The Red and the Black (59 page)

what had happened two days ago. Whatever their advantages over me, he
thought as he went out alone into the garden, Mathilde has never been
for any of them what she deigned to be for me twice in my life.

His wisdom stopped there. He had no understanding whatsoever of the
character of the strange person whom chance had just made absolute
mistress over his entire happiness.

He contented himself on the following day with killing himself and his
horse with exhaustion. That evening he did not attempt to approach
the blue sofa again; Mathilde was faithful to it. He noticed that
Count Norbert didn't even deign to look at him when he ran across him
in the house. He must be doing violence to his instincts, he thought,
since he's naturally so polite.

Sleep for Julien would have been bliss. In spite of physical fatigue,
his imagination was progressively invaded by all-toobewitching memories.
He did not have the wit to see that by indulging in these long rides
on horseback through the woods on the outskirts of Paris, he was only
acting upon himself and in no way upon Mathilde's heart or mind, so he
was leaving it to chance to settle his fate.

It seemed to him that one thing would bring infinite relief to his
suffering: to talk to Mathilde. Yet what would he dare say to her?

This was what he was musing deeply about at seven o'clock one morning when he suddenly saw her coming into the library.

'I know, sir, that you wish to speak to me.'

'Great heavens! Who told you so?'

'I just know, what does it matter to you? If you aren't a man of
honour, you can ruin me, or at any rate try to; but this risk, which I
don't believe to be real, certainly won't prevent me from being
frank. I don't love you any more, sir, my mad imagination has been
deceiving me...'

At this terrible
blow, distracted with love and unhappiness, Julien tried to justify
himself. Nothing could have been more absurd. Can one justify oneself
for failing to be liked? But reason had no hold over his conduct any
more. Some blind instinct drove him to delay the decision on his fate.
It seemed

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to him that as long as he was talking, all was not over. Mathilde was
not listening to his words, the sound of them irritated her, she
couldn't see how he had the audacity to interrupt her.

Virtue and pride were both causing her remorse that made her equally
wretched that morning. She was somehow devastated by the appalling idea
of having given rights over herself to a little abbé, the son of a
peasant. It's more or less, she said to herself at times when she was
exaggerating her wretchedness, as if I had a lapse with one of the
lackeys on my conscience.

With bold
and proud characters, it is only a short step from anger at oneself
to fury with others; fits of rage in such cases cause acute pleasure.

In a matter of moments, M
^lle
de La Mole reached the point of heaping upon Julien the most
outrageous expressions of scorn. She was infinitely clever, and her
cleverness excelled in the art of torturing the self-esteem of others,
and inflicting cruel wounds upon it.

For the first time in his life Julien found himself subjected to the
working of a superior mind fired by the most violent hatred of him.
Far from having even the slightest thought of defending himself at
that moment, he reached the stage of despising his own self. As he
heard himself assailed with such cruel outbursts of scorn, so cleverly
calculated to destroy any good opinion he might have of himself, it
seemed to him that Mathilde was right and that her words did not go
far enough.

As for her, she savoured
to the full the pleasure her pride took in thus punishing herself and
him for the adoration she had felt a few days before.

She had no need to improvise and think up from scratch the cruel
things she said to him with such satisfaction. She was only repeating
what the advocate for the party opposed to love had been saying in her
heart for the past week.

Every word increased Julien's wretchedness a hundredfold. He tried to escape, but M
^lle
de La Mole held him back authoritatively by the arm.

'Be so good as to observe', he said to her, 'that you're talking very loud, you'll be overheard from the next room.'

'So what!' replied M
^lle
de La Mole arrogantly, 'who shall

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dare tell me I can be heard? I want to cure that petty pride of yours
for ever of the ideas it may have got hold of concerning me.'

When Julien was able to leave the library, he was so astonished that
it made him less aware of his misery. 'Oh well! she doesn't love me
any more,' he repeated to himself out loud as if informing himself of
his situation. She loved me for a week or ten days, so it seems,
whereas I shall love her an my life.

Is this really possible, she meant nothing--nothing to me only a few days ago!

