CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHAT IS THE DECORATION WHICH CONFERS DISTINCTION?
"Thy water refreshes me not," said the transformed genie.
"'Tis nevertheless the freshest well in all Diar-Békir—Pellico.
One day Julien had just returned from the charming estate of Villequier on the banks of the Seine, which was the especial subject of M. de la Mole's interest because it was the only one of all his properties which had belonged to the celebrated Boniface de la Mole.
He found the marquise and her daughter, who had just come back from Hyerès, in the hotel. Julien was a dandy now, and understood the art of Paris life. He manifested a perfect coldness towards mademoiselle de la Mole. He seemed to have retained no recollection of the day when she had asked him so gaily for details of his fall from his horse.
Mademoiselle de la Mole thought that he had grown taller and paler. There was no longer anything of the provincial in his figure or his appearance. It was not so with his conversation. Too much of the serious and too much of the positive element were still noticeable. In spite of these sober qualities, his conversation, thanks to his pride, was destitute of any trace of the subordinate. One simply felt that there were still too many things which he took seriously. But one saw that he was the kind of man to stick to his guns.
"He lacks lightness of touch, but not brains," said mademoiselle de la Mole to her father, as she rallied him on the cross that he had given Julien. "My brother has been asking you for it for sixteen months, and he is a La Mole."
"Yes, but Julien has surprises, and that's what the de la Mole, whom you were referring to, has never been guilty of."
M. the duc de Retz was announced.
Mathilde felt herself seized by an irresistible attack of yawning. She knew so well the old gildings and the old habitués of her father's salon. She conjured up an absolutely boring picture of the life which she was going to take up at Paris, and yet, when at Hyerès, she had regretted Paris.
"And yet I am nineteen," she thought. "That's the age of happiness, say all those gilt-edged ninnies."
She looked at eight or ten new volumes of poetry which had accumulated on the table in the salon during her journey in Provence. She had the misfortune to have more brains than M.M. de Croisnois, de Caylus, de Luz, and her other friends. She anticipated all that they were going to tell her about the fine sky of Provence, poetry, the South, etc., etc.
These fine eyes, which were the home of the deepest ennui, and worse still, of the despair of ever finding pleasure, lingered on Julien. At any rate, he was not exactly like the others.
"Monsieur Sorel," she said, in that short, sharp voice, destitute of all femininity, which is so frequent among young women of the upper class.
"Monsieur Sorel, are you coming to-night to M. de Retz's ball?"
"Mademoiselle, I have not had the honour of being presented to M. the duke." (One would have said that these words and that title seared the mouth of the proud provincial).
"He asked my brother to take you there, and if you go, you could tell me some details about the Villequier estate. We are thinking of going there in the spring, and I would like to know if the château is habitable, and if the neighbouring places are as pretty as they say. There are so many unmerited reputations."
Julien did not answer.
"Come to the ball with my brother," she added, very dryly.
Julien bowed respectfully.
"So I owe my due to the members of the family, even in the middle of a ball. Am I not paid to be their business man?" His bad temper added, "God knows, moreover, if what I tell the daughter will not put out the plans of the father, brother, and mother. It is just like the court of a sovereign prince. You have to be absolutely negative, and yet give no one any right to complain."
"How that big girl displeases me!" he thought, as he watched the walk of Mademoiselle de la Mole, whom her mother had called to present to several women friends of hers. She exaggerates all the fashions. Her dress almost falls down to her shoulders, she is even paler than before she went away. How nondescript her hair has grown as the result of being blonde! You would say that the light passed through it.
What a haughty way of bowing and of looking at you! What queenly gestures! Mademoiselle de la Mole had just called her brother at the moment when he, was leaving the salon.
The comte de Norbert approached Julien.
"My dear Sorel," he said to him. "Where would you like me to pick you up to-night for Monsieur's ball. He expressly asked me to bring you."
"I know well whom I have to thank for so much kindness," answered Julien bowing to the ground.
His bad temper, being unable to find anything to lay hold of in the polite and almost sympathetic tone in which Norbert had spoken to him, set itself to work on the answer he had made to that courteous invitation. He detected in it a trace of subservience.
When he arrived at the ball in the evening, he was struck with the magnificence of the Hôtel de Retz. The courtyard at the entrance was covered with an immense tent of crimson with golden stars. Nothing could have been more elegant. Beyond the tent, the court had been transformed into a wood of orange trees and of pink laurels in full flower. As they had been careful to bury the vases sufficiently deep, the laurel trees and the orange trees appeared to come straight out of the ground. The road which the carriages traversed was sanded.
All this seemed extraordinary to our provincial. He had never had any idea of such magnificence. In a single instant his thrilled imagination had left his bad temper a thousand leagues behind. In the carriage on their way to the ball Norbert had been happy, while he saw everything in black colours. They had scarcely entered the courtyard before the rôles changed.
Norbert was only struck by a few details which, in the midst of all that magnificence, had not been able to be attended to. He calculated the expense of each item, and Julien remarked that the nearer he got to a sum total, the more jealous and bad-tempered he appeared.
