Part 25

This cross earned him a singular visit; it was that of M. le Baron de Valenod, who was coming to Paris to thank the ministry for his barony and to confer with them. He was about to be named mayor of Verrières, replacing M. de Rênal, who had been dismissed.

Julien laughed heartily to himself when M. de Valenod let him understand that M. de Rênal had just been discovered to be a Jacobin. The fact is that, in a general reelection being prepared for the Chamber of Deputies, the new baron was the ministry's candidate, and in the department's grand electoral college, decidedly ultra-royalist though it was, it was M. de Rênal who was put forward by the liberals.

In vain did Julien try to learn something of Mme de Rênal; the baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was impenetrable. He ended by asking Julien for his father's vote in the forthcoming elections. Julien promised to write.

"You should, Chevalier, present me to M. le Marquis de La Mole."

Indeed, I should, thought Julien; but such a scoundrel!...

"Truly," he answered, "I am too small a person at the Hôtel de La Mole to take it upon myself to present anyone."

Julien told the marquis everything; that evening he related to him Valenod's pretension, as well as his doings since 1814.

"Not only," resumed M. de La Mole, with a very serious air, "shall you present the new baron to me tomorrow, but I invite him to dinner the day after. He will be one of our new prefects."

"In that case," replied Julien coldly, "I ask for the position of director of the poorhouse for my father."

"Very well," said the marquis, resuming his cheerful air; "granted. I expected some moralizing. You are forming yourself."

Julien learned from M. de Valenod that the holder of the lottery office in Verrières had just died; Julien found it amusing to give this place to M. de Cholin, that old imbecile whose petition he had once picked up in M. de La Mole's room. The marquis laughed heartily at the petition, which Julien recited to him while making him sign the letter asking the Minister of Finance for the post.

Scarcely was M. de Cholin appointed, when Julien learned that this place had been requested by the department's deputation for M. Gros, the celebrated geometer: that generous man had but fourteen hundred francs in income, and each year lent six hundred francs to the deceased holder, to help him bring up his family.

Julien was astonished at what he had done. How does the dead man's family live today? This thought wrung his heart. It is nothing, he told himself; I must come to many another injustice, if I am to get on, and moreover know how to hide them under fine sentimental phrases: poor M. Gros! it is he who deserved the cross, it is I who have it, and I must act in the sense of the government that gave it to me.

CHAPTER VIII

WHICH IS THE DECORATION THAT DISTINGUISHES?

Thy water refreshes me not, said the thirsty genie.—Yet it is the coolest well in all Diar-Bekir.

PELLICO.

One day Julien was returning from the charming estate of Villequier, on the banks of the Seine, which M. de La Mole viewed with interest, because, of all his possessions, it was the only one that had belonged to the famous Boniface de La Mole. He found at the hotel the marchioness and her daughter, who were arriving from Hyères.

Julien was a dandy now, and understood the art of living in Paris. He was perfectly cold toward Mlle de La Mole. He seemed to retain no memory of the times when she had so gaily asked him for details of how he managed to fall off a horse with grace.

Mlle de La Mole found him grown and paler. His figure, his bearing, had nothing provincial left; it was not so with his conversation; one still remarked too much seriousness, too much positiveness in it. Despite these reasonable qualities, thanks to his pride, he had nothing subordinate about him; one only felt that he still regarded too many things as important. But one saw that he was a man to stand by his word.

"He lacks lightness, but not wit," said Mlle de La Mole to her father, jesting with him about the cross he had given Julien. "My brother asked you for it for eighteen months, and he is a La Mole!"

"Yes, but Julien has the unexpected, which never happened to the La Mole you speak of."

M. le Duc de Retz was announced.

Mathilde felt seized by an irresistible yawn; at the sight of him, it seemed to her that she recognized the antique gildings and the old habitués of her father's salon. She formed a perfectly boring image of the life she was about to take up again in Paris. And yet, at Hyères, she had regretted Paris.

And yet I am nineteen, she thought; it is the age of happiness, say all those gilded fools. She looked at eight or ten volumes of new poetry piled up, during the journey through Provence, on the mantelpiece of the salon. She had the misfortune of having more wit than MM. de Croisenois, de Caylus, de Luz, and her other friends. She pictured to herself all they were going to tell her about the beautiful sky of Provence, poetry, the south, etc., etc.

Those beautiful eyes, where breathed the deepest boredom and, worse still, the despair of finding pleasure, rested on Julien. At least, he was not exactly like another.

"M. Sorel," she said to him, with that lively, abrupt voice, having nothing feminine about it, which young women of the highest rank use, "M. Sorel, are you coming this evening to the Duke de Retz's ball?"

"Mademoiselle, I have not had the honor of being presented to M. le Duc." (One would have said that these words and this title scraped the mouth of the proud provincial.)

