The Red and the Black (49 page)

judge poor devils who, after all, for once in their lives, have shown
nerve and begun to act? I'm like a man who, on rising from table,
exclaims: 'Tomorrow I shall go without dinner; and it won't stop me
being as strong and cheerful as I am today.' Who knows what it feels
like to be right in the midst of a great action...? These lofty
thoughts were disturbed by the unexpected appearance of M
^lle
de La Mole coming into the library. He was so fired up by his
admiration for the great qualities of Danton, Mirabeau and Carnot,
^*
who managed not to be beaten, that his eyes alighted on M
^lle
de La Mole without thinking about her, without greeting her, almost
without seeing her. When at length his big, wide-open eyes registered
her presence, the look of fire in them died away. M
^lle
de La Mole was galled to observe it.

It was to no avail that she asked him for a volume of Vély
History of France
^*
that was sitting on the top shelf, thus obliging Julien to go and
fetch the bigger of the two ladders. Julien had brought up the ladder;
he had fetched the book and handed it to her, but he was still
incapable of turning his thoughts to her. As he carried the ladder
away, he was so preoccupied that he put his elbow through the front of
a bookcase; the pieces of broken glass falling on to the floor
brought him to himself at last. He hastened to make his excuses to M
^lle
de La Mole; he tried to be polite, but he was nothing more than
polite. It was crystal clear to Mathilde that she had disturbed him,
and that rather than talk to her, he would have preferred to go on
thinking about what was on his mind before she appeared.

She looked intently at him and moved slowly away. Julien watched her
go. He savoured the contrast between the simplicity of what she was
wearing and the magnificent elegance of her attire the day before. The
difference between the two facial expressions was almost as striking.
The young lady who had been so haughty at the Duc de Retz's ball had
now an almost pleading look. I really think, Julien said to himself,
that this black dress enhances the beauty of her figure even more. She
has the bearing of a queen; but why is she in mourning?

If I ask someone the reason for her mourning, I'll find myself committing yet one more piece of ineptitude. Julien

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had completely emerged from the depths of his enthusiasm. I must
reread all the letters I did this morning; God knows what I'll find in
the way of words left out and blunders. While he was reading the
first of these letters with studied attention, he heard the rustle of a
silk dress right next to him; he looked round sharply: M
^lle
de La Mole was standing two feet from his table, laughing. This second interruption annoyed Julien.

Mathilde herself had just become acutely aware that she meant nothing
to this young man; her laughter was designed to hide her
embarrassment, and she succeeded.

'It's obvious you're thinking about something really interesting,
Monsieur Sorel. Could it be some curious anecdote about the conspiracy
responsible for bringing Count Altamira here to Paris? Tell me what's
going on: I'm dying to know. I'll be discreet, I swear I will!' She
was astonished at this word as she heard herself uttering it. Good
grief! was she pleading with an inferior? As her embarrassment grew,
she added somewhat flippantly:

'What can possibly have turned you, who are usually so cold, into a being inspired--a sort of Michelangelo prophet?'

This sharp and indiscreet interrogation wounded Julien deeply and threw him back into his deranged state.

'Was Danton right to steal?' he asked her brusquely, with a look in
his eyes that grew wilder every minute. 'Should the Piedmontese
^*
or Spanish revolutionaries have compromised the common people by
committing crimes? Have given away all the posts in the army, and all
the military crosses, even to people who didn't deserve them? Wouldn't
the people who had worn these crosses have feared the return of the
king? Should they have plundered the Turin treasures? In short,
mademoiselle,' he said, stepping up to her with a terrible expression,
'must a man who wants to wipe ignorance and crime from the face of
the earth sweep over it like a tempest and wreak evil more or less at
random?'

Mathilde was alarmed, and
could not withstand his gaze; she stepped back two paces. She looked
at him for an instant; then, ashamed of her alarm, she tripped lightly
out of the library.

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O love! what madness is so great that you cannot persuade us to find pleasure in it.

Letters from a
PORTUGUESE NUN.
^*

JULIEN reread his letters. When the dinner bell sounded: How
ridiculous I must have been in the eyes of that Parisian doll! he said
to himself; what madness to tell her straight what I was thinking
about! But perhaps not such madness after all. On this occasion the
truth was worthy of me.

Anyway, why
did she come and question me about private things! It was an
indiscreet question coming from her. She offended against etiquette.
My thoughts about Danton aren't part of the service her father pays me
for.

When he reached the dining-room Julien was distracted from his bad temper by the sight of M
^lle
de La Mole in her full mourning, which he found all the more striking as no other member of the family was in black.

When dinner was over he found himself completely recovered from the
fit of enthusiasm which had gripped him all day. By a stroke of
fortune, the academician who knew Latin was one of the company. He's
the man who'll be least inclined to laugh at me, Julien told himself,
if, as I assume, my question about M
^lle
de La Mole's mourning is a sign of ineptitude.

Mathilde was looking at him with a strange expression. Isn't this just what M
^lle
de Rênal told me about the flirtatiousness of the women in this part
of the world? thought Julien. I wasn't nice to her this morning, I
didn't give in to her whim to engage in conversation. It puts me up in
her esteem. I dare say there'll be all hell to pay. Later on her
disdainful haughtiness will find a way of taking revenge. I defy her to
do her worst. What a contrast with what I've lost! What delightful
spontaneity! What simplicity! I used to know her thoughts before she
did; I saw them taking shape; my only opponent in

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her heart was her fear of her children dying; it was a reasonable and
natural feeling, one I cherished even, though I suffered on account
of it. I was a fool. The ideas I dreamed up about Paris prevented me
from appreciating this sublime woman.