As for himself, he was fascinated and full of admiration when he reached the first of the salons where they were dancing. His emotion was so great that it almost made him nervous. There was a crush at the door of the second salon, and the crowd was so great that he found it impossible to advance. The decorations of the second salon presented the Alhambra of Grenada.
"That's the queen of the ball one must admit," said a young man with a moustache whose shoulder stuck into Julien's chest.
"Mademoiselle Formant who has been the prettiest all the winter, realises that she will have to go down to the second place. See how strange she looks."
"In truth she is straining every nerve to please. Just look at that gracious smile now that she is doing the figure in that quadrille all alone. On my honour it is unique."
"Mademoiselle de la Mole looks as if she controlled the pleasure which she derives from her triumph, of which she is perfectly conscious. One might say that she fears to please anyone who talks to her."
"Very good. That is the art of alluring."
Julien vainly endeavoured to catch sight of the alluring woman. Seven or eight men who were taller than he prevented him from seeing her.
"There is quite a lot of coquetry in that noble reserve," said the young man with a moustache.
"And in those big blue eyes, which are lowered so slowly when one would think they were on the point of betraying themselves," answered his neighbour. "On my faith, nothing could be cleverer."
"See the pretty Formant looking quite common next to her," said the first.
"That air of reserve means how much sweetness would I spend on you if you were the man who was worthy of me."
"And who could be worthy of the sublime Mathilde," said the first man. "Some sovereign prince, handsome, witty, well-made, a hero in war, and twenty years old at the most."
"The natural son of the Emperor of Russia … who would be made a sovereign in honour of his marriage, or quite simply the comte de Thaler, who looks like a dressed-up peasant."
The door was free, and Julien could go in.
"Since these puppets consider her so remarkable, it is worth while for me to study her," he thought. "I shall then understand what these people regard as perfection."
As his eyes were trying to find her, Mathilde looked at him. "My duty calls me," said Julien to himself. But it was only his expression which was bad-humoured.
His curiosity made him advance with a pleasure which the extremely low cut dress on Mathilde's shoulder very quickly accentuated, in a manner which was scarcely flattering for his own self-respect. "Her beauty has youth," he thought. Five or six people, whom Julien recognised as those who had been speaking at the door were between her and him.
"Now, Monsieur, you have been here all the winter," she said to him. "Is it not true that this is the finest ball of the season"
He did not answer.
"This quadrille of Coulon's strikes me as admirable, and those ladies dance it perfectly." The young men turned round to see who was the happy man, an answer from whom was positively insisted on. The answer was not encouraging.
"I shall not be able to be a good judge, mademoiselle, I pass my life in writing. This is the first ball of this magnificence which I have ever seen."
The young men with moustaches were scandalised.
"You are a wise man, Monsieur Sorel," came the answer with a more marked interest. "You look upon all these balls, all these festivities, like a philosopher, like J. J. Rousseau. All these follies astonish without alluring you."
Julien's imagination had just hit upon an epigram which banished all illusions from his mind. His mouth assumed the expression of a perhaps slightly exaggerated disdain.
"J. J. Rousseau," he answered, "is in my view only a fool when he takes it upon himself to criticise society. He did not understand it, and he went into it with the spirit of a lackey who has risen above his station."
"He wrote the Contrat Social," answered Mathilde reverently.
"While he preaches the Republic, and the overthrow of monarchical dignities, the parvenu was intoxicated with happiness if a duke would go out of his way after dinner to one of his friends."
"Oh yes, the Duke of Luxembourg at Montmorency, used to accompany a Coindet from the neighbourhood of Paris," went on Mademoiselle de la Mole, with all the pleasure and enthusiasm of her first flush of pedantry. She was intoxicated with her knowledge, almost like the academican who discovered the existence of King Feretrius.
Julien's look was still penetrating and severe. Mathilde had had a moment's enthusiasm. Her partner's coldness disconcerted her profoundly. She was all the more astonished, as it was she who was accustomed to produce that particular effect on others.
At this moment the marquis de Croisenois was advancing eagerly towards mademoiselle de la Mole. He was for a moment three yards away from her. He was unable to get closer because of the crowd. He smiled at the obstacle. The young marquise de Rouvray was near her. She was a cousin of Mathilde. She was giving her arm to her husband who had only married her a fortnight ago. The marquis de Rouvray, who was also very young, had all the love which seizes a man who, having contracted a marriage of convenience exclusively arranged by the notaries, finds a person who is ideally pretty. M. de Rouvray would be a duke on the death of a very old uncle.
