5 A misquotation of Corneille's Médée. (For Corneille, see note for p. 79, l. 3.)
Chapter Fourteen: A Young Girl's Thoughts
footman. "Perhaps this won't accomplish anything," he said to himself, "but if it succeeds, she'll think I've gone." He went to bed happy, extremely pleased at his little stratagem. Mathilde never closed her eyes. The next day, very early in the morning, Julien went out without being noticed. But he came back before eight o'clock. He'd barely walked into the library when Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared at the door. He gave her his written reply. He thought he ought to speak to her, and certainly there'd be no more convenient time, but Mademoiselle de La Mole refused to listen, and disappeared. Julien found this captivating: he would not have known what to say to her. "If this isn't just a game that she and Count Norbert are playing, then the fire of such a strange love, which this girl of high birth conceives she feels for me, must have been lit by the icy-cold looks I've showered on her. I'd be a hopelessly stupid idiot if I ever let myself actually like this tall blonde doll." Thinking this way let him be colder and more calculating than ever before. "In the coming combat," he added, "pride of birth will be like a tall hill, constituting a military position between her and me. There's where we'll have to maneuver. I was very wrong to stay in Paris: putting off my departure is detrimental, and it leaves me vulnerable, if all this is indeed merely a game. What risk was there in going away? I'd be making fools of them, if they were making a fool of me. If she's really interested in me, I'd be heightening it a hundredfold." Mademoiselle de La Mole's letter had so intensely gratified Julien's vanity that, while relishing what had happened, he'd forgotten to think very seriously about the utility of removing himself from the scene. It was a fatal flaw in his character, this extraordinary sensitivity to his mistakes. This one deeply upset him; he'd almost stopped thinking of the incredible victory he'd had just before this minor setback, when, toward nine o'clock, Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared, barely inside the library door; after throwing a letter to him, she ran off. "It looks as if this is going to be an epistolary novel," he said, picking it up. "This is an enemy feint; me, I'm going to respond with coldness and virtue." With a haughtiness that fueled his inner delight, the letter asked for a decisive reply. He amused himself, as he wrote his two pages, by playfully toying with the people who might be trying to make a fool of him and, still in this humor, toward the end of his response, announced that he would be leaving the following morning. His letter was done. "The garden will do very well for sending it to her," he thought, so there he went. He looked up at Mademoiselle de La Mole's window. It was on the second floor, next to her mother's rooms; but underneath her window there was a large mezzanine. The ground floor had been raised high enough so that, walking along the line of linden trees, his letter in his hand, Julien could not have been seen from Mathilde's window. The tall, arching trees got in the way. "Really!" Julien said to himself, annoyed. "Yet another risky development! If someone's trying to make a fool of me, just having me seen with a letter in my hand will do very nicely; my enemies will be pleased." Norbert's room was just above his sister's, and if Julien were to walk out from under the arching vault of the tall trees, Norbert and his friends would be able to follow his every movement. Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared behind the glass; he let her have a quick glimpse of his letter; she bent her head in acknowledgment. He turned at once and ran back to his room
The Red and the Black
and, as it happened, met on the stairs the lovely Mathilde, who snatched up the letter, completely at her ease, her eyes laughing. "What passion there was in poor Madame de Rênal's eyes," Julien said to himself, "if, even after six months of our relationship, she dared accept a letter from me! Never in her life, I think, did she ever look at me with laughing eyes." The rest of his reaction was not anything like so clear: Was he ashamed of how petty he was being? "But what a difference, too," his thought continued, "in the elegance of her dressing gown, the elegance of everything she wears!" Just seeing Mademoiselle de La Mole, from thirty feet away, any man of taste could guess her social standing. That was definitely a positive thing. Caught up in his jesting, Julien still did not admit all he was thinking. There had been no Marquis de Croisenois for Madame de Rênal to sacrifice for him. His only rival had been that lowly deputy governor, Monsieur Charcot, who'd given himself the name de Maugiron, since there were no more de Maugirons. At five, Julien received a third letter; she'd thrown it to him, from the library door. Once again, Mademoiselle de La Mole ran away. "What a mania for writing!" he said to himself, laughing, "when conversation is so readily available! The enemy wants my letters, that's obvious—and they want more than one!" He was in no hurry to open this one. "Still such elegant phrases," he was thinking, but then he turned pale as he read on. There were only eight lines: I need to talk to you; I must talk to you, and tonight. When the clock sounds an hour after midnight, be in the garden. Take the gardener's big ladder from near the well; place it against my window and climb up to me. There'll be a full moon: it doesn't matter.