"He charged my brother to bring you with him; and, had you come, you would have given me details about the estate of Villequier, there is talk of going there in the spring. I should like to know if the château is habitable, and if the surroundings are as pretty as they say. There are so many usurped reputations!"

Julien did not answer.

"Come to the ball with my brother," she added in a very dry tone.

Julien bowed respectfully. Thus, even in the midst of the ball, I must account to all the members of the family; am I not paid as a man of business? His ill humor added: Heaven only knows if what I tell the daughter will not thwart the plans of the father, the brother, the mother! It is a veritable court of a sovereign prince. One would need to be of perfect nullity there, and yet give no one cause to complain.

How this tall girl displeases me! he thought, looking at Mlle de La Mole walk, whom her mother had called to present to several of her women friends. She outdoes all the fashions; her dress falls from her shoulders... she is even paler than before her journey... What colorless hair, so blond it is; one would say daylight passes through it!... What pride in that way of bowing, in that glance! what queenly gestures!

Mlle de La Mole had just called her brother, at the moment he was leaving the salon.

Count Norbert approached Julien:

"My dear Sorel," he said to him, "where shall I pick you up at midnight for the Duke de Retz's ball? He expressly charged me to bring you."

"I know well to whom I owe so much kindness," answered Julien, bowing to the ground.

His ill humor, finding nothing to fault in the tone of politeness and even interest with which Norbert had spoken to him, set to work upon the reply that he, Julien, had made to this obliging word. He found in it a shade of baseness.

That evening, on arriving at the ball, he was struck by the magnificence of the Hôtel de Retz. The entrance court was covered with an immense tent of crimson calico with gold stars: nothing more elegant. Beneath this tent, the court was transformed into a grove of orange trees and flowering oleanders. Such care had been taken to bury the tubs deeply enough, that the laurels and orange trees seemed to spring from the ground. The path the carriages traversed was strewn with sand.

This ensemble seemed extraordinary to our provincial. He had no idea of such magnificence; in an instant, his moved imagination was a thousand leagues from ill humor. In the carriage, coming to the ball, Norbert was happy, and he saw all in black; scarcely had they entered the court, than the roles changed.

Norbert was sensible only to a few details, which, amid so much magnificence, could not have been attended to. He estimated the cost of each thing, and, as he arrived at a high total, Julien remarked that he showed himself almost jealous of it and grew sulky.

For his part, he arrived seduced, admiring and almost timid from emotion, in the first of the salons where they were dancing. They pressed at the door of the second, and the crowd was so great, that it was impossible for him to advance. The decoration of this second salon represented the Alhambra of Granada.

"She is the queen of the ball, one must admit it," said a young man with mustaches, whose shoulder was thrust into Julien's chest.

"Mlle Fourmont, who all winter has been the prettiest, answers his neighbor, perceives that she drops to second place; see her singular air."

"Truly she sets all sails to please. See, see that gracious smile at the moment she figures alone in that country dance. It is, upon my word, priceless."

"Mlle de La Mole looks as if she were mistress of the pleasure her triumph gives her, of which she is quite aware. One would say she fears to please whoever speaks to her."

"Very well! there is the art of seducing."

Julien made vain efforts to catch sight of this seductive woman: seven or eight men taller than he prevented him from seeing her.

"There is much coquetry in that so noble reserve," resumed the young man with mustaches.

"And those great blue eyes that lower so slowly at the moment one would say they are about to betray themselves," resumed the neighbor. "My faith, nothing more skillful."

"See how beside her the beautiful Fourmont looks common," said a third.

"That air of reserve means: What amiability I should display for you, were you the man worthy of me!"

"And who can be worthy of the sublime Mathilde?" said the first. "Some sovereign prince, handsome, witty, well-made, a hero in war, and aged at most twenty."

"The natural son of the Emperor of Russia... to whom, in favor of this marriage, one would make a sovereignty; or quite simply the Count of Thaler, with his air of a dressed-up peasant..."

The door was cleared, Julien could enter.

Since she passes for so remarkable in the eyes of these dolls, she is worth my studying, he thought. I shall understand what perfection is for these people.

As he sought her with his eyes, Mathilde looked at him. My duty calls me, said Julien to himself; but there was no longer any ill humor except in his expression. Curiosity made him advance with a pleasure that the dress, very low on the shoulders, of Mathilde increased quite quickly, it is true in a manner little flattering to his self-love. Her beauty has youth, he thought. Five or six young men, among whom Julien recognized those he had heard at the door, were between her and him.

"You, sir, who have been here all winter," she said to him, "is it not true that this is the prettiest ball of the season?"

He did not answer.

"This quadrille by Coulon seems admirable to me, and these ladies dance it in a perfect manner."

The young men turned to see who was the happy man they absolutely wanted an answer from. It was not encouraging.

