Chapter 48 Chapter 18 Cruel Moment

Mathilde was intoxicated, thinking only of the happiness of being almost killed by her lover.She even said to herself, "He deserves to be my master, since he almost killed me. How many good-looking young men of the upper class would have to melt together to get such a passionate act?" "It must be admitted that he was handsome when he mounted the chair, and replaced the sword exactly in the fancy place the upholsterer had given it! After all, it is not so absurd that I should be in love with him." At this moment, if there was any decent way of getting back together, she would happily cling to it.Shut up in his room, locked up twice, Julien was languishing in the most intense despair.All sorts of crazy thoughts were running through his head, and he thought of throwing himself at her feet.Had he, instead of hiding himself in a remote place, wandered about the garden and the palace, he might have transformed his terrible misfortune into the strongest happiness in an instant.

We reproach him for lack of tact, but if he had been tactful, he would not have been able to achieve that feat of drawing the sword which makes him so beautiful at this moment in Mademoiselle de La Mole's eyes.This capricious infatuation for Lien lasted all day; Mathilde imagined the fleeting moments in which she loved him charmingly, and regretted losing them. "In fact," she said to herself, "my enthusiasm for the poor boy, in his opinion, lasted only from the moment I saw him climbing the ladder at one o'clock in the middle of the night with the gun in his side pocket until morning. Eight o'clock. A quarter of an hour later, at Mass at Saint-Valaire, I began to think that he thought he was my master, and that he might force me to submit by terror."

After dinner, instead of avoiding Julien, Mademoiselle de La Mole spoke to him, almost urging him to follow her into the garden; he obeyed.After all, he had never been tested like this.Before she knew it, Mathilde gave in and fell in love with him again.She walked beside him with great pleasure, looking curiously at the hands that had held the sword that morning to kill her. After that move, after all that happened, the conversation they used to have would never happen again. Gradually, Mathilde talked to him intimately and talked about her emotional journey.She found a strange pleasure in these conversations, and she even related to him the fleeting passion she had had for M. de Croixenoy, M. de Caylus...

"Why! It happened to M. de Caylus!" cried Julien, bursting out in those words with all the anguish and jealousy of a neglected lover.Mathilde saw it, but was not angry at all. She continued to torment Julien, narrating her old love affairs in detail, so vividly, so confidingly and sincerely, that he could see that she was describing events that were as vivid as they were before him.He noticed with pain that as she spoke, she made new discoveries within herself. Unhappiness born of jealousy cannot be greater. To suspect that a rival is still loved is cruel enough; to listen to the woman he loves exhaustively confess the love his rival evokes is surely the pinnacle of pain.

Oh, how severely punished at this moment were those proud impulses which drove Julien to think he was superior to the Kailuses and Croizenoys!With what deep and real pain does he exaggerate their slightest advantages!With what fervent sincerity did he despise himself! He felt that Matilcia was worthy of admiration, and no words could express his extreme admiration for her.He walked beside her, looking furtively at her hands, her arms, her queenly posture.Overwhelmed by love and misfortune, he would fall at her feet and cry, "Have mercy on me!" This woman, so beautiful and so lofty, once loved me, but it was M. de Caylus whom she would no doubt soon fall in love with! "

Julien could not doubt the sincerity of Mademoiselle de La Mole, whose tone of truth was too evident in all that she said.In order to make his unhappiness absolutely complete, she sometimes thought of the feelings she had once had for M. de Caylus, and talked as if she still loved him.There was definitely love in her tone, Julien saw it clearly. Even if his chest was filled with molten lead, he would not suffer so much.How could the poor fellow, who was in such agony as to die, have guessed that it was by talking to him that Mademoiselle de La Mole recalled with so much pleasure her memory of M. de Caylus or de Luis? The little fruitless love that Mr. Zi once had?

