Chapter 43 Chapter Thirteen Conspiracy

The next day, he caught Nobel and her sister talking about him again.As soon as he arrived, there was a deathly silence like yesterday.His suspicions knew no bounds. "Are these lovely young men trying to taunt me? It must be admitted that this is much more probable and natural than Mademoiselle de La Mole's so-called passion for a poor secretary. In the first place, can these people have passion? Fools are their forte. They are jealous of my poor eloquence. Jealousy is one of their weaknesses. Their tricks can be explained in this way. Mademoiselle de La Mole wants me to believe that she has a fancy for me, Just to embarrass me in front of her fiancé."

This cruel doubt completely changed Julien's state of mind.The idea found in him the germ of love and killed it easily.This kind of love is only based on Mathilde's rare beauty, or even more on her queen-like behavior and amazing dress.In this respect, Julien was still an upstart.It can be said with certainty that nothing astonishes an intelligent countryman's ascension to the upper echelons of society more than a beautiful woman in a noble society.It was not Mathilde's character at all that had caused Julien to fantasize the past few days.He has enough sense to know that he does not understand this character.What he saw might just be a facade.

For example, Mathilde would never miss Sunday Mass anyway, and would accompany her mother to church almost every day.If, in the drawing-room of the house of de la Mole, any one, forgetting where he was, ventured to insinuate even the most indirect insinuation of a joke, real or imagined, against the throne or the altar, Mathilde immediately It became as serious as ice.There was a complete, merciless haughtiness in her eyes, so piercing, as in an old portrait in their house. Yet Julien was sure that she always had one or two volumes of Voltaire's most philosophical works in her room.He himself often steals a few copies back. This edition is very beautiful, and the binding is extremely luxurious.He moved the volumes beside him so that he could not tell when he took one away, but he soon discovered that someone else was also reading Voltaire.Using one of the Seminary's tricks, he placed bits of horsehair on the volumes which he thought might interest Mademoiselle de La Mole.The volumes immediately disappeared for several weeks.

Monsieur de La Mole, annoyed with his bookseller for sending him all the fake memoirs, ordered Julien to buy back all the new books that were slightly exciting.But, in order not to spread the poison in the house, the secretary obeyed and put the books into a small bookcase, which was placed in the Marquis' bedroom.He soon became convinced that whenever these new books were hostile to the interests of the throne or the altar, they would soon disappear.Certainly not Nobel reading. Julien believed too much in his experiments, and thought that Mademoiselle de La Mole was a double-faced Machiavelli.This kind of evil that was forced on her head, after him, almost became her only spiritual charm.Tired of hypocrisy and preaching drove him to extremes.

He stimulated his imagination more than he was driven by love. It was after being captivated by the elegance of Mademoiselle de La Mole's figure, the exquisite taste of her dress, the whiteness of her hands, the beauty of her arms, and the ease with which she carried herself, that he found himself in love with her.To maximize his charm, he imagined her as Catherine de' Medici.For her character as he envisioned, the depth is not to be disliked, and the evil is not to be disliked.It was the type of the Maslons, the Foliers, the Castanedes, whom he had admired in his youth; in a word, he thought it was the type of the Parisians.

Is there anything more ridiculous than to believe that a Parisian is rich and evil? "It is quite possible that this trio is mocking me," Julien thought.One would know very little about his character without seeing the gloomy indifference with which his eyes answered Mathilde's.Mademoiselle de La Mole was amazed, and two or three times she had ventured to convince him of her friendship, only to be repelled by a bitter irony. The girl's heart, which was always indifferent, bored, and sensitive to spiritual things, was stimulated by this sudden strange attitude, and it changed into enthusiasm and natural nature.However, there is also a lot of pride in Mathilde's character, and the emergence of a feeling that makes her all happiness depend on another person brings a gloomy melancholy at the same time.

Julien had had enough experience since his arrival in Paris to see that it was not a dry melancholy born of boredom.Instead of craving parties, theatres, and other pastimes, she avoided them as much as she used to. The French singing bored Mathilde to death, but Julien, who made it his duty to show up at the end of the opera, noticed that she had someone take her to the opera whenever she could.He thought he saw that she had lost some of that perfect sense of proportion that had shone through her activities.On several occasions when she answered her friends, her jokes were so vitriolic that they almost hurt.He felt that she had used the Marquis de Croixenoy as a punching bag. "This young man must be madly in love with money, or he would have thrown her away, no matter how rich she may be!" thought Julien.As for him, he was angry at her insult to the dignity of men, and became more and more indifferent to her.He often answered her in an even rude manner.