"I could not be a good judge, Mademoiselle; I spend my life writing: it is the first ball of this magnificence I have seen."

The young men with mustaches were scandalized.

"You are a sage, M. Sorel," she resumed with a more marked interest. "You see all these balls, all these feasts, as a philosopher, as J.-J. Rousseau. These follies astonish you without seducing you."

A word had just extinguished Julien's imagination, and chased from his heart all illusion. His mouth took on an expression of disdain perhaps a little exaggerated.

"J.-J. Rousseau," he answered, "is in my eyes but a fool, when he presumes to judge high society; he did not understand it, and brought to it the heart of an upstart lackey."

"He wrote the Social Contract," said Mathilde in a tone of veneration.

"While preaching the republic and the overthrow of monarchic dignities, this upstart is drunk with happiness, if a duke changes the direction of his walk after dinner, to accompany one of his friends."

"Ah yes, the Duke of Luxembourg at Montmorency accompanying a M. Coindet toward Paris...," resumed Mlle de La Mole with the pleasure and abandon of the first enjoyment of pedantry. She was drunk with her knowledge almost like the academician who discovered the existence of King Feretrius. Julien's eye remained penetrating and severe. Mathilde had had a moment of enthusiasm; the coldness of her partner disconcerted her profoundly. She was the more astonished, in that it was she who was accustomed to produce that effect on others.

At this moment, the Marquis de Croisenois was advancing eagerly toward Mlle de La Mole. He was for an instant three paces from her, without being able to reach her because of the crowd. He looked at her smiling at the obstacle. The young Marquise de Rouvray was near him: she was a cousin of Mathilde. She gave her arm to her husband, who had been one for only fifteen days. The Marquis de Rouvray, also very young, had all the silly love of a man who, making a marriage of convenience arranged solely by notaries, finds a perfectly beautiful person. M. de Rouvray was about to be duke at the death of a very old uncle.

While the Marquis de Croisenois, unable to pierce the crowd, looked at Mathilde with a laughing air, she rested her great celestial-blue eyes on him and his neighbors. What is flatter, she said to herself, than all this group! There is Croisenois who pretends to marry me, he is gentle, polite, he has perfect manners like M. de Rouvray. But for the boredom they give, these gentlemen would be very amiable. He too will follow me to the ball with that limited and contented air. A year after the marriage, my carriage, my horses, my dresses, my château twenty leagues from Paris, all that will be as well as possible quite what is needed to make a parvenue die of envy, a Countess de Roiville for example; and then?...

Mathilde was bored in anticipation. The Marquis de Croisenois managed to approach her, and spoke to her, but she dreamed without listening. The sound of his words mingled for her with the humming of the ball. She followed with her eye mechanically Julien, who had moved away with a respectful but proud and discontented air. She perceived in a corner, far from the circulating crowd, Count Altamira, condemned to death in his country, whom the reader already knows. Under Louis XIV, one of his relatives had married a prince of Conti; this memory protected him a little against the police of the Congregation.

I see nothing but condemnation to death that distinguishes a man, thought Mathilde; it is the only thing that is not bought.

Ah! it is a good saying that I have just said to myself! what a pity it did not come in a way to do me honor. Mathilde had too much taste to bring into conversation a ready-made good saying, but she also had too much vanity not to be delighted with herself. An air of happiness replaced in her features the appearance of boredom. The Marquis de Croisenois, who was still speaking to her, thought he glimpsed success, and redoubled his loquacity.

What could a wretch object to my good saying? said Mathilde to herself. I should answer the critic: A baron's title, a viscount's, that is bought; a cross, that is given; my brother has just got one, what has he done? a rank, that is obtained. Ten years of garrison, or a relative minister of war, and one is squadron chief like Norbert. A great fortune!... that is still the most difficult and consequently the most meritorious. That is what is droll! it is the contrary of all that the books say... Well! for fortune, one marries M. Rothschild's daughter.

Really my saying has depth. Condemnation to death is still the only thing one is not advised to solicit.

"Do you know Count Altamira?" she said to M. de Croisenois.

She seemed to come back from so far, and this question had so little relation to all the poor marquis had been telling her for five minutes, that his amiability was disconcerted. He was nevertheless a man of wit and highly renowned as such.

Mathilde is singular, he thought; it is a drawback, but she gives a very fine social position to her husband! I know not how this Marquis de La Mole does it; he is connected with the best of all shades, he is a man who cannot sink. And besides, this singularity of Mathilde may pass for genius. With high birth and much fortune, genius is no ridiculous thing, and then what distinction! She has besides, so well, when she wishes, that mixture of wit, character and aptness, which makes perfect amiability... As it is difficult to do two things well at once, the marquis answered Mathilde with a vacant air and like one reciting a lesson:

"Who does not know that poor Altamira?" And he gave her the history of his conspiracy, ridiculous, absurd.