Nothing could express Julien's agony.On this linden-lined lane not so many days ago, he had waited for one to strike and crept into her room, and now he was listening to the utterances of other people's love in the same lane.One cannot bear more intense misfortunes than this. This brutal intimacy lasted eight full days.Opportunities for conversation, Mathilde sometimes seemed to be looking for, sometimes came but never avoided; the topic they both seemed to return to from time to time with a cruel pleasure was to describe the feelings she had had for others. .She talked to him about the letters she had written, down to the words and sentences in the letters, and even recited the whole sentence.During the last few days she seemed to be gazing at Julien with malicious pleasure.His pain was her intense pleasure.

It can be seen that Julien has no life experience, and has not even read novels; if he is not so stupid, if he can calmly say to the girl whom he admires so much and who has said such strange words to him: " Admit it, I am not as good as those gentlemen, but you love me..." Maybe she will be happy because she has been guessed, at least the success will depend entirely on Julien's demeanor and his choice of timing .In any case, he could advantageously get out of a situation that was about to become tedious in Mathilde's eyes. "You don't love me anymore, but I adore you!" Julien said to her one day, bewildered by love and misfortune.It was about the biggest folly he could do.

All the pleasure that Mademoiselle de La Mole had derived from speaking to him of her love affairs was destroyed in an instant by these words.She began to wonder that, after all that had happened, he hadn't gotten mad at her account, and just before he said that cliché, she had even imagined that he didn't love her anymore. "Pride has certainly killed his love," she said to herself. "He's not one of those people who can see himself put in vain under the likes of Kailus, de Luz, Croizenoy, though he admits they are far superior to himself. .No, I shall never see him crouching at my feet again!"

In the past few days, Julien was so distressed that he often sincerely praised the outstanding qualities of those gentlemen in front of her, even exaggerating.This subtle change did not escape Mademoiselle de La Mole's attention, and she was astonished, but could not at all guess the cause.Julien's feverish soul was sharing in his happiness while extolling a rival whom he believed was still loved. His words were so frank and stupid that they changed everything in an instant: Mathilde, convinced that she was loved, despised him utterly. She was walking with him, and at the moment of these stupid words she left him with the most terrible contempt in her eyes.Back in the living room, she didn't look at him all night.The next day her heart was still filled with this contempt; the impulse which had given her so much pleasure for eight days in having Julien as her closest friend was gone; unhappy.Mathilde's feelings changed to disgust.The contempt she felt when she saw him was too great to describe.

Julien was ignorant of the changes in Mathilde's heart in the past eight days, but he could discern contempt.He is very knowledgeable, showing his face as little as possible in front of her, and never looking at her. He had, so to speak, voluntarily given up the chance of seeing her, but not without a mortal pain.He believed he felt his pain deepening. "A man's courage could not bear more," he said to himself.He spent his days at a small window in the attic of the mansion, the shutters carefully drawn, at least from where he could see Mademoiselle de Renal when she came into the garden. What would he do if, after supper, he saw her walking with de Caylus, M. de Luz, or some gentleman with whom she confessed to have been in love? Julien did not expect his misfortune to be so strong that he was on the verge of yelling that such a strong heart was finally turned upside down. Every thought that had nothing to do with Mademoiselle de La Mole was disgusting to him; he could not write even the simplest letter. "You are mad," said the Marquis to him. Julien was afraid of being found out, so he reasoned that he was ill, which actually convinced the Marquis.Luckily for him, the Marquis joked at dinner about his upcoming trip.Mathilde knew that the trip could be a long one.Julien had been avoiding her for several days, and the young men, so fine as they were, had everything that the pale and sullen man she had loved lacked, and they were powerless to drag her out of her dream. "An ordinary girl," she said to herself, "will look for her among these young men who attract the eyes of the whole drawing-room; but one of the marks of genius is not to let his mind set foot over the path of common people." old road. "Julien just doesn't have property, but I do. As the companion of a man like him, I will continue to be noticed, and I will never disappear in life. I am not like my cousins, old man." It's the fear of revolution, they're afraid of the people, they don't dare to reprimand the coachman who can't drive, and I'm sure I'll play a role, a great role, because the man I choose has character, he's ambitious. What does he lack? Friends? Money I'll give it to him." However, in her mind, she regarded Julien more or less as a servant, and if she wanted him to love, she let him love him.