The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
"Placed in an ordinary position in life she would disbelieve in
religion," thought Julien, "she only likes it in so far as it is very
useful to the interests of her class."
But perhaps she may as a mere matter of delicacy be keenly reproaching
herself for the mistake which she has committed. Julien believed that
he was her first lover.
"But," he said to himself at other moments, "I must admit that there is
no trace of naivety, simplicity, or tenderness in her own demeanour;
I have never seen her more haughty, can she despise me? It would be
worthy of her to reproach herself simply because of my low birth, for
what she has done for me."
While Julien, full of those preconceived ideas which he had found in
books and in his memories of Verrières, was chasing the phantom of a
tender mistress, who from the minute when she has made her lover happy
no longer thinks of her own existence, Mathilde's vanity was infuriated
against him.
As for the last two months she had no longer been bored, she was not
frightened of boredom; consequently, without being able to have the
slightest suspicion of it, Julien had lost his greatest advantage.
"I have given myself a master," said mademoiselle de la Mole to
herself, a prey to the blackest sorrow. "Luckily he is honour itself,
but if I offend his vanity, he will revenge himself by making known
the nature of our relations." Mathilde had never had a lover, and
though passing through a stage of life which affords some tender
illusions even to the coldest souls, she fell a prey to the most bitter
reflections.
"He has an immense dominion over me since his reign is one of terror,
and he is capable, if I provoke him, of punishing me with an awful
penalty." This idea alone was enough to induce mademoiselle de la
Mole to insult him. Courage was the primary quality in her character.
The only thing which could give her any thrill and cure her from a
fundamental and chronically recurring ennui was the idea that she was
staking her entire existence on a single throw.
As mademoiselle de la Mole obstinately refused to look at him, Julien
on the third day in spite of her evident objection, followed her into
the billiard-room after dinner.
"Well, sir, you think you have acquired some very strong rights over
me?" she said to him with scarcely controlled anger, "since you venture
to speak to me, in spite of my very clearly manifested wish? Do you
know that no one in the world has had such effrontery?"
The dialogue of these two lovers was incomparably humourous. Without
suspecting it, they were animated by mutual sentiments of the most
vivid hate. As neither the one nor the other had a meekly patient
character, while they were both disciples of good form, they soon came
to informing each other quite clearly that they would break for ever.
"I swear eternal secrecy to you," said Julien. "I should like to add
that I would never address a single word to you, were it not that a
marked change might perhaps jeopardise your reputation." He saluted
respectfully and left.
He accomplished easily enough what he believed to be a duty; he was
very far from thinking himself much in love with mademoiselle de la
Mole. He had certainly not loved her three days before, when he had
been hidden in the big mahogany cupboard. But the moment that he found
himself estranged from her for ever his mood underwent a complete and
rapid change.
His memory tortured him by going over the least details in that night,
which had as a matter of fact left him so cold. In the very night that
followed this announcement of a final rupture, Julien almost went mad
at being obliged to own to himself that he loved mademoiselle de la
Mole.
This discovery was followed by awful struggles: all his emotions were
overwhelmed.
Two days later, instead of being haughty towards M. de Croisenois, he
could have almost burst out into tears and embraced him.
His habituation to unhappiness gave him a gleam of commonsense, he
decided to leave for Languedoc, packed his trunk and went to the post.
He felt he would faint, when on arriving at the office of the mails, he
was told that by a singular chance there was a place in the Toulouse
mail. He booked it and returned to the Hôtel de la Mole to announce his
departure to the marquis.
M. de la Mole had gone out. More dead than alive Julien went into
the library to wait for him. What was his emotion when he found
mademoiselle de la Mole there.
As she saw him come, she assumed a malicious expression which it was
impossible to mistake.
In his unhappiness and surprise Julien lost his head and was weak
enough to say to her in a tone of the most heartfelt tenderness. "So
you love me no more."
"I am horrified at having given myself to the first man who came
along," said Mathilde crying with rage against herself.
"The first man who came along," cried Julien, and he made for an old
mediæval sword which was kept in the library as a curiosity.
His grief--which he thought was at its maximum at the moment when he
had spoken to mademoiselle de la Mole--had been rendered a hundred
times more intense by the tears of shame which he saw her shedding.
He would have been the happiest of men if he had been able to kill her.
When he was on the point of drawing the sword with some difficulty from
its ancient scabbard, Mathilde, rendered happy by so novel a sensation,
advanced proudly towards him, her tears were dry.
The thought of his benefactor--the marquis de la Mole--presented
itself vividly to Julien. "Shall I kill his daughter?" he said to
himself, "how horrible." He made a movement to throw down the sword.
