The Red and the Black (55 page)

in all his life had Julien been so afraid; he could only see the dangers in the enterprise, and had no enthusiasm for it.

He fetched the enormous ladder, waited five minutes to allow time for
a counter-order, and at five past one leaned the ladder against
Mathilde's window. He climbed up quietly, pistol in hand, astonished
not to be attacked. As he approached the window, it opened
noiselessly:

'So you've come, sir,' Mathilde said to him with great emotion; 'I've been following your movements for the past hour.'

Julien was highly embarrassed; he did not know how to behave, he felt
no love whatsoever. In his embarrassment, he thought he ought to be
bold, and tried to kiss Mathilde.

'How dare you!' she said, pushing him away.

More than pleased to be given his cue to leave, he glanced hurriedly
round about: the moon was so bright that it cast black shadows in Mlle
de La Mole's room. There may very well be men hidden there that I
can't see, he thought.

'What have you
got in the side pocket of your suit?' Mathilde asked him, delighted
to find a subject of conversation. She was suffering strangely; all
the feelings of restraint and nervousness so natural to a girl of high
birth had regained their hold, and were causing her torture.

'I've got all kinds of arms and pistols,' Julien replied, no less pleased to have something to say.

'You must draw up the ladder,' said Mathilde.

'It's huge; it may break the windows of the drawing-room below, or the mezzanine floor.'

'You mustn't break the windows,' Mathilde rejoined, trying in vain to
adopt an everyday conversational tone; 'you could, it seems to me,
lower the ladder by means of a rope that could be fixed to the top
rung. I always keep a supply of ropes in my room.'

And this is a woman in love! thought Julien; she dares to declare her
love! So much composure, so much wisdom in these precautions are a
clear enough indication to me that I'm not scoring a victory over M.
de Croisenois as I foolishly thought; I'm merely following in his
footsteps. When it comes down to it, what do I care! Am I in love with
her? I am

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scoring a victory over the marquis in this sense, that he'll be most
annoyed to have a successor, and even more annoyed that this successor
should be me. How disdainfully he stared at me yesterday evening at
the Café Tortoni,
*
while pretending not to recognize me! What a hostile look he had as
he went on to greet me, when he could no longer avoid doing so!

Julien had fixed the rope to the top rung of the ladder, and was
letting it down gently, leaning a long way out from the balcony to
ensure that it did not touch the windows. Just the moment to kill me,
he thought, if someone is hiding in Mathilde's room; but a profound
silence continued to reign everywhere.

The ladder touched the ground, and Julien managed to lay it down flat
in the bed of exotic flowers running the length of the wall.

'What will my mother say', said Mathilde, 'when she sees her lovely
plants all flattened...! You must throw down the rope,' she went on
with great composure. 'If someone saw it going up to the balcony, it
would be difficult to explain away.'

'And me? How me go 'way?' said Julien in a jocular tone, imitating
Creole speech. (One of the household chambermaids was born in San
Domingo.)

'You, you go through door,' said Mathilde, delighted at this idea.

Ah! how worthy this man is of all my love! she thought.

Julien had just let the rope drop into the garden when Mathilde
squeezed his arm. He thought he was being grabbed by an enemy, and
wheeled round sharply, drawing a dagger. She had thought she heard a
window being opened. They stood motionless, holding their breath. The
moon shone full upon them. The noise was not repeated, and they felt
no further anxiety.

Then their
embarrassment resumed; it was considerable on both sides. Julien made
sure the door was shut with all its bolts; he did consider looking
under the bed but didn't dare; one or two footmen could have been
posted there. Eventually, fearing lest his caution reproach him at
some future date, he did look.

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Mathilde had succumbed to all the cruel anguish of acute nervousness. She loathed the situation she was in.

'What have you done with my letters?' she asked at last.

What a good opportunity to disconcert these gentlemen if they are eavesdropping, and to avoid the battle! thought Julien.

'The first one is hidden in a fat Protestant Bible being conveyed a
good distance from here by yesterday evening's stage-coach.'

He spoke very clearly as he went into these details, in such a way as
to be heard by the persons who might be hidden in the two large
mahogany wardrobes that he hadn't dared to search.

'The other two are in the post, and bound for the same destination as the first.'

'Good God! why all these precautions?' asked Mathilde in astonishment.

Why on earth should I lie? thought Julien, and he confessed all his suspicions to her.

'So that explains why your letters were so cold, my love!' exclaimed Mathilde, sounding mad rather than tender.

Julien did not notice this nuance of tone. The familiarity of her
words made him lose his head, or at any rate his suspicions vanished:
he plucked up the courage to put his arms round this beautiful girl
who inspired in him such respect. He was pushed away, but
half-heartedly.

He appealed to his
memory, just as he had done previously at Besançon with Amanda Binet,
and recited several of the finest passages from
La Nouvelle Héloöse
.

'You have the heart of a man,' replied the lady, without paying much
attention to his fine phrases; 'I wanted to put your bravery to the
test, I must confess, my dearest. Your initial suspicions and your
determination show you to be even more intrepid than I thought.'

It was costing Mathilde an effort to use terms of endearment, and she
was clearly more preoccupied by this strange manner of speaking than
with the meaning of what she was saying. The familiarity of her words,
devoid of any tender tone, gave Julien no pleasure: he was astonished
at the total absence of happiness; to induce it he eventually had
recourse to his

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reason. He could see he was esteemed by this girl who had so much
pride and never praised anyone unreservedly; this consideration
enabled him to feel a form of happiness stemming from self-esteem.

