A Box at the BouffesAs the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest.
Don Juan, I. 73In the thick of all this great commotion, Julien was more bewilderedthan happy. Mathilde's abuse of him showed him how wise the Russianpolicy had been. 'Say little, do little, that is my one way of salvation.'
He lifted up Mathilde and without a word laid her down again on thedivan. Gradually she gave way to tears.
To keep herself in countenance, she took Madame de Fervaques's letters in her hands; she broke the seals slowly. She gave a nervous start onrecognising the Marechale's handwriting. She turned over the sheets ofthese letters without reading them; the majority of them covered sixpages.
'Answer me this, at least,' said Mathilde at length in the most supplicating tone, but without venturing to look at Julien. 'You know very wellthat I am proud; it is the misfortune of my position, and indeed of mynature, I must admit; so Madame de Fervaques has stolen your heartfrom me … Has she offered you all the sacrifices to which that fatal passion led me?'
A grim silence was Julien's only answer. 'By what right,' he thought,'does she ask of me an indiscretion unworthy of an honourable man?'
Mathilde endeavoured to read the letters; the tears that filled her eyesmade it impossible for her to do so.
For a month past she had been miserable, but that proud spirit was farfrom confessing its feelings to itself. Chance alone had brought aboutthis explosion. For an instant jealousy and love had overcome pride. Shewas seated upon the divan and in close proximity to him. He saw herhair and her throat of alabaster; for a moment he forgot all that he owed to himself; he slipped his arm round her waist, and almost hugged her tohis bosom.
She turned her head towards him slowly: he was astonished at the intense grief that was visible in her eyes, and made them quite unrecognisable as hers.
Julien felt his strength begin to fail him, so colossal was the effort involved in the act of courage which he was imposing on himself.
'Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain,' he saidto himself, 'if I allow myself to be carried away by the joy of loving her.'
Meanwhile, in a faint voice and in words which she had barely thestrength to utter, she was repeating to him at that moment her assuranceof all her regret for the action which an excessive pride might have counselled her to take.
'I too, have my pride,' Julien said to her in a voice that was barely articulate, and his features indicated the extreme limit of physical exhaustion.
Mathilde turned sharply towards him. The sound of his voice was apleasure the hope of which she had almost abandoned. At that momentshe recalled her pride only to curse it, she would fain have discoveredsome unusual, incredible act to prove to him how greatly she adoredhim and detested herself.
'It is probably because of that pride,' Julien went on, 'that you havesingled me out for an instant; it is certainly because of that courageousfirmness, becoming in a man, that you respect me at this moment. I maybe in love with the Marechale … '
Mathilde shuddered; her eyes assumed a strange expression. She wasabout to hear her sentence uttered. This movement did not pass unobserved by Julien; he felt his courage weaken.
'Ah!' he said to himself, listening to the sound of the vain words thatcame from his lips, as he might have listened to a noise from without; 'if Icould only cover those pale cheeks with kisses, and you not feel them!
'I may be in love with the Marechale,' he continued … and his voicegrew fainter and fainter; 'but certainly, of her interest in myself I have nodecisive proof… '
Mathilde gazed at him; he met her gaze, at least he hoped that his features had not betrayed him. He felt himself penetrated by love to the innermost recesses of his heart. Never had he adored her so intensely; hewas scarcely less mad than Mathilde. Could she have found sufficientself-control and courage to manoeuvre, he would have fallen at her feet, forswearing all idle play-acting. He had strength enough to be able tocontinue to speak. 'Ah! Korasoff,' he exclaimed inwardly, 'why are notyou here? How I need a word of advice to direct my conduct!' Meanwhile his voice was saying:
'Failing any other sentiment, gratitude would suffice to attach me tothe Marechale; she has shown me indulgence, she has comforted mewhen others scorned me … I may perhaps not repose an unboundedfaith in certain signs which are extremely flattering, no doubt, but also,perhaps, are of very brief duration.'
'Ah! Great God!' cried Mathilde.
'Very well! What guarantee will you give me?' Julien went on in sharp,firm accents, seeming to abandon for an instant the prudent forms ofdiplomacy. 'What guarantee, what god will assure me that the positionwhich you seem disposed to restore to me at this moment will last formore than two days?'
'The intensity of my love and of my misery if you no longer love me,'
she said, clasping his hands and turning her face towards him.
The violent movement which she thus made had slightly displaced herpelerine: Julien caught a glimpse of her charming shoulders. Her hair,slightly disordered, recalled to him an exquisite memory …He was about to yield. 'An imprudent word,' he told himself, 'and I begin once more that long succession of days passed in despair. Madamede Renal used to find reasons for obeying the dictates of her heart: thisyoung girl of high society allows her heart to be moved only when shehas proved to herself with good reasons that it ought to be moved.'
He perceived this truth in a flash, and in a flash also regained hiscourage.
He freed his hands which Mathilde was clasping in her own, and withmarked respect withdrew a little way from her. Human courage can gono farther. He then busied himself in gathering together all Madame deFervaques's letters which were scattered over the divan, and it was witha show of extreme politeness, so cruel at that moment, that he added:
'Mademoiselle de La Mole will deign to permit me to think over allthis.' He withdrew rapidly and left the library; she heard him shut all thedoors in turn.
'The monster is not in the least perturbed,' she said to herself…'But what am I saying, a monster! He is wise, prudent, good; it is I whohave done more wrong than could be imagined.'
This point of view persisted. Mathilde was almost happy that day, forshe was altogether in love; you would have said that never had thatheart been stirred by pride—and such pride!
She shuddered with horror when, that evening in the drawing-room, afootman announced Madame de Fervaques; the man's voice seemed toher to have a sinister sound. She could not endure the sight of the Marechale, and quickly left the room. Julien, with little pride in his hard-wonvictory, had been afraid lest his own eyes should betray him, and hadnot dined at the Hotel de La Mole.
His love and his happiness increased rapidly as the hour of battle receded; he had already begun to find fault with himself. 'How could I resist her?' he asked himself; 'if she was going to cease to love me! A singlemoment may alter that proud spirit, and I must confess that I havetreated her scandalously.'
In the evening, he felt that he absolutely must appear at the Bouffes inMadame de Fervaques's box. She had given him an express invitation:
Mathilde would not fail to hear of his presence there or of his discourteous absence. Despite the self-evidence of this argument, he had not thestrength, early in the evening, to plunge into society. If he talked, hewould forfeit half his happiness.
Ten o'clock struck: he must absolutely show his face.
Fortunately he found the Marechale's box filled with women, and wasrelegated to a place by the door, and entirely concealed by their hats.
This position saved him from making a fool of himself; the divine accents of despair of Carolina in Il matrimonio segreto made him burst intotears. Madame de Fervaques saw these tears; they were in so marked acontrast to the manly firmness of his usual appearance, that this spirit ofa great lady long saturated in all the most corrosive elements of the prideof an upstart was touched by them. What little she had left of a woman'sheart led her to speak. She wished to enjoy the sound of her own voice atthat moment.
'Have you seen the ladies de La Mole,' she said to him, 'they are in thethird tier.' Instantly Julien bent forward into the house, leaning somewhat rudely upon the ledge of the box: he saw Mathilde; her eyes werebright with tears.
'And yet it is not their day for the Opera,' thought Julien; 'whateagerness!'
Mathilde had made her mother come to the Bouffes, despite the inferior position of the box which a sycophant of their circle had made haste tooffer them. She wished to see whether Julien would spend that eveningwith the Marechale.