The Red and the Black (57 page)

I'm not the equal of all these gentlemen, nevertheless I'm the one
you love...', perhaps she would have been glad to be seen through; at
any rate, success would have depended entirely on the elegance with
which Julien expressed this idea, and the moment he chose. Be that as
it may, he was coming out rather well from a situation which was
verging on the monotonous in Mathilde's eyes.

'You don't love me any more, and I adore you!' Julien said to her one
day, distracted with love and unhappiness. This was more or less the
greatest act of foolishness he could have committed.

His words destroyed in a flash all the pleasure M
^lle
de La Mole derived from talking to him about the state of her
affections. She was beginning to be surprised that after all that had
passed he did not take offence at what she was telling him; she was
even reaching the stage of imagining, just when he said this foolish
thing to her, that perhaps he didn't love her any more. Pride has no
doubt extinguished his love, she said to herself. He's not the sort of
man to let someone get away with preferring people like Caylus, de
Luz, or Croisenois, whom he admits to be so superior to him. No, I
shan't see him at my feet any more!

On the days leading up to this, in the naïvety of his misery, Julien
had often voiced sincere praise for the brilliant qualitites of these
gentlemen; he even went so far as to exaggerate them. This nuance had
not escaped M
^lle
de La Mole, she was astonished by it, but
did not guess the reason for it. In praising a rival he believed to be
loved, Julien's frenetic nature was empathizing with the rival's
happiness.

His frank, but oh so
stupid words caused everything to change in a flash: Mathilde, sure of
being loved, despised him utterly.

She was taking a stroll with him at the time of this inept remark;
she walked away, and her last glance expressed the most terrible
scorn. Back in the drawing-room she did not look at him again the
whole evening. The next day this scorn took up all her emotional
energy; gone was the impulse which for the past week had caused her to
get such pleasure from treating Julien like the most intimate of
friends; the sight of him was

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disagreeable to her. Mathilde's reaction reached the proportions of
revulsion; nothing can possibly convey the extremes of scorn she felt
when she set eyes on him.

Julien had
understood nothing of what had been happening for the past week in
Mathilde's heart, but he did discern this scorn. He had the good sense
only to appear in her presence as rarely as possible, and he never
looked at her.

But it was not without
mortal suffering that he so to speak deprived himself of her
presence. He thought he felt his misery increasing on account of it.
The courage in a man's heart can't hold out beyond this, he said to
himself. He spent his time by a little window in the rafters of the
house; the shutters had been closed with care, and from there at least
he could catch a glimpse of M
^lle
de La Mole when she appeared in the garden.

Just imagine how he felt when he saw her walking after dinner with M.
de Caylus, M. de Luz or some other man for whom she had admitted
feeling some flutterings of love in the past!

Julien had no conception of such an intensity of misery; he was on
the verge of shouting out loud; this resilient character was finally
shattered through and through.

Any thought unconnected with M
^lle
de La Mole had become hateful to him; he was incapable of writing the simplest of letters.

'You're not in your right mind,' the marquis told him.

Fearful of having his secret guessed, Julien spoke of illness and
managed to be convincing. Fortunately for him, the marquis teased him
at dinner about his forthcoming journey: Mathilde gathered that it
might be very lengthy. Julien had been keeping out of her way for some
days now, and her brilliant young men, who had everything lacking in
the pale and sombre creature she had once loved, no longer had the
power to rouse her from her dream-like state.

Any ordinary girl, she said to herself, would have sought out a
partner among these young men who are the centre of attention in any
salon; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to trail its
inspiration in the rut traced by vulgar folk.

As the consort of a man like Julien, who only lacks some of the fortune I possess, I shall constantly be the focus of

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attention, I shan't go through life unnoticed. Far from constantly
dreading a revolution like my cousins, who from fear of the common
people don't dare scold a postillion who's driving them incompetently,
I shall be sure of playing a part, and an important one too, for the
man I've chosen has character and unbounded ambition. What does he
lack? Friends, money? I'll provide them. But her mind treated Julien
somewhat as an inferior being, who can be made to love one when it
suits.

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O how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April
day; Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a
cloud takes all away!

SHAKESPEARE

PREOCCUPIED by the future and the unusual role she was hoping for,
Mathilde soon reached the point of regretting the dry, metaphysical
discussions she often had with Julien. Weary of such lofty thoughts,
sometimes too she regretted the moments of happiness she had
experienced with him; these last memories did not come without
remorse, she was overwhelmed by it at times.

But if one is to lapse, she said to herself, it is worthy of a girl
like myself only to neglect my duty for a man of quality; no one shall
say it was his pretty moustache or his graceful style on horseback
that seduced me, but his profound discussions on the future awaiting
France, his ideas on the parallel that may be drawn between the events
about to burst upon us and the revolution of 1688 in England
^*
. I've been seduced, she replied to her remorse, I'm a weak woman,
but at least I haven't been led astray like some pretty little doll by
external attributes.

If there is a revolution, why shouldn't Julien Sorel play the part of Roland,
^*
and I that of M
^me
Roland? I prefer her role to M
^me
de Staël's:
^*
immoral conduct will hold you back in our century. I'm adamant that
no one shall reproach me with a second lapse; I'd die of shame.

Mathilde's musings were not all as grave, admittedly, as the thoughts we have just transcribed.

She would look at Julien and find delightful charm in his most trivial actions.

Surely, she said to herself, I've succeeded in destroying the remotest idea he might have had that he has any rights.