"She will certainly," he thought, "burst out laughing at the sight of
such a melodramatic pose:" that idea was responsible for his regaining
all his self-possession. He looked curiously at the blade of the old
sword as though he had been looking for some spot of rust, then put it
back in the scabbard and replaced it with the utmost tranquillity on
the gilt bronze nail from which it hung.
The whole manœuvre, which towards the end was very slow, lasted quite
a minute; mademoiselle de la Mole looked at him in astonishment. "So
I have been on the verge of being killed by my lover," she said to
herself.
This idea transported her into the palmiest days of the age of Charles
IX. and of Henri III.
She stood motionless before Julien, who had just replaced the sword;
she looked at him with eyes whose hatred had disappeared. It must be
owned that she was very fascinating at this moment, certainly no woman
looked less like a Parisian doll (this expression symbolised Julien's
great objection to the women of this city).
"I shall relapse into some weakness for him," thought Mathilde; "it
is quite likely that he will think himself my lord and master after a
relapse like that at the very moment that I have been talking to him so
firmly." She ran away.
"By heaven, she is pretty said Julien as he watched her run and that's
the creature who threw herself into my arms with so much passion
scarcely a week ago ... and to think that those moments will never
come back? And that it's my fault, to think of my being lacking
in appreciation at the very moment when I was doing something so
extraordinarily interesting! I must own that I was born with a very
dull and unfortunate character."
The marquis appeared; Julien hastened to announce his departure.
"Where to?" said M. de la Mole.
"For Languedoc."
"No, if you please, you are reserved for higher destinies. If you leave
it will be for the North.... In military phraseology I actually confine
you in the hotel. You will compel me to be never more than two or three
hours away. I may have need of you at any moment."
Julien bowed and retired without a word, leaving the marquis in a state
of great astonishment. He was incapable of speaking. He shut himself
up in his room. He was there free to exaggerate to himself all the
awfulness of his fate.
"So," he thought, "I cannot even get away. God knows how many days
the marquis will keep me in Paris. Great God, what will become of me,
and not a friend whom I can consult? The abbé Pirard will never let
me finish my first sentence, while the comte Altamira will propose
enlisting me in some conspiracy. And yet I am mad; I feel it, I am mad.
Who will be able to guide me, what will become of me?"
CHAPTER XLVIII
CRUEL MOMENTS
And she confesses it to me! She goes into even
the smallest details! Her beautiful eyes fixed on
mine, and describes the love which she felt for
another.--_Schiller_.
The delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the
happiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to
herself, "he is worthy of being my master since he was on the point of
killing me. How many handsome young society men would have to be melted
together before they were capable of so passionate a transport."
"I must admit that he was very handsome at the time when he climbed up
on the chair to replace the sword in the same picturesque position in
which the decorator hung it! After all it was not so foolish of me to
love him."
If at that moment some honourable means of reconciliation had presented
itself, she would have embraced it with pleasure. Julien locked in his
room was a prey to the most violent despair. He thought in his madness
of throwing himself at her feet. If instead of hiding himself in an out
of the way place, he had wandered about the garden of the hôtel so as
to keep within reach of any opportunity, he would perhaps have changed
in a single moment his awful unhappiness into the keenest happiness.
But the tact for whose lack we are now reproaching him would have been
incompatible with that sublime seizure of the sword, which at the
present time rendered him so handsome in the eyes of mademoiselle de
la Mole. This whim in Julien's favour lasted the whole day; Mathilde
conjured up a charming image of the short moments during which she had
loved him: she regretted them.
"As a matter of fact," she said to herself, "my passion for this poor
boy can from his point of view only have lasted from one hour after
midnight when I saw him arrive by his ladder with all his pistols in
his coat pocket, till eight o'clock in the morning. It was a quarter of
an hour after that as I listened to mass at Sainte-Valère that I began
to think that he might very well try to terrify me into obedience."
After dinner mademoiselle de la Mole, so far from avoiding Julien,
spoke to him and made him promise to follow her into the garden. He
obeyed. It was a new experience.
Without suspecting it Mathilde was yielding to the love which she was
now feeling for him again. She found an extreme pleasure in walking by
his side, and she looked curiously at those hands which had seized the
sword to kill her that very morning.
After such an action, after all that had taken place, some of the
former conversation was out of the question.
Mathilde gradually began to talk confidentially to him about the
state of her heart. She found a singular pleasure in this kind of
conversation, she even went so far as to describe to him the fleeting
moments of enthusiasm which she had experienced for M. de Croisenois,
for M. de Caylus----
"What! M. de Caylus as well!" exclaimed Julien, and all the jealousy of
a discarded lover burst out in those words, Mathilde thought as much,
but did not feel at all insulted.
She continued torturing Julien by describing her former sentiments with
the most picturesque detail and the accent of the most intimate truth.
He saw that she was portraying what she had in her mind's eye. He had
the pain of noticing that as she spoke she made new discoveries in her
own heart.