Part 2 Chapter 14
A Girl's ThoughtsSo much perplexity? So many sleepless nights! Good God! Am Imaking myself despicable? He will despise me himself. But he'sleaving, he's going.
ALFRED DE MUSSETIt was not without an inward struggle that Mathilde had brought herself to write. Whatever might have been the beginning of her interest inJulien, it soon overcame the pride which, ever since she had been awareof herself, had reigned alone in her heart. That cold and haughty spiritwas carried away for the first time by a passionate sentiment. But if thisovercame her pride, it was still faithful to the habits bred of pride. Twomonths of struggle and of novel sensations had so to speak altered herwhole moral nature.
Mathilde thought she had happiness in sight. This prospect, irresistibleto a courageous spirit combined with a superior intellect, had to make along fight against dignity and every sentiment of common duty. One dayshe entered her mother's room, at seven o'clock in the morning, beggingher for leave to retire to Villequier. The Marquise did not even deign toanswer her, and recommended her to go back to her bed. This was thelast effort made by plain sense and the deference paid to accepted ideas.
The fear of wrongdoing and of shocking the ideas held as sacred bythe Caylus, the de Luz, the Croisenois, had little or no hold over her;such creatures as they did not seem to her to be made to understand her;she would have consulted them had it been a question of buying a carriage or an estate. Her real terror was that Julien might be displeasedwith her.
'Perhaps, too, he has only the outward appearance of a superiorperson.'
She abhorred want of character, it was her sole objection to the handsome young men among whom she lived. The more gracefully theymocked at everything which departed from the fashion, or which followed it wrongly when intending to follow it, the more they condemnedthemselves in her eyes.
They were brave, and that was all. 'And besides, how are they brave?'
she asked herself: 'in a duel. But the duel is nothing more now than aformality. Everything is known beforehand, even what a man is to saywhen he falls. Lying on the grass, his hand on his heart, he must extend ahandsome pardon to his adversary and leave a message for a fair onewho is often imaginary, or who goes to a ball on the day of his death, forfear of arousing suspicion.
'A man will face danger at the head of a squadron all glittering withsteel, but a danger that is solitary, strange, sudden, truly ugly?
'Alas!' said Mathilde, 'it was at the Court of Henri in that one foundmen great by character as well as by birth! Ah, if Julien had served at Jarnac or at Moncontour, I should no longer be in doubt. In those days ofstrength and prowess, Frenchmen were not mere dolls. The day of battlewas almost the day of least perplexity.
'Their life was not imprisoned like an Egyptian mummy, within an envelope always common to them all, always the same. Yes,' she went on,'there was more true courage in crossing the town alone at eleven o'clockat night, after leaving the Hotel de Soissons, occupied by Catherine de'
Medici, than there is today in dashing to Algiers. A man's life was a succession of hazards. Nowadays civilisation has banished hazard, there isno room for the unexpected. If it appears in our ideas, there are not epigrams enough to cope with it; if it appears in events, no act of cowardiceis too great for our fear. Whatever folly our fear makes us commit is excused us. Degenerate and boring age! What would Boniface de La Molehave said if, raising his severed head from the tomb, he had seen, in1793, seventeen of his descendants allow themselves to be penned likesheep, to be guillotined a day or two later? Their death was certain, but itwould have been in bad form to defend themselves and at least kill a Jacobin or two. Ah! In the heroic age of France, in the days of Boniface deLa Mole, Julien would have been the squadron commander, and mybrother the young priest, properly behaved, with wisdom in his eyes andreason on his lips.'
A few months since, Mathilde had despaired of meeting anyone a littledifferent from the common pattern. She had found a certain happiness in allowing herself to write to various young men of fashion. This act ofboldness, so unconventional, so imprudent in a young girl, might dis-honour her in the eyes of M. de Croisenois, of his father, the Duc deChaulnes, and of the whole house of Chaulnes, who, seeing the projectedmarriage broken off, would wish to know the reason. At that time, on thenight after she had written one of these letters, Mathilde was unable tosleep. But these letters were mere replies.
Now she had ventured to say that she was in love. She had writtenfirst (what a terrible word!) to a man in the lowest rank of society.
This circumstance assured her, in the event of discovery, eternal disgrace. Which of the women who came to see her mother would dare totake her part? What polite expression could be put into their mouths tolessen the shock of the fearful contempt of the drawing-rooms?
And even to speak to a man was fearful, but to write! 'There are thingswhich one does not write,' Napoleon exclaimed when he heard of thesurrender of Baylen. And it was Julien who had told her of this saying!
As though teaching her a lesson in advance.
But all this was still nothing, Mathilde's anguish had other causes.
Oblivious of the horrible effect upon society, of the ineradicable blot, theuniversal contempt, for she was outraging her caste, Mathilde was writing to a person of a very different nature from the Croisenois, the de Luz,the Caylus.
The depth, the strangeness of Julien's character had alarmed her, evenwhen she was forming an ordinary relation with him. And she was going to make him her lover, possibly her master!
'What claims will he not assert, if ever he is in a position to do as helikes with me? Very well! I shall say to myself like Medea: "Midst all theseperils, I have still MYSELF."'