The look of unhappiness and deep passion on the poor boy's

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face when he said those words of love to me a week ago more than
prove it; I must concede that it was pretty extraordinary of me to
take offence at a remark brimming with so much respect, so much
passion. Am I not his wife? This word came very naturally, and, it
must be admitted, was very pleasing. Julien still loved me after
endless conversations in which I only talked to him--and with a great
deal of cruelty, I agree-about the passing attraction which the boredom
of my life had inspired in me for these young men from high society
who give him such pangs of jealousy. Ah! if he knew what little danger
they represent for me! How wan they strike me in comparison with
him, and all exact copies one of another.

As she reflected thus, Mathilde was doodling with a pencil on a page
in her album. One of the profiles she had just finished astonished and
delighted her: it bore a striking resemblance to Julien. It's the
voice of heaven! This is one of love's miracles, she exclaimed in
rapture: without meaning to, I've done his portrait.

She ran off to her room, locked herself in, and applied herself
assiduously, trying to do a portrait of Julien; but she did not
succeed: the profile sketched by chance still remained the best
likeness. Mathilde was delighted by this: she took it as clear proof
of a grand passion.

She did not get
up from her album until very late, when the marquise summoned her to
go to the Italian Opera. She only had one thought in her head: to look
everywhere for Julien so as to get her mother to entreat him to sit
with them.

He did not turn up; the
ladies only had vulgar mortals in their box. During the whole of the
first act of the opera, Mathilde dreamed with the most intensely
passionate rapture of the man she loved; but in the second act one of
love's adages sung, admittedly, to a tune worthy of Cimarosa, pierced
her heart. The heroine of the opera was saying: 'I must punish
myself for the extremes of adoration I feel for him, I love him too
much!'

From the moment she had heard this sublime aria
^*
everything in the real world vanished for Mathilde. People spoke to
her; she did not answer; her mother scolded her, she could scarcely
bring herself to look at her. Her ecstasy reached a

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pitch of passionate exaltation, comparable in its power to the
emotion that Julien had been feeling for her over the past few days.
The divinely graceful aria filled every moment that she did not spend
thinking directly about Julien; and how strikingly applicable she found
the adage to her own situation. Thanks to her love of music, she felt
that evening the way M
^me
de Rênal always did when thinking
of Julien. Cerebral love doubtless has more wit than real love, but it
only has brief moments of enthusiasm; it is too self-conscious, it is
forever passing judgement on itself; far from leading thought astray,
it is entirely constructed out of thoughts.

Once they were back home, despite everything M
^me
de La Mole could say, Mathilde claimed to be feverish, and spent
part of the night practising this tune on her piano. She sang the
words of the famous aria which had captivated her:

Devo punirmi, devo punirmi, Se troppo amai
, etc.
^*

The outcome of this night of folly was that she believed she had succeeded in triumphing over her love.

(This page will be detrimental to the unfortunate author in more ways
than one. The unresponsive among you will accuse him of impropriety.
But he isn't insulting the young women who dazzle the Paris salons by
supposing that a single one of them is capable of the mad impulses
which spoil Mathilde's character. She is a purely imaginary figure,
^*
and besides, imagined quite without reference to the social customs
which, in the succession of centuries, will guarantee
nineteenthcentury civilization a place of such distinction.

Caution is not what is lacking in the young women who adorned the balls this winter.

I do not think either that they can be accused of being too scornful
of a brilliant fortune, horses, fine lands and everything else that
secures an agreeable situation in society. Far from seeing all these
advantages as merely boring, they generally covet them with the
greatest of constancy, and if their hearts have any passion it is for
them.

Nor is it love which directs the fortune of young men endowed with some talent like Julien; they latch on with an

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iron grip to a clique, and when the clique makes its fortune, all the
good things in society rain down upon them. Woe betide the studious
man who doesn't belong to any clique: even the most uncertain of minor
successes win be held against him, and high virtue will triumph by
robbing him. You see, sir, a novel is a mirror going along a main
road. Sometimes it reflects into your eyes the azure of the sky,
sometimes the mud of the quagmires on the road. And the man carrying
the mirror in the basket on his back gets accused by you of being
immoral! His mirror shows the mire, and you accuse the mirror! You'd
do better to accuse the road where the quagmire is, and better still
the inspector of roads who allows the water to stagnate and the
quagmire to form.

Now that it is
firmly agreed that Mathilde's character is impossible in our century,
which is no less prudent than virtuous, I am less afraid of causing
annoyance by continuing to recount the follies of this amiable girl.)

Throughout the whole of the following day she was on the look-out for
opportunities to reassure herself of her triumph over her mad
passion. Her great aim was to put Julien off in every way possible;
but not a single one of his movements escaped her.

Julien was too miserable and above all too agitated to see through
such a complicated manœuvre on the part of her passion; he was even
less able to see all the ways in which it favoured him: he fell victim
to it; his misery had never perhaps been so extreme. His actions were
so little under the control of his mind that if some embittered
philosopher had said to him: 'Make sure you take rapid advantage of it
when things are going your way, with the kind of cerebral love you
see in Paris, the same style of behaviour can't last more than two
days', he would not have understood him. But whatever his state of
exaltation, Julien had a sense of honour. His first duty was
discretion; he realized this. To seek advice, to describe his torture
to anybody at all would have been a blessed relief comparable to that
felt by a poor wretch crossing a burning desert who receives a drop of
ice-cold water from heaven. He recognized the danger, he felt afraid
of responding with a flood

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