Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

Piqued by his sudden eccentricity, the heart of this girl, naturally cold, bored, responsive to intelligence, became as passionate as it was in her nature to be. But there was also a great deal of pride in Mathilde’s nature, and the birth of a sentiment which made all her happiness dependent upon another was attended by a sombre melancholy.

Julien had made sufficient progress since his arrival in Paris to discern that this was not the barren melancholy of boredom. Instead of being eager, as in the past, for parties, shows and distractions of every kind, she avoided them.

Music performed by French singers bored Mathilde to death, and yet Julien, who made it his duty to be present at the close of the Opera, observed that she made her friends take her there as often as possible. He thought he could detect that she had lost a little of the perfect balance which shone in all her actions. She would sometimes reply to her friends with witticisms that were offensive in their pointed emphasis. It seemed to him that she had taken a dislike to the Marquis de Croisenois. ‘That young man must have a furious passion for money, not to go off and leave a girl like that, however rich she may be!’ thought Julien. As for himself, indignant at the insults offered to masculine dignity, his coldness towards her increased. Often he went the length of replying with positive discourtesy.

However determined he might be not to be taken in by the signs of interest shown by Mathilde, they were so evident on certain days, and Julien, from whose eyes the scales were beginning to fall, found her so attractive, that he was at times embarrassed by them.

‘The skill and forbearance of these young men of fashion will end by triumphing over my want of experience,’ he told himself; ‘I must go away, and put an end to all this.’ The Marquis had recently entrusted to him the management of a number of small properties and houses which he owned in lower Languedoc. A visit to the place became necessary: M. de La Mole gave a reluctant consent. Except in matters of high ambition, Julien had become his second self.

‘When all is said and done, they have not managed to catch me,’ Julien told himself as he prepared for his departure. ‘Whether the jokes which Mademoiselle de La Mole makes at the expense of these gentlemen be real, or only intended to inspire me with confidence, I have been amused by them.

‘If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter’s son, Mademoiselle de La Mole is inexplicable, but she is just as much so to the Marquis de Croisenois as to me. Yesterday, for instance, her ill humour was quite genuine, and I had the pleasure of seeing discomfited in my favour a young man as noble and rich as I am penniless and plebeian. That is my finest triumph. It will keep me in good spirits in my post-chaise, as I scour the plains of Languedoc.’

He had kept his departure secret, but Mathilde knew better than he that he was leaving Paris next day, and for a long time. She pleaded a splitting headache, which was made worse by the close atmosphere of the drawing-room. She walked for hours in the garden, and so pursued with her mordant pleasantries Norbert, the Marquis de Croisenois, Caylus, de Luz and various other young men who had dined at the Hotel de La Mole, that she forced them to take their leave. She looked at Julien in a strange fashion.

‘This look is perhaps a piece of play-acting,’ thought he; ‘but her quick breathing, all that emotion! Bah!’ he said to himself, ‘who am I to judge of these matters? This is an example of the most consummate, the most artificial behaviour to be found among the women of Paris. That quick breathing, which so nearly proved too much for me, she will have learned from Leontine Fay, whom she admires so.’

They were now left alone; the conversation was plainly languishing. ‘No! Julien has no feeling for me,’ Mathilde told herself with genuine distress.

As he took leave of her, she clutched his arm violently:

‘You will receive a letter from me this evening,’ she told him in a voice so strained as to be barely audible.

This had an immediate effect on Julien.

‘My father,’ she went on, ‘has a most natural regard for the services that you render him. You must not go tomorrow; find some excuse.’ And she ran from the garden.

Her figure was charming. It would have been impossible to have a prettier foot, she ran with a grace that enchanted Julien; but guess what was his second thought when she had quite vanished. He was offended by the tone of command in which she had uttered the words, you must. Similarly Louis XV, as he breathed his last, was keenly annoyed by the words you must awkwardly employed by his Chief Physician, and yet Louis XV was no upstart.

An hour later, a footman handed Julien a letter; it was nothing less than a declaration of love.

‘The style is not unduly affected,’ he said to himself, seeking by literary observations to contain the joy that was contorting his features and forcing him to laugh in spite of himself.

‘And so I,’ he suddenly exclaimed, his excitement being too strong to be held in check, ‘I, a poor peasant, have received a declaration of love from a great lady!

‘As for myself, I have not done badly,’ he went on, controlling his joy as far as was possible. ‘I have succeeded in preserving the dignity of my character. I have never said that I was in love.’ He began to study the shapes of her letters; Mademoiselle de La Mole wrote in a charming little English hand. He required some physical occupation to take his mind from a joy which was bordering on delirium.

‘Your departure obliges me to speak . . . It would be beyond my endurance not to see you any more.’

A sudden thought occurred to strike Julien as a discovery, interrupt the examination that he was making of Mathilde’s letter, and intensify his joy. ‘I am preferred to the Marquis de Croisenois,’ he cried, ‘I, who never say anything that is not serious! And he is so handsome! He wears moustaches, a charming uniform; he always manages to say, just at the right moment, something witty and clever.’

It was an exquisite moment for Julien; he roamed about the garden, mad with happiness.

Later, he went upstairs to his office, and sent in his name to the Marquis de La Mole, who fortunately had not gone out. He had no difficulty in proving to him, by showing him various marked papers that had arrived from Normandy, that the requirements of his employer’s lawsuits there obliged him to postpone his departure for Languedoc.

‘I am very glad you are not going,’ the Marquis said to him, when they had finished their business, ‘I like to see you.’ Julien left the room; this speech disturbed him.

‘And I am going to seduce his daughter! To render impossible, perhaps, that marriage with the Marquis de Croisenois, which is the bright spot in his future: if he is not made Duke, at least his daughter will be entitled to a tabouret.’ Julien thought of starting for Languedoc in spite of Mathilde’s letter, in spite of the explanation he had given the Marquis. This virtuous impulse soon faded.

‘How generous I am,’ he said to himself; ‘I, a plebeian, to feel pity for a family of such high rank! I, whom the Duc de Chaulnes calls a domestic! How does the Marquis increase his vast fortune? By selling national securities, when he hears at the Chateau that there is to be the threat of a Coup d’ Etat next day. And I, cast down to the humblest rank by a stepmotherly Providence, I, whom Providence has endowed with a noble heart and not a thousand francs of income, that is to say not enough for my daily bread, literally speaking, not enough for my daily bread; am I to refuse a pleasure that is offered me? A limpid spring which wells up to quench my thirst in the burning desert of mediocrity over which I trace my painful course! Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.’