2 A writer of popular songs in the eighteenth century.
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Mistress of Virtue
Julien shuddered: Bustos might want to sing this one, too. But Don Diego was satisfied with analysis. In fact, it was blasphemous and rather indecent. "When Madame de Fervaques got angry about this song," Don Diego went on, "I felt obliged to tell her that a woman of her standing should never read all the stupidities put into print. Whatever progress piety and sobriety may make, in France there will always be barroom literature. When she had this writer, a poor devil on half pay, thrown out of his post, worth eighteen hundred francs: 'Watch out,' I told her. 'You've attacked this rhymester with your weapons; he can answer you with his. He'll write a song about virtue. The gilt drawing rooms will support you; those who relish laughter will be repeating his epigrams.' Do you know, sir, what she answered? 'In the service of the Lord, the whole of Paris can watch me proceed to my martyrdom: it would be a new sort of spectacle for France. The people would learn to respect those of higher standing. It would be the most beautiful day of my life.' Her eyes had never been lovelier." "And she has superb eyes," exclaimed Julien. "I see you are amorously inclined...So," Don Diego resumed gravely, "she's not the constitutionally bilious type, simply swept into vengeance. Yet if, all the same, she likes doing harm, it's because she's unhappy. I suspect some inner misery. Might she be a moral prude who's weary of her profession?" Silently, and for a long minute, the Spaniard looked at him. "That's the whole question," he added soberly, "and there's where you can find some hope. I have done a great deal of reflecting on those two years, when I was very humbly in her service. Your whole future, sir lover, hangs on this basic problem: Is she a prude who's tired of being prudish, and nasty because she's miserable?" "Or else," said Altamira, finally breaking his profound silence, "could it be what I've told you twenty times? French female vanity, in a word. It's the memory of her father, the celebrated drapery merchant, which makes a naturally cheerless, dried-out constitution descend into misery. The only happiness she can find would be to live in Toledo, and be tormented, day after day, by a confessor who shows her the gaping doors of hell." As Julien was leaving: "Altamira tells me you're one of us," Don Diego told him, as ever somber. "One day you'll help us win back our freedom, so I've tried to help you in this little diversion. It would be good for you to be familiar with Madame de Fervaques's style: here are four letters written in her hand." "I'll have them copied," exclaimed Julien, "and then return them." "And you'll never tell anyone a word of what we've been saying?" "Never, on my honor," exclaimed Julien. "May God come to your aid!" the Spaniard added, as he silently escorted Altamira and Julien to the stairs. The scene had somewhat cheered our hero: he was close to smiling. "And here's pious Altamira," he said to himself, "helping me along the road to adultery." While Don Diego had been droning soberly on, Julien was listening to the house clock, striking the hours. The time for dinner grew nearer; he was going to see Mathilde again! He went home and dressed with considerable care. "Stupidity number one," he told himself, as he went down the stairs. "The prince's instructions must be followed to the letter." He went back up to his room and put on the simplest travel clothes he owned. "And now," he thought, "the next question is how to look at her." It was only five-thirty; dinner was at six. He thought he'd go to the drawing room; he found it empty. The sight of the
The Red and the Black
blue sofa moved him almost to tears; soon his cheeks were burning. "This idiotic sensitivity must be controlled," he told himself angrily. "It's betraying me." He picked up a newspaper, to help him look more assured, and walked three or four times from the drawing room to the garden. Only trembling, and completely hiding himself behind an oak tree, did he dare raise his eyes toward Mademoiselle de La Mole's window. The shutters were very tightly closed; he thought he might collapse, and stood for a long time, leaning against the oak. Then, walking unsteadily, he went to look at the gardener's ladder. The iron link, which he'd forced open, alas! under very different circumstances, had not been repaired. Carried away by a surge of madness, Julien pressed it to his lips. After wandering for some time, between the drawing room and the garden, Julien felt unbearably weary: this was an initial success of which he was very aware. "My glances will be half dead and won't give me away!" Gradually, the guests appeared in the drawing room: each time the door