Julien had no reverence for nobility of blood, she understood. Worse,still, perhaps, he felt no love for her!
In these final moments of tormenting doubts, she was visited by ideasof feminine pride. 'Everything ought to be strange in the lot of a girl likemyself,' cried Mathilde, with impatience. And so the pride that had beeninculcated in her from her cradle began to fight against her virtue. It wasat this point that Julien's threatened departure came to precipitateevents.
(Such characters are fortunately quite rare.) Late that night, Julien was malicious enough to have an extremelyheavy trunk carried down to the porter's lodge; to carry it, he summonedthe footman who was courting Mademoiselle de La Mole's maid. 'Thisdevice may lead to no result,' he said to himself, 'but if it proves successful, she will think that I have gone.' He went to sleep, highly delightedwith his trick. Mathilde never closed an eye.
Next morning, at a very early hour, Julien left the house unobserved,but returned before eight o'clock.
No sooner was he in the library than Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared on the threshold. He handed her his answer. He thought that itwas incumbent upon him to speak to her; this, at least, was the most polite course, but Mademoiselle de La Mole would not listen to him andvanished. Julien was overjoyed, he had not known what to say to her.
'If all this is not a trick arranged with Comte Norbert, plainly it musthave been my frigid glance that has kindled the freakish love which thisgirl of noble birth has taken it into her head to feel for me. I should be alittle too much of a fool if I ever allowed myself to be drawn into feelingany attraction towards the great flaxen doll.' This piece of reasoning lefthim more cold and calculating than he had ever been.
'In the battle that is preparing,' he went on, 'pride of birth will be like ahigh hill, forming a military position between her and myself. It is therethat we must manoeuvre. I have done wrong to remain in Paris; thispostponement of my departure cheapens me, and exposes my flank if allthis is only a game. What danger was there in my going? I was foolingthem, if they are fooling me. If her interest in me has any reality, I wasincreasing that interest an hundredfold.'
Mademoiselle de La Mole's letter had so flattered Julien's vanity that,while he laughed at what was happening to him, he had forgotten tothink seriously of the advantages of departure.
It was a weakness of his character to be extremely sensitive to his ownfaults. He was extremely annoyed at this instance of his weakness, andhad almost ceased to think of the incredible victory which had precededthis slight check when, about nine o'clock, Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared on the threshold of the library, flung him a letter, and fled.
'It appears that this is to be a romance told in letters,' he said, as hepicked this one up. 'The enemy makes a false move, now I am going tobring coldness and virtue into play.'
The letter called for a definite answer with an arrogance which increased his inward gaiety. He gave himself the pleasure of mystifying,for the space of two pages, the people who might wish to make a fool ofhim, and it was with a fresh pleasantry that he announced, towards theend of his reply, his decision to depart on the following morning.
This letter finished: 'The garden can serve me as a post office,' hethought, and made his way there. He looked up at the window of Mademoiselle de La Mole's room.
It was on the first floor, next to her mother's apartment, but there wasa spacious mezzanine beneath.
This first floor stood so high, that, as he advanced beneath the lime-alley, letter in hand, Julien could not be seen from Mademoiselle de LaMole's window. The vault formed by the limes, which were admirablypleached, intercepted the view.
'But what is this!' Julien said to himself, angrily, 'another imprudence!
If they have decided to make a fool of me, to let myself be seen with aletter in my hand, is to play the enemy's game.'
Norbert's room was immediately above his sister's, and if Julienemerged from the alley formed by the pleached branches of the limes,the Count and his friends would be able to follow his every movement.
Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared behind her closed window; hehalf showed her his letter; she bowed her head. At once Julien ran up tohis own room, and happened to meet, on the main staircase, the fairMathilde, who snatched the letter with perfect composure and laughingeyes.
'What passion there was in the eyes of that poor Madame de Renal,'
Julien said to himself, 'when, even after six months of intimate relations,she ventured to receive a letter from me! Never once, I am sure, did shelook at me with a laugh in her eyes.'
He did not express to himself so clearly the rest of his comment; washe ashamed of the futility of his motives? 'But also what a difference,' histhoughts added, 'in the elegance of her morning gown, in the elegance ofher whole appearance! On catching sight of Mademoiselle de La Molethirty yards off, a man of taste could tell the rank that she occupies in society. That is what one may call an explicit merit.'
Still playing with his theme, Julien did not yet confess to himself thewhole of his thoughts; Madame de Renal had had no Marquis de Croisenois to sacrifice to him. He had had as a rival only that ignoble Sub Prefect M. Charcot, who had assumed the name of Maugiron, becausethe Maugirons were extinct.
At five o'clock, Julien received a third letter; it was flung at him fromthe library door. Mademoiselle de La Mole again fled. 'What a mania forwriting,' he said to himself with a laugh, 'when it is so easy for us to talk!
The enemy wishes to have my letters, that is clear, and plenty of them!'
He was in no haste to open this last. 'More elegant phrases,' he thought;but he turned pale as he read it. It consisted of eight lines only.
'I have to speak to you: I must speak to you, tonight; when one o'clockstrikes, be in the garden. Take the gardener's long ladder from beside thewell; place it against my window and come up to my room. There is amoon: no matter.'