Mathilde's heart was awash with gloating pride; so she
had
been able to break it off irrevocably for ever! Triumphing so
totally over such a powerful attraction would make her perfectly happy.
As things are, this little gentleman will understand once and for all
that he doesn't and never will have any hold over me. She was so happy
that she genuinely felt no love any more at that moment.

After such an appalling and humiliating scene, love would have become
impossible for anyone less passionate than Julien. Without deviating
for a single instant from her duty to herself, M
^lle
de La
Mole had made some nasty remarks to him, so well targeted as to appear
true even when remembered in a calm frame of mind.

The conclusion Julien drew at first from such an astonishing scene
was that Mathilde's pride knew no bounds. He firmly believed that
everything was over between them for good and all, and yet at lunch
the next day he was awkward and nervous in her presence. It was not a
failing he could have been reproached with up until then. In small
matters as in important ones, he knew precisely what it was his wish
and desire to do, and he just carried it out.

That day, after lunch, when M
^me
de La Mole asked him for a seditious and at the same time rather rare
pamphlet that her priest had brought her in secret that morning,
Julien reached over to a side table for it and knocked over an old
blue china vase, as hideous as they come.

M
^me
de La Mole sprang up with a cry of distress and came over to take a close look at the ruins of her beloved vase. 'It

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was antique Japanese porcelain,' she said, 'it came from my great-aunt the Abbess of Chelles;
^*
it was a gift from the Dutch to the Duke of Orleans
^*
while he was regent, and he gave it to his daughter...'

Mathilde had followed her mother over, delighted to find in
smithereens this blue vase she thought horribly ugly. Julien was
silent and not excessively disturbed; he found M
^lle
de La Mole right next to him.

'This vase', he said to her, 'is destroyed for ever, and the same
goes for a sentiment which was once master of my heart; I beg you to
accept my apologies for all the acts of folly it caused me to commit.'
And he left the room.

'You'd really think', said M
^me
de La Mole as he walked off, 'that that M. Sorel is proud and pleased with what he's just done.'

These words went straight to Mathilde's heart. It's true, she said to
herself, my mother has guessed right, that's just what he is feeling.
Only then came an end to the joy caused by the scene she had had with
him the day before. Oh well, it's all over, she told herself with
apparent calm; it's taught me a great lesson; it was an appalling,
humiliating mistake! It'll make me be good for the rest of my life.

Why wasn't I telling the truth? Julien thought; why does the love I felt for this mad creature go on tormenting me?

This love, far from dwindling to nothing as he hoped, grew in leaps
and bounds. She's mad, it's true, he said to himself, but is she any
the less adorable for it? Could anyone be prettier? Didn't everything
the most elegant civilization can offer in the way of intense
pleasures jostle, so to speak, to be represented in the person of M
^lle
de La Mole? These memories of past happiness swept Julian up and rapidly destroyed everything reason had accomplished.

Reason struggles in vain against memories of this kind; its stern attempts only increase their charm.

Twenty-four hours after shattering the old Japanese porcelain vase, Julien was decidedly one of the unhappiest of men.

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For everything I describe I have seen; and if I may
have been deceived when I saw it, I am most
certainly not deceiving you when telling you of it.

Letter to the Author

THE marquis summoned him; M. de La Mole looked years younger; there was a glint in his eye.

'Let's have a word about your memory,' he said to Julien, 'they say
it's prodigious! Could you learn four pages off by heart and go and
recite them in London? But without altering a single word . . .'

The marquis was crumpling up that day's copy of
La Quotidienne
^*
in annoyance, and trying in vain to conceal his deeply serious
expression--one that Julien had never seen on his face before, even
when the subject of his lawsuit with Frilair came up. Julien had
sufficient experience of life by then to sense that he must appear to
be completely taken in by the careless tone he was being treated to.

'This issue of
La Quotidienne
is perhaps not very entertaining, but if his lordship is agreeable,
tomorrow morning it will be my privilege to recite it to him in its
entirety.'

'What! Even the announcements?'

'Precisely so, and without a single word missing.'