It was not, admittedly, the sweet sensation enveloping his whole
being that he had sometimes felt with Mme de Rênal. There was nothing
tender about his feelings on this first occasion. It was the more
intense happiness of ambition, and Julien was above all else
ambitious. He talked again about the people he had suspected and the
precautions he had devised. As he spoke, he was thinking about the
means of taking advantage of his victory.

Mathilde, who was still highly embarrassed and seemed aghast at what
she had done, appeared delighted to find a subject of conversation.
They talked of ways of seeing each other again. Julien relished the
resourcefulness and bravery he again demonstrated during the course of
this discussion. They were dealing with people with great foresight;
little Tanbeau was certainly a spy, but Mathilde and he weren't
lacking in ingenuity either. What could be easier than meeting in the
library to arrange everything?

'I
can be seen in any part of the house without arousing suspicions,'
Julien added, 'even to the point of going into Mme de La Mole's room.'
This was the only way of reaching her daughter's room. If Mathilde
thought it better for him to arrive by ladder every time, his heart
would be wild with joy at exposing himself to this trivial danger.

Listening to him talk, Mathilde was shocked by his air of triumph. So
he's my master! she said to herself. She was already racked by
remorse. Her reason was appalled by the signal folly she had just
committed. If she had been able to, she would have destroyed herself
and Julien. When from time to time her will-power silenced her
remorse, feelings of awkwardness and suffering modesty made her acutely
unhappy. She had in no way foreseen the dreadful state she was in.

But I must say something to him, she told herself at length, it's
part of the conventions; one speaks to one's lover. And then, to
fulfil a duty, with a tenderness that was far more in the words she
used than in the sound of her voice, she told

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him of the various resolutions she had taken concerning him over the past few days.

She had decided that if he was bold enough to reach her room with the
help of the gardener's ladder, as instructed, she would be entirely
his. But never had anyone adopted a colder or more polite tone of
voice to say such tender things. Up until that point, the assignation
had been chilly as ice. It was enough to put anyone right off love.
What a moral lesson for a rash young girl! Is it worth sacrificing
one's future for such a moment?

After much wavering, which might have struck a superficial observer as
the effect of the most determined hatred, so difficult was it for a
woman's feelings of self-respect to yield even to such strong
determination on her part, in the end Mathilde gave herself to him as a
compliant mistress.

To tell the
truth, the excitement she showed was somewhat contrived. Passionate
love was still rather more of a model to be imitated than a reality.

Mlle de La Mole thought she had a duty to fulfil towards herself and
her lover. The poor fellow, she said to herself, has shown consummate
bravery; he's got to be happy, or else I'm the one lacking character.
But she would willingly have paid the price of an eternity of
unhappiness to be spared the cruel obligation that was upon her.

Despite the terrible extent to which she was forcing herself, she kept perfect control over what she said.

Not a single regret or reproach emerged to spoil that night, which
struck Julien as strange rather than happy. What a contrast, great
heavens! with the last twenty-four hours he had spent in Verrières!
These fine Parisian ways have found the secret of spoiling everything,
even love, he said to himself with extreme injustice.

He was indulging in these reflections standing upright in one of the
large mahogany wardrobes where she had put him at the first signs of
noise from the adjoining suite, which was Mme de La Mole's. Mathilde
followed her mother to Mass, the maids soon left the rooms, and Julien
escaped easily before they returned to finish their work.

He got on his horse and sought out the most remote spots in

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one of the forests near Paris. He was far more amazed than happy. The
happiness which took hold of him from time to time was like that of a
young sub-lieutenant who, at the outcome of some amazing action, has
just been made a colonel on the spot by the commander in chief; he
felt himself raised to a great height. Everything that had been above
him the day before was at his side now, or else beneath him. The
further away Julien rode, the more his happiness gradually increased.

If there was no tenderness in his heart, it was because, strange as
this word may seem, in all her conduct towards him, Mathilde had been
carrying out a duty. There had been nothing unexpected for her in any
of the events of that night, apart from the unhappiness and the shame
she had experienced, instead of the perfect bliss depicted in novels.

Could I have made a mistake? Could it be that I'm not in love with him after all? she wondered.

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I now mean to be serious;--it is time Since laughter now-a-days is
deem'd too serious A jest at vice by virtue's called a crime.

Don Juan
, C. XIII

SHE did not appear at dinner. In the evening she came into the
drawing-room for a moment, but did not look at Julien. This conduct
struck him as strange; but, he thought, I don't know their customs:
she'll give me some good reason for all this. Nevertheless, driven by
the most extreme curiosity, he studied the expression on Mathilde's
face; he could not conceal from himself that she had a hard, hostile
look. She was manifestly not the same woman who on the previous night
had felt or feigned moments of ecstasy that were too excessive to be
genuine.

The next day and the day
after she showed the same coldness; she did not look at him or notice
his existence. Julien, consumed by the most acute anxiety, could not
have been further from the feelings of triumph which were all he had
experienced on the first day. Could this by any chance, he wondered,
be a return to virtue? But this word was really rather bourgeois for
the haughty Mathilde.

In everyday
situations she scarcely believes in religion, thought Julien; she's
attached to it as something beneficial to the interests of her caste.

But may she not out of mere delicacy be reproaching herself bitterly
for the lapse she has committed? Julien believed himself to be her
first lover.

But, he said to himself
at the other moments, it has to be admitted that there's nothing
innocent, uncomplicated or tender in her behaviour; I've never seen
her act more haughtily. Could she despise me? It would be worthy of her
to reproach herself with what she has done for me, merely on account
of my lowly birth.

While Julien, filled with the prejudices he had drawn from

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