Chapter Fifteen: Is it a Conspiracy?
Chapter Fifteen: Is it a Conspiracy? What a bitter space between conceiving and executing a noble project! What empty terrors! What indecision! It's life and death—but it's far more: it's honor! —Schiller "This is becoming serious," Julien thought,..."and a bit too clear," he added after further thought. "Hmm! This beautiful lady can talk to me in the library, with a freedom that, by the grace of God, is absolute. The marquis is so afraid I might show him my accounts, he never walks in. Hah! Monsieur de La Mole and Count Norbert, the only people who ever appear here, are away virtually all day long. It's perfectly easy to see them, when they're returning— and my sublime Mathilde, for whose hand a ruling prince would not be too noble, wants me to be guilty of something so abominably rash. "Plainly, they either want to ruin me or, at least, to make fun of me. First they wanted me to ruin myself with my letters; my letters were too cautious. Well! They've got to have something clearer than daylight. These handsome little fellows think I'm either extremely stupid or a hopeless fop. The devil! In full moonlight, to climb up a ladder, like that, to a second story twenty-five feet high! They'd have plenty of time to see me, even from the neighboring houses. How handsome I'll look, up on my ladder!" Julien went up to his room and, whistling, began to pack his trunk. He'd made up his mind to leave, and not to bother replying. But this sensible solution did not put his heart at ease. "Suppose, by some odd chance," he suddenly said to himself, his trunk now closed, "suppose Mathilde is acting in good faith! Then, in her eyes, I'd be playing the role of a perfect coward. I have no noble birth, so I have to have a great character—cash on demand, and no easy little forgeries—and that character has to be solidly proven: the deeds need to speak for themselves..." He spent a quarter of an hour in reflection. "Why try to deny it?" he finally said. "I'll be a coward in her eyes. I'd give up not only the most brilliant woman in high society, as everyone said at Duke de Retz's ball, but also the divine pleasure of seeing the Marquis de Croisenois, a duke's son who will himself be a duke, sacrificed for me. A charming young man, with all the qualities I lack: quick wit, birth, money. "I'll be sorry the rest of my life—not for her, there are lots of mistresses! 'But there's only one honor!' as Corneille's old Don Diego1 says—and here, facing the first danger I've been offered, I clearly and simply pull back—because that duel with Monsieur de Beauvoisis was almost a joke. This is entirely different. I might be shot by a servant, at point-blank range, but that's not the most serious risk. I might be disgraced. "This is getting serious, my boy," he added, clownishly, brightly. "It's all about 'onor, it is. What poor devil, thrown so far down by chance, ever gets an opportunity like this? I'll do well with other women, yes, but never one so high up..." He thought for a long time, walking rapidly up and down his room, from time to time stopping abruptly. A magnificent marble bust of de Richelieu was kept in the room; in spite of himself, he found himself drawn to it. De Richelieu seemed to be looking at him rather harshly, as if scolding him for lacking the audacity so proper and natural to the French character. "In your time, you great man, would I have hesitated? "At the worst," he finally told himself, "let's suppose this is all a trap; it remains very dark and exceedingly compromising for a young girl. They know I'm not someone who'll stay silent. They'd have to kill me. That was fine in 1574, the days of Boniface de La Mole, but today's de