'Do you give me your word on it?' asked the marquis with sudden gravity.

'Yes, sir, fear of breaking it would be the only thing capable of interfering with my memory.'

'You see, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I shall not
ask you to swear never to repeat what you are about to hear; I know
you too well to insult you like that. I have already vouched for you;
I'm going to take you along to a salon in which twelve people will be
gathered; you will make a note of what each one says.

'Don't worry, it won't be a rambling conversation, each person will speak in turn--I don't mean in ordered speeches,'

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the marquis added, resuming the knowing and light-hearted look which
came so naturally to him. 'While we are speaking, you will write
twenty pages or so of notes; you will come back here with me and we'll
reduce these twenty pages to four. These four pages will be what
you'll recite to me tomorrow morning instead of that whole copy of
La Quotidienne
.
You will leave immediately afterwards; you'll have to go post haste
like a young man travelling for his own pleasure. Your aim will be to
pass completely unnoticed. You will arrive in the entourage of an
important personage. There you will need greater skill. It's a
question of fooling his whole entourage; for among his secretaries and
his servants there are people in the pay of our enemies, who are
lying in wait for our agents to intercept them as they go about their
business. You will have a letter of recommendation of no consequence.

'At the instant when his excellency looks at you, you will pull out
my watch you see here, which I'll lend you for the journey. Take it on
your person now, then that's dealt with, and give me yours.

'The duke himself will deign to write out at your dictation the four pages you'll have learned off by heart.

'Once that's done, but not before, please note, you will be at
liberty, if his excellency questions you, to give him an account of
the meeting you are about to take part in.

'What will keep you from getting bored during your journey is that
between Paris and the minister's residence there are people who would
like nothing better than to put a bullet into the Reverend Father
Sorel. At which point his mission is over, and I foresee a long delay;
for how, my dear fellow, are we to hear of your death? Your zeal
cannot extend to sending us word of it.

'Run off at once and buy a complete set of clothes,' the marquis went
on gravely. 'Adopt the fashion of two years ago. This evening you've
got to look rather negligent in your dress. For the journey, on the
other hand, you will be dressed as usual. Does this surprise you, are
you canny enough to guess the reason? Yes, my good fellow, one of the
venerable figures whose opinion you are going to hear is perfectly
capable of passing on information, on the strength of which you may
well

-384-

find yourself one evening being given opium if not worse in some friendly inn where you have ordered supper.'

'It would be better', said Julien, 'to do an extra thirty leagues and
not take the direct route. We're talking about Rome, I imagine . . .'

The marquis adopted an air of
haughtiness and displeasure that Julien had not seen him wear in such
an extreme form since that time at Bray-le-Haut.

'That, sir, you will find out when I see fit to tell you. I don't like questions.'

'It wasn't one,' Julien replied fervently; 'I swear it, sir, I was
thinking out loud, I was running through my mind for the safest
route.'

'Yes, it seems that your mind
was quite elsewhere. Don't ever forget that an ambassador, even at
your age, mustn't appear to be forcing confidences.'

Julien was very mortified: he was in the wrong. His selfesteem was looking for an excuse and failing to find one.

'You must realize', added M. de La Mole, 'that one invariably allows
one's emotions to get involved when one has done something silly.'

An hour later Julien was in the marquis's antechamber, turned out in
the manner of a subordinate, with out-of-date clothes, a cravat of
dubious whiteness, and something ridiculously pompous about his whole
appearance.

On seeing him the marquis
burst out laughing, and only then was his faith in Julien completely
vindicated. If this young man betrays me, M. de La Mole said to
himself, who
can
I trust? And yet if you're involved in a lot
of business, you have to trust someone. My son and his brilliant
friends of the same ilk have enough courage and loyalty for a whole
army; if it were a question of fighting, they would perish on the
steps of the throne, they are competent in everything . . . except
what's required at this juncture. Damned if I can imagine one of them
being able to learn off four pages by heart and travel a hundred
leagues without being discovered. Norbert would know how to get
himself killed like his ancestors, but that's a conscript's privilege
too . . .

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