opened, a deadly anxiety shot through Julien's heart. They went into the dining room and seated themselves. At last, Mademoiselle de La Mole appeared, faithful as ever to her habit of keeping people waiting. She blushed quite deeply, seeing Julien: she had not been told he'd come back. Following Prince Korasoff's suggestion, Julien looked only at her hands. They were trembling. Although this discovery bothered him more than he could have said, he was still pleased to seem simply fatigued. Monsieur de La Mole spoke very highly of him. The marquise spoke to him, immediately thereafter, remarking, pleasantly, that he looked tired. Julien kept saying to himself: "I can't let myself stare at Mademoiselle de La Mole, though I mustn't seem to be avoiding her glance. I need to really look just as I did a week before my misfortune..." He had reason to believe he'd been successful, and went into the drawing room after dinner. Attentive for the first time to the mistress of the house, he devoted himself to speaking to the other men and to keeping the conversation moving along. His politeness was rewarded: at eight o'clock, Madame de Fervaques was announced. Julien slipped away and soon returned, dressed with the greatest care. Madame de La Mole was profoundly grateful, observing that he'd shown her guest such respect, and, wishing to testify to her pleasure, began to speak to Madame de Fervaques about his trip. Julien took a position near the marshall's widow, making sure that, from where he was, it was impossible for Mathilde to see his eyes. So situated, and obeying all the rules of the game, Madame de Fervaques was able to furnish him with a source of dazzled admiration. He expressed these sentiments in a speech, drawn from the opening paragraph of the first of the fifty-three letters, generously presented to him by Prince Korasoff. The marshall's widow had declared her intention of going to the opera buffa. Julien hurried over, and found the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who conducted him to a box set aside for the king's gentlemen-in-waiting, which was next to Madame de Fervaques's private box. Julien never took his eyes off her. "I need," he said to himself, when he left, "to begin a siege journal; otherwise I'll forget my onslaughts." He compelled himself to write two or three pages on this boring topic, and thus very nearly succeeded—what a wonderful thing!—in not thinking of Mademoiselle de La Mole. Mathilde had almost forgotten him while he was away on his trip. "He's nothing but a commoner, after all," she thought. "His name will always remind me of the greatest mistake of my life. I need to follow, most faithfully, all those popular notions of wisdom, restraint, and honor: a woman has everything to lose, forgetting them." She finally showed herself ready to conclude the arrangements with the Marquis de Croisenois, drafted and ready for a very long time. He was wildly happy; it would have thoroughly astonished him, had he been informed
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Mistress of Virtue
that what underlay Mademoiselle de La Mole's changed attitude, which made him so proud, was resignation. Seeing Julien had altered all her ideas. "Really, he's my husband," she said to herself. "If I make a good-faith return to believing in wisdom and honor, obviously it's him I ought to marry." She expected Julien to come pleading to her, she expected him to act miserable; she had her responses all prepared, because he would surely try to say something to her, as they left the table after dinner. He did nothing of the sort. He stayed steadily where he was, not even glancing toward the garden—God only knows with what painful effort! It would be better, having our explanations quickly said and done, thought Mademoiselle de La Mole. She went into the garden, alone. Julien did not follow her. Mathilde set herself to walking near the drawing room windows. She saw him deeply occupied, describing for Madame de Fervaques's benefit the old ruined châteaux, crowning the hills along the banks of the Rhine and lending them so much character. He was beginning to do not too badly, developing the sentimental, picturesque phrases that in certain drawing rooms are called spirited, even witty. Prince Korasoff would have been very proud of him, had he happened to be in Paris: the evening had gone precisely as he'd predicted. He would also have approved of how Julien conducted himself in the days that followed. An intrigue among the members of the hidden government-behind-the-government would soon lead to the award of a number of supreme medals. Madame de Fervaques insisted that her great-uncle receive one. The Marquis de La Mole had made the same claim for his father-in-law; they began to work together, and the marshall's widow came to the house virtually