7 Again, the cordon bleu of the Order of the Holy Spirit (see note for p. 264, ll. 14–15).
The Red and the Black
Whether by chance, or because Madame de la Mole had been careful to arrange it that way, Mathilde was not left alone at any time during the entire day. But that evening, as they were going from the dining room into the drawing room, she found a moment to say to Julien: "Don't think this is an excuse, on my part, but my mother has just decided that one of her maids is going to spend nights in my room." The day went by like lightning. Julien was bursting with joy. Starting at seven in the morning, the next day, he was at his place in the library. He hoped Mademoiselle de la Mole would take the trouble to come there: he had written her an enormously long letter. He did not see her until hours later, at lunch. She'd done her hair, this time, with immense care: with incredible artfulness, all the hair she had cut off seemed never to have disappeared. She looked at Julien, once or twice, but her eyes were polite and calm, and there was no longer any question of calling him my master. Julien's astonishment stopped him from breathing...Mathilde was reproaching herself for virtually everything she had done for him. After more mature thought, she'd decided he was someone, not perhaps completely common, but at least not sufficiently extraordinary to deserve all the strange foolishness she had dared on his behalf. All in all, she was scarcely thinking about love; she was wearied by love, that day. Julien's heart was leaping like that of a boy of sixteen. Terrible doubt, amazement, despair, all took their turn, during lunch, which seemed to him to last forever. As soon as he could decently rise from the table, he very nearly threw himself, rather than merely running, toward the stable, saddled his horse without waiting for a stable hand, and left at a gallop. He dreaded dishonoring himself by some show of weakness. "I need to kill my heart with physical exertion, with fatigue," he said to himself as he galloped in the Meudon woods.8 "What have I done, what have I said, to deserve such a disgrace? "Today, I must do nothing, I must say nothing," he thought, as he returned. "I'm just as dead physically as I am mentally. Monsieur Julien is no longer alive. This is his corpse that keeps on moving."