The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
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 maréchale 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 maréchale 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
hôtel, "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
château 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 maréchale 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 maréchale came to the Hôtel 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 maréchale he seemed almost
lifeless; even his eyes had lost all their fire, as in cases of extreme
physical suffering.
As madame de la Mole's views were invariably a counterpart of the
opinions of that husband of hers who could make her into a Duchess, she
had been singing Julien's praises for some days.
CHAPTER LVI
MORAL LOVE
There also was of course in Adeline
That calm patrician polish in the address,
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
Of anything which Nature would express;
Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine.
At least his manner suffers not to guess
That anything he views can greatly please.
_Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84.
"There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at
things," thought the maréchale; "they are infatuated with their young
abbé, 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 maréchale'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 maréchale'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 maréchale, 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
maréchale 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 maréchale."
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
Hôtel 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 maréchale'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 maréchale 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