Julien was determined not to be deceived by Mathilde's expressions of interest, which were evident after all on some days when he began to open his eyes and find her so beautiful that he sometimes felt flustered. "The tact and patience of these young men of the upper class will at last overcome my inexperience," he said to himself, "and I must go and put this all to rest." The Marquis had quite a few small estates and The real estate has just been handed over to him for management.A trip was necessary, and M. de La Mole reluctantly agreed.Except in matters connected with his great ambition, Julien was already another him.

"After all, they didn't catch me," thought Julien, making preparations to go out. "Mademoiselle de La Mole's jest with these gentlemen, whether it be true or merely to gain my confidence, has given me pleasure." "Mademoiselle de La Mole would not have understood it without a plot against the carpenter's son, but she could not understand it to me, at least not to the Marquis de Clingoisenoy. Like yesterday. , she was really angry, and I was glad that she forced a young man to do what he didn't want to do for me. The most beautiful victory ever won; it would make me happy to ride the Languedoc plains in my post-coach chair."

Julien kept his departure a secret, but Mathilde knew better than he did that he would leave Paris the next day, and for a long time.She reasoned that she had a terrible headache, which was exacerbated by the stuffy air in the living room.She took long walks in the garden, and made bitter jokes to Nobel, the Marquis de Croixenoy, Cailus, de Luz, and several other young people who were having dinner at the La Mole. Chasing after them, forcing them to leave.She looked at Julien with a strange look. "Perhaps the look is acting," thought Julien, "but the shortness of breath, and all the signs of confusion! Come on:" he said to himself, "who am I to judge these things?" What is it? That is the cleverest and cunning trick of Parisian women. This shortness of breath almost touches me, and she probably learned it from Leontine Fay, whom she loves so much."