What a difference, my God! What do I find here? Arid and haughty vanity, all the shades of pride and nothing more.

They were leaving the table. I mustn't let my academician get caught
by someone else, Julien told himself. He went up to him as they were
moving into the garden, put on a gentle and submissive air and joined
in his fury at the success of
Hemam
.
^*

'If only we were still in the days of
lettres de cachet
... !'
^*
he said.

'Then he wouldn't have dared,' exclaimed the academician with a gesture like Talma.
^*

Remarking on a flower, Julien quoted a few words from Virgil
Georgics
,
and declared that nothing could match the poetry of the Abbé Delille.
In short, he flattered the academician in all ways possible. After
which, with an air of total indifference:

'I suppose', he asked him, 'that M
^lle
de La Mole must have received an inheritance from some uncle or other, and be in mourning for him?'

'Goodness! you're a member of the household', said the academician,
stopping in his tracks, 'and you don't know about her folly? As a
matter of fact, it's strange that her mother allows her to do things
like this; but between ourselves, strength of character isn't exactly
what the members of this family are renowned for. M
^lle
Mathilde has enough for all of them put together, and she rules them
all. Today is the 30th of April!' And the academician stopped and gave
Julien a knowing look. Julien smiled with the most intelligent
expression he could muster.

What
connection can there possibly be between ruling a whole household,
wearing a black dress and the 30th of April? he wondered. I must be
even more obtuse than I thought.

'I'll confess to you...' he said to the academician, keeping the questioning look in his eye.

'Let's take a turn round the garden,' said the academician,

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thrilled to glimpse an opportunity to indulge in lengthy and elegant
narrative. 'Come now! Is it really possible that you don't know what
happened on the 30th of April 1574?'

'Where do you mean?' asked Julien in astonishment. 'In the Place de Gréve.'
^*

Julien was so astonished that this answer did not put him in the
picture. Curiosity, and the expectation of some tragic interest, which
were so in keeping with his character, gave him those shining eyes
that a story-teller so likes to see in his listener. The academician,
thrilled to find a virgin ear, related to Julien at length how on the
30th of April 1574 the handsomest man of his time, Boniface de La
Mole,
^*
and his friend Hannibal de Coconasso, a Piedmontese gentleman, had
had their heads cut off in the Place de Gréve. La Mole was the adored
lover of Queen Marguerite of Navarre;
^*
'And note', added the academician, 'that M
^lle
de La Mole is called Mathilde-Marguerite. La Mole was also the Duc d'Alençon's
^*
favourite and the intimate friend of his mistress's husband, the
King of Navarre, later to become Henri IV. On Shrove Tuesday of that
year 1574, the Court was at Saint-Germain with poor King Charles IX,
who was in the throes of dying. La Mole determined to abduct his
princely friends, who were being kept prisoners at Court by Queen
Catherine de Medici.
^*
He brought two hundred horses up beneath the walls of SaintGermain;
the Duc d'Alençon lost his nerve, and La Mole was thrown to the
executioner.

'But what M
^lle
Mathilde finds so moving, something she revealed to me herself some
seven or eight years ago when she was twelve, for she has a mind of
her own, she does...!' And the academician raised his eyes to heaven.
'What struck her imagination in this political catastrophe was that
Queen Marguerite of Navarre hid in a house on the Place de Gréve and
had the courage to send someone to the executioner to request the head
of her lover. And at midnight on the following evening she took this
head in her carriage, and went off to bury it herself in a chapel at
the foot of Montmartre.'

'Really?' Julien exclaimed, genuinely moved.

'M
^lle
Mathilde despises her brother because, as you can see, he never spares a single thought for all this ancient history,

-314-

and never wears mourning on the 30th of April. Ever since this famous
execution, in memory of La Mole's close friendship with Coconasso who,
like the good Italian he was, was called Hannibal, all the men in this
family are given this name. And,' added the academician lowering his
voice, 'this Coconas so, according to Charles IX himself, was one of the
cruellest assassins of the 24th of August 1572.
^*
But how can it be, my dear Sorel, that you are ignorant of these things, when you sit at the family table?'

'So that's why twice at dinner M
^lle
de La Mole called her brother Hannibal. I thought I must have misheard.'

'It was a reproach. It's strange that the Marquise puts up with such
follies... The man who marries that tall girl has got some pretty rich
things coming to him!'

This comment
was followed by five or six satirical remarks. The delight and the
familiarity shining in the academician's eyes shocked Julien. We're
just like two servants busy running down their masters, he thought.
But nothing should surprise me coming from this Academy man.

One day Julien had surprised him on his knees before the Marquise de
La Mole; he was asking her for a tobacconist's licence for a nephew in
the provinces. That evening, one of M
^lle
de La Mole's
little chambermaids, who was pursuing Julien just as Elisa had once
done, gave him the idea that her mistress's mourning was not put on to
attract attention. It was a quirk which stemmed from the depths of
her character. She genuinely loved this La Mole, the beloved lover of
the wittiest queen of her century--a man who lost his life for
attempting to restore freedom to his friends. And what friends too!
The First Prince of the Blood
^*
and Henri IV.

Accustomed as he was to the perfect spontaneity which was the mark of all of M
^lle
de Renâl's behaviour, Julien saw nothing but affectation in all the
women in Paris; and he only had to feel the least bit melancholy to
find nothing at all to say to them. M
^lle
de La Mole was an exception.

He began to stop interpreting as emotional coldness the kind of
beauty that stems from a noble bearing. He had long conversations with
M
^lle
de La Mole, who sometimes went out into the garden with him after dinner to stroll up and down

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