2 Fraudulent memoirs of famous personages of the revolutionary era proliferated in the early nineteenth century.
The Red and the Black
quite charming—almost the only moral charm she enjoyed. Boredom, generated by hypocrisy and all his virtuous talk, threw him into such immoderate judgments. It was his imagination he was exciting, rather than letting himself be swept away by love. Only when he'd fallen into long reveries about Mademoiselle de La Mole's lovely figure, and about her superb taste in clothing, her exceedingly white hands, her beautiful arms, the disinvoltura, the easy indifference of all her movements, did he find himself in love. Then, to round off her charms, he thought her a Catherine de Médici. There could be nothing too profound, or too wicked, for the nature he assigned her. It was the ideal of all the Maslons, the de Frilairs, the Castanedas, the ideal he'd admired as a child. In other words, it was Paris's ideal. Has there ever been anything more amusing than believing Parisians either profound or wicked? "It's possible that this trio is making fun of me," thought Julien. You can't know him very well, reader, if you haven't long since noticed the dark, cold expression his face took on when Mathilde looked at him. Bitter irony repelled her friendly assurances, as the amazed Mademoiselle de La Mole discovered, when she two or three times risked such gestures. Stung by this sudden strangeness, the young girl's cold, bored, overintellectual heart became as passionate as her nature could be. But Mathilde's character also contained a great deal of pride, and the birth of an emotion that made all her happiness depend on someone else gave rise, as well, to a somber sadness. Julien had by now learned enough, since he'd come to Paris, to recognize what was and what wasn't the dry sadness of boredom. Instead of being greedy for evening parties, for shows and any sort of distraction, as she had been, she avoided them. Music sung by Frenchmen bored Mathilde to death, yet Julien, whose regular duty it was to attend high society's exits from the opera, noted that she made sure to have herself escorted to the opera just as often as she could. He fancied he could tell that she had lost some of that perfection, always so evident, before, in everything she did. Her remarks to her friends were sometimes outrageously sharp, to the point of nastiness. He thought she'd fallen onto hard times with the Marquis de Croisenois. "This young man must be desperately in love with money, not to throw over the girl, no matter how rich she might be," Julien thought. He himself, indignant at such affronts to masculine dignity, turned even colder to her. He often gave her answers bordering on the impolite. However determined he might be not to let himself be deceived by Mathilde's shows of interest, on certain days they were so obvious that Julien, whose eyes had begun to be wide open, found her very pretty and was almost bowled over. "These young aristocrats are so shrewd, and so long-suffering," he told himself, "that in the end they'll defeat my terribly limited experience." He had to leave all this, for a while. The marquis had just put him in charge of a number of small estates, and some châteaux, in lower Languedoc. A trip to the south of France was required; the marquis gave his grudging consent. Except in matters concerning the marquis's highest ambitions, Julien had become his second self. "After all, they haven't snared me," Julien said to himself as he got ready for his departure. "Whether Mademoiselle de La Mole's witticisms about these gentlemen were genuine, or only intended to make me trust her, it's been amusing. If there's no conspiracy against this carpenter's son, I simply can't fathom Mademoiselle de La Mole. But she's even less understandable to the Marquis de Croisenois. Yesterday, for example, her bad temper was clearly real, and I had the pleasure of seeing a young nobleman, just as rich as I am penniless
Chapter Thirteen: A Conspiracy
and plebian, forced to give up and acknowledge me the favored one. That's the greatest triumph I've had; it will still amuse me as I ride along the plains of Languedoc." He had kept his departure secret, but Mathilde had known for a long time that, the next day, he was to leave Paris. She resorted to a severe headache, made worse by the dining room's stuffy air. She walked up and down the garden, and her quips so bloodied Norbert, the Marquis de Croisenois, de Caylus, de Luz, and several other young men who had dined with the de La Moles, that she finally drove them away. She was looking very strangely at Julien. "Her expression is perhaps part of the comedy," thought Julien, "but that rapid breathing—all that agitation! Bah!" he told himself. "Who am I to pass judgment on all this? This is the Parisian woman at her most sublime, her most subtle. This quick breath, which almost moved me, is something she must have learned from Léontine Fay,3 that actress she loves so much." They had been left alone; their conversation visibly faded away. "No! Julien feels nothing for me," Mathilde was telling herself, truly miserable. As he was saying good night, she gripped his arm: "You'll have a letter from me, tonight," she told him, her voice so changed that he could not recognize it. This immediately moved him. "My father," she went on, "quite properly values the services you render him. You must not leave tomorrow. Find some excuse." And then she ran away. Her figure was charming. It would be impossible to have prettier feet; she ran so gracefully that Julien was entranced. But who could imagine his next thought, after she had disappeared? He was offended by the imperative tone with which she had said: "You must not." Louis XV, as he was dying, was deeply offended at the words "you must not," spoken most awkwardly by his chief physician. And Louis XV was hardly a social climber. An hour later, a servant brought Julien a letter. It was a plain declaration of love. "Her style isn't too terribly affected," Julien said to himself, trying to make use of literary observations to restrain a joy that made him suck in his cheeks and, in spite of himself, laugh out loud. "So!" he cried suddenly, his emotions too strong to be held in. "I, a poor peasant, I've gotten a declaration of love from a great lady! "Me, I haven't done so badly," he added, checking his joy as much as he could. "I've been able to preserve my personal dignity. I've not said I love her." He set himself to studying her writing: Mademoiselle de La Mole employed an extremely well-shaped English hand. He felt the need for something physical, to distract him from a joy that was very nearly delirium. "Your departure compels me to speak...It would be beyond my endurance not to see you any longer." A thought struck Julien; it was like making a discovery. He broke off his examination of Mathilde's letter, and his joy swelled. "I'll bring it to the Marquis de Croisenois!" he cried silently. "I who say nothing but serious words! And he's so handsome! He has a mustache, a wonderful uniform. He's never at a loss for words, and at exactly the right time, something witty and subtle." Julien experienced a delightful moment. He went wandering up and down the garden, crazed with happiness. Later, he went up to the Marquis de La Mole's office room, for the marquis had fortunately not gone out that night, and explained that, happily, he wouldn't have to leave