While the marquis de Croisenois was struggling to get through the crowd, and smiling at Mathilde she fixed her big divinely blue eyes on him and his neighbours. "Could anything be flatter," she said to herself. "There is Croisenois who wants to marry me, he is gentle and polite, he has perfect manners like M. de Rouvray. If they did not bore, those gentlemen would be quite charming. He too, would accompany me to the ball with that smug limited expression. One year after the marriage I shall have my carriage, my horses, my dresses, my château twenty leagues from Paris. All this would be as nice as possible, and enough to make a Countess de Roiville, for example, die of envy and afterwards—"
Mathilde bored herself in anticipation. The marquis de Croisenois managed to approach her and spoke to her, but she was dreaming and did not listen to him. The noise of his words began to get mixed with the buzz of the ball. Her eye mechanically followed Julien who had gone away, with an air which, though respectful, was yet proud and discontented. She noticed in a corner far from the moving crowd, the comte Altamira who had been condemned to death in his own country and whom the reader knows already. One of his relatives had manied a Prince de Conti in the reign of Louis XIV. This historical fact was some protection against the police of the congregation.
"I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought."
"Why, that's an epigram, I just said, what a pity it did not come at a moment when I could have reaped all the credit for it." Mathilde had too much taste to work into the conversation a prepared epigram but at the same time she was too vain not to be extremely pleased with herself. A happy expression succeeded the palpable boredom of her face. The marquis de Croisenois, who had never left off talking, saw a chance of success and waxed twice as eloquent.
"What objection could a caviller find with my epigram," said Mathilde to herself. "I would answer my critic in this way: The title of baron or vicomte is to be bought; a cross, why it is a gift. My brother has just got one. What has he done? A promotion, why that can be obtained by being ten years in a garrison or have the minister of war for a relative, and you'll be a chief of a squadron like Norbert. A great fortune! That's rather more difficult, and consequently more meritorious. It is really quite funny. It's the opposite of what the books say. Well, to win a fortune why you marry M. Rothschild's daughter. Really my epigram is quite deep. Being condemned to death is still the one privilege which one has never thought of canvassing."
"Do you know the comte Altamira," she said to M. de Croisenois.
Her thoughts seemed to have been so far away, and this question had so little connection with all that the poor marquis had been saying for the last five minutes, that his good temper was ruffled. He was nevertheless a man of wit and celebrated for being so.
"Mathilde is eccentric," he thought, "that's a nuisance, but she will give her husband such a fine social position. I don't know how the marquis de la Mole manages. He is connected with all that is best in all parties. He is a man who is bound to come out on top. And, besides, this eccentricity of Mathilde's may pass for genius. Genius when allied with good birth and a large fortune, so far from being ridiculous, is highly distinguished. She has wit, moreover, when she wants to, that mixture in fact of brains, character, and ready wit which constitute perfection."
As it is difficult to do two things at the same time, the marquis answered Mathilde with a vacant expression as though he were reciting a lesson.
"Who does not know that poor Altamira?" and he told her the history of his conspiracy, abortive, ridiculous and absurd.
"Very absurd," said Mathilde as if she were talking to herself, " but he has done something. I want to see a man; bring him to me," she said to the scandalized marquis.
Comte Altamira was one of the most avowed admirers of mademoiselle de la Mole's haughty and impertinent manner. In his opinion she was one of the most beautiful persons in Paris.
"How fine she would be on a throne," he said to M. de Croisenois; and made no demur at being taken up to Mathilde.
There are a good number of people in society who would like to establish the fact that nothing is in such bad form as a conspiracy in the nineteenth century; it smacks of Jacobinism. And what could be more sordid than unsuccessful Jacobinism.
Mathilde's expression made fun a little of Altamira and M. de Croisenois, but she listened to him with pleasure.
"A conspirator at a ball, what a pretty contrast," she thought. She thought that this man with his black moustache looked like a lion at rest, but she soon perceived that his mind had only one point of view: utility, admiration for utility.
The young comte thought nothing worthy his attention except what tended to give his country two chamber government. He left Mathilde, who was the prettiest person at the ball, with alacrity, because he saw a Peruvian general come in. Desparing of Europe such as M. de Metternich had arranged it, poor Altamira had been reduced to thinking that when the States of South America had become strong and powerful they could restore to Europe the liberty which Mirabeau has given it.
A crowd of moustachised young men had approached Mathilde. She realized that Altamira had not felt allured, and was piqued by his departure. She saw his black eye gleam as he talked to the Peruvian general. Mademoiselle de la Mole looked at the young Frenchmen with that profound seriousness which none of her arrivals could imitate, "which of them," she thought, "could get himself condemned to death, even supposing he had a favourable opportunity?"
This singular look flattered those who were not very intelligent, but disconcerted the others. They feared the discharge of some stinging epigram that would be difficult to answer.
"Good birth vouchsafes a hundred qualities whose absence would offend me. I see as much in the case of Julien," thought Mathilde, "but it withers up those qualities of soul which make a man get condemned to death."
At that moment some one was saying near her: "Comte Altamara is the second son of the Prince of San Nazaro-Pimentel; it was a Pimentel who tried to save Conradin, was beheaded in 1268. It is one of the noblest families in Naples."
"So," said Mathilde to herself, "what a pretty proof this is of my maxim, that good birth deprives a man of that force of character in default of which a man does not get condemned to death. I seem doomed to reason falsely to-night. Since I am only