sing. Never had music raised him to so high a pitch. He was agod. 1313.Esprit per, pre. gui II. A. 30. (Note by Stendhal.)