every day. It was she who told Julien that the marquis was to join the government and become a minister: the marquis had proposed, to the powers behind the throne, a highly ingenious plan for eliminating the Constitution, without any fuss, in another three years. If Monsieur de La Mole became a minister, it might be possible for Julien to become a bishop, but for him all these large concerns could be glimpsed only as if through a veil. His mind mostly perceived them vaguely, at best, and as it were from a distance. His horrible misery, which had turned him into a maniac, made him see all aspects of life in terms of their connection to Mademoiselle de La Mole. He had estimated that, after five or six years of trying, he would get her to love him again. His cold, distant mind, as we have seen, had disintegrated into a state of utter irrationality. Of all the qualities that had distinguished him, once, only a modicum of firmness remained. Totally bound, in body, to the plan dictated by Prince Korasoff, he placed himself, every night, carefully close to Madame de Fervaques's armchair, but he could not find a single word to say to her. The exertions he inflicted on himself, trying to make Mathilde think he'd been cured, absorbed all the strength his soul possessed: he fixed himself near Madame de Fervaques like someone barely alive. Even his eyes—as eyes can, under severe physical strain—had lost all their fire. Since Madame de La Mole's opinions neither were, nor ever had been, anything more than a direct reflection of her husband's—he who was likely to make her a duchess—for the past few days she had been praising Julien to the skies.
The Red and the Black
Chapter Twenty-Six: Love of A Moral Sort There also was of course in Adeline That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line Of anything which Nature would express: Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine, At least his manner suffers not to guess That anything he views can greatly please. —Byron, Don Juan "There's something a bit insane about this whole family's perspective," thought Madame de Fervaques. "They're infatuated with their little priest, who understands nothing except listening—with, it's true, rather beautiful eyes." For his part, Julien found the lady's behavior almost a perfect example of patrician calm, which radiates an exact politeness and, even more, the impossibility of vibrant emotion. A spontaneous movement, a lack of self-control, would have scandalized Madame de Fervaques almost as much as a failure to condescend to one's inferiors. The least sign of sensitivity would have been, in her eyes, like a form of moral drunkenness, which ought to make one blush, and would be harmful indeed to what a person of high standing owed herself. Her great happiness was to talk about the king's most recent hunt; her favorite book was Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon,1 especially the genealogical parts. Julien understood the exact spot where, because of the lighting arrangements, Madame de Fervaques's sort of beauty shone the most brilliantly. He would post himself there, in advance, but taking considerable pains to face so he could not see Mathilde. Stunned by his persistence in hiding from her, she abandoned the blue sofa, one day, and took her needlework to a small table near the armchair beside which he was posted. Julien saw how near she'd come, looking out from under Madame de Fervaques's hat. Seeing those eyes, which held the key to his fate, was initially frightening. But then he wrenched himself out of his usual apathy and spoke extremely well. He was speaking to Madame de Fervaques, but his only aim was to affect Mathilde's soul. He grew so animated that his conversational partner could no longer understand what he was saying. That was a positive development. If Julien had been able to think of rounding off his success, employing a few quotations from German mysticism, or from high Jesuitical theology, he would have elevated himself, in the lady's eyes, to the ranks of those superior men who, she considered, were called upon to regenerate the era. "Since he's displaying such bad taste," Mademoiselle de La Mole said to herself, "spending so much time talking—and with such vigor—to Madame de Fervaques, I won't listen to him anymore." And she didn't take in a word he said for the rest of the evening, although the task was not an easy one. At midnight, when Mathilde was carrying her mother's candle-holder, while escorting her to her room, Madame de La Mole paused, on the staircase, and delivered herself of a full-scale panegyric on Julien's high merits. This put Mathilde in a foul mood, and she was unable to sleep. One idea alone calmed her: "He for whom I feel such contempt can still seem a man of high merit, in Madame de Fervaques's eyes."