There were only the two of them left in the garden, and conversation was clearly out of the question. "No! Julien feels nothing for me," she said to herself, truly unhappy. He bid her farewell, and she seized his arm vigorously: "You'll have a letter from me tonight," she said in a distorted voice. Julien was immediately moved by the sight and the sight. "My father," she went on, "has a fair opinion of your services. Must not go tomorrow, and find an excuse." She ran away. Her figure is really attractive.Her feet were also the most beautiful, and she ran gracefully, which made Julien look stupid; however, who could guess what Julien thought after her figure disappeared completely?He was offended by the commanding tone in which she said the word must.When Louis XV was dying, he was also deeply displeased at his chief physician's clumsy use of the word must, but Louis XV was not an upstart. An hour later, the servant handed Julien a letter; this letter was simply a confession of love. "The writing is not too pretentious," Julien thought, trying to control his joy with written comments, but his face was already constricted, and he could not help laughing. "At last," he cried out suddenly, with passion too strong to control, "I, poor countryman, at last I have a lady's confession of love!" "As for me, I haven't done a bad job," he thought, suppressing his joy as much as he could. "I know how to keep the dignity of my character. I never said I loved her." He began to study the typeface, which Miss de La Mole wrote beautifully in English small.He needed to do something physical to escape the joy that was driving him mad. "You're leaving, I can't help it...I can't stand not seeing you..." An idea came to him suddenly, like a great discovery, interrupting his study of Mathilde's letter and doubling his pleasure. "I have won the Marquis de Croixenois," he cried, "I, a man of business! And he is so handsome! He has a moustache and a charming uniform; he always It's about being able to find something clever and clever to say at the right time." Julien had a wonderful moment when he wandered up and down the garden, maddened with happiness. Later, he went upstairs to his office to have the Marquis de La Mole informed, but fortunately he did not go out.He showed the Marquis several documents marked as coming from Normandy, which easily proved that the Normandy proceedings had to be dealt with, and that he had to postpone his trip to Languedoc. "I'm glad you're not going," said the Marquis, when he had concluded his business. "I'd like to see you." Julien withdrew, feeling awkward at the words. "As for me, I'm going to seduce his daughter! And I'm probably going to blow up my marriage to the Marquis de Croixenoy, which is one of the most fascinating things about his future, if he doesn't The Duke, at least his daughter will have a stool. Julien intends to set off for Languedoc, disregarding Mathilde's letter and the explanations he has made to the Marquis. But this moral brilliance is fleeting. "How kind I am," he said to himself, "that I, a commoner, should feel sorry for a family of this rank! I, a man whom the Duke of Shauna calls a servant! How the Marquis has increased his great estate He knew in the palace that there might be a coup d'etat the next day, so he immediately sold the public debt. As for me, the stepmother-like heaven threw me to the bottom of society and gave me a noble heart. I was not given a thousand francs annuity, that is to say, no bread, literally no bread; and I refused the pleasure that came to my door! So hard did I pass through this scorching heat of mediocrity Desert, to deny a clear spring that quenches my thirst! Verily, don't be so foolish; in this selfish desert that men call life, every man for himself." He thought of Madame de La Mole, and especially of her friends, the contemptuous glances those ladies gave him. The joy of victory over the Marquis de Croixenoy finally defeated this moral remembrance. "How I should like to see him lose his temper!" said Julien, "how sure I am of giving him the sword now." He posed for a second attack. "Before that, I was a pedant, dishonorably self-confident and a little courageous. After this letter, I am equal to him." "Yes," he said to himself, with infinite joy, "the Marquis and I, we have weighed our worth, and the poor carpenter of the Jura has prevailed." "Well," cried he, "I will sign my reply in this way, and you must not think, Mademoiselle de La Mole, that I have forgotten who I am. I want you to understand and feel clearly that you are doing it for a The son of a carpenter and betrayed a descendant of Guy de Croixennois, the famous Jingjing who had followed Saint-July to the Crusades." Julien was overjoyed.He had to go downstairs into the garden.The room in which he had locked himself was too cramped for him to breathe. "I, a poor peasant from the Jura mountains," he repeated, "I, doomed to wear this wretched black for the rest of my life! Well, twenty years earlier, I would have worn a military uniform like them, when A man like me either dies or becomes a general at thirty-six." The letter he clutched tightly in his hand gave him the size and posture of a hero. "Now, indeed, with this tiara, at the age of forty, like the Bishop of Beauvais, you can have a salary of ten thousand francs and a blue ribbon." "Well!" he said to himself, laughing like Mephistopheles, "I have more intellect than them, and I know how to choose the uniform of my time." He felt that his ambition and his attachment to the vestments Swell up. "How many cardinals are of lower birth than I, and they have held great power! Like my fellow Lamberville." Julien's agitation gradually subsided, and caution reappeared.He read Dartuff's lines to himself, the role of the teacher well remembered: "Daldufer was also destroyed by a woman, he is no worse than others... My reply letter may also be shown... We have found the following way to deal with it," he added slowly in a suppressed cruel tone , "We shall begin our reply by quoting the most passionate sentence from the letter of the sublime Mathilde. "That's all, except that four of M. de Croixenoy's servants will rush at me and take the original letter away. "No, because I'm well armed, and I've been known to shoot servants. "Let them come! One of them was so bold that he jumped at me. He was promised a hundred napoleons. I killed or wounded him, well, they wanted it. I was put in prison quite legally." ;I was tried in the court of misdemeanors, and the judges sent me to the prison of Poissy, with M. Fontan and M. Magallon, where I slept with four hundred beggars. . . . And I have pity for these people," he cried, rising suddenly, "do they pity the third estate who fall into their hands?" This sentence buried his love for M. de La Mole. His gratitude, which until then he had been involuntarily tormented. "Wait a minute, gentlemen of the aristocracy, I know this little Machiavelli trick; the Abbe Maslon or the Abbe Castanede of the Seminary would not have done better. Take this provocative letter away, I shall be Colonel Caron of Colmar second. "Wait a minute, gentlemen, I will seal this fatal letter in a little packet for the safekeeping of the Abbe Tobila. He is a man of integrity, a Jansenist, and therefore he is not tempted by money. Yes. Yes, but he always opens other people's letters... I'm going to send this one to Fouquet." It should be admitted that Julien's eyes were cruel, and the expression on his face was ugly, showing pure evil.Here is one unfortunate man who is at war with society as a whole. "Take up arms," ​​cried Julien.He jumped down the steps of Fuqiu in one step.He went into the shop of a scrivener on the corner of the street, and the man was frightened. "Copy it," he said, handing him Miss de La Mole's letter. The scribe copied it, and he himself wrote to Fouquet: he begged him to preserve a precious thing. "But," he said to himself, stopping his pen, "the censorship at the Post Office will open my letter and give you the letter you're looking for... no, gentlemen." He went to a Protestant I bought a large "Bible" in the bookstore, very cleverly hid Mathilde's letter in the cover, then packed it, and sent it away by mail. The recipient was a worker in Fouquet, and there was no one in Paris. know his name. When this was done, he returned to the house of de La Mole with ease and joy. "Our turn! Now," he cried, locking himself in his room and taking off his coat. "Why, Mademoiselle," he wrote to Mathilde, "is Mademoiselle de La Mole, through the hands of Arsène, her father's servant, delivering a letter too tempting to a poor little man in the Jura Mountains. Carpenter, no doubt to play with his simplicity..." Then he transcribed the most obvious sentence from the letter he had just received. This letter from him may indeed honor the diplomatic prudence of M. de Boissy Chevalier.It was just ten o'clock; Julien, intoxicated with happiness and a sense of his own strength, a premonition so new for a pauper, entered the Italian Opera.He listened to his friend Jerome singing.Music had never excited him so much.He became a god.