"Very absurd!" said Mathilde, as if speaking to herself, "but he acted. I wish to see a man; bring him to me," she said to the marquis, much offended.

Count Altamira was one of the most declared admirers of the haughty and almost impertinent air of Mlle de La Mole; she was, according to him, one of the most beautiful persons in Paris.

"How beautiful she would be on a throne!" he said to M. de Croisenois, and he let himself be brought over without difficulty.

There is no lack of people in the world who wish to establish that nothing is in bad taste like a conspiracy; that smells of the Jacobin. And what is uglier than the Jacobin without success?

Mathilde's glance mocked Altamira's liberalism with M. de Croisenois, but she listened to him with pleasure.

A conspirator at the ball, that is a pretty contrast, she thought. She found in him, with his black mustaches, the face of the lion when he rests; but she soon perceived that his mind had but one attitude: utility, admiration for utility.

Except what could give his country a government of two Chambers, the young count found nothing worthy of his attention. He left with pleasure Mathilde, the most seductive person at the ball, because he saw a Peruvian general enter.

Despairing of Europe, poor Altamira was reduced to thinking that, when the states of South America are strong and powerful, they may return to Europe the liberty that Mirabeau sent them. A whirlwind of young men with mustaches had approached Mathilde. She had well seen that Altamira was not seduced, and was piqued at his departure; she saw his black eye shine in speaking to the Peruvian general. Mlle de La Mole wandered her glances over the young Frenchmen with that deep seriousness none of her rivals could imitate. Which of them, she thought, could get himself condemned to death, supposing even all favorable chances?

This singular glance flattered those who had little wit, but worried the others. They dreaded the explosion of some cutting remark and difficult reply.

High birth gives a hundred qualities whose absence would offend me, I see it by the example of Julien, thought Mathilde, but it etiolates those qualities of soul that lead to condemnation to death.

At this moment, someone said near her:

"This Count Altamira is the second son of the Prince of San Nazaro-Pimentel; it is a Pimentel who tried to save Conradin, beheaded in 1268. It is one of the noblest families of Naples."

That, said Mathilde to herself, prettily proves my maxim. High birth takes away strength of character without which one does not get oneself condemned to death! I am therefore predestined to talk nonsense this evening. Since I am but a woman like another, well then, I must dance. She yielded to the instances of the Marquis de Croisenois, who for an hour had been soliciting a galop. To distract herself from her misfortune in philosophy, Mathilde wished to be perfectly seductive; M. de Croisenois was delighted.

But neither the dance, nor the desire to please one of the handsomest men of the court, nothing could distract Mathilde. It was impossible to have more success. She was the queen of the ball, she saw it, but with coldness.

What an effaced life I shall lead with a being such as Croisenois! she said to herself, as he led her back to her place an hour later... Where is the pleasure for me, she added sadly, if, after six months' absence, I do not find him in the midst of a ball, the envy of all the women of Paris? And yet, I am surrounded here by the homages of a society I cannot imagine better composed. There are no bourgeois here but a few peers and one or two Juliens perhaps. And yet, she added with growing sadness, what advantages has fate not given me: fame, fortune, youth! alas! all, except happiness.

The most doubtful of my advantages are still those they have spoken to me of all evening. Wit, I believe in it, for I evidently frighten them all. If they dare approach a serious subject, after five minutes of conversation, they arrive quite out of breath, and as making a great discovery, at something I have been repeating to them for an hour. I am beautiful, I have that advantage for which Mme de Staël would have sacrificed all, and yet it is a fact that I am dying of boredom. Is there a reason I should be less bored, when I shall have changed my name for that of the Marquis de Croisenois?

But, my God! she added, almost with a desire to weep, is he not a perfect man? he is the masterpiece of this century's education; one cannot look at him without his finding something amiable, and even witty, to say to you; he is brave... But this Sorel is singular, she said to herself, and her eye left the mournful air for the angry air. I warned him I had to speak to him, and he does not deign to reappear!

CHAPTER IX

THE BALL

The luxury of the dresses, the brilliance of the candles, the perfumes; so many pretty arms, beautiful shoulders! bouquets! airs of Rossini that lift one away, paintings of Cicéri! I am beside myself!

Travels of Uzeri.

"You are in a humor," said the Marquise de La Mole to her; "I warn you, it is in bad grace at a ball."

"I feel only a headache," answered Mathilde with a disdainful air; "it is too warm here."

At this moment, as if to justify Mlle de La Mole, the old Baron de Tolly felt ill and fell; they were obliged to carry him off. They spoke of apoplexy; it was an unpleasant event.

Mathilde paid no attention to it. It was a settled principle with her, never to look at old men and all beings recognized as saying sad things.

She danced to escape the conversation about apoplexy, which was not even one, for the day after next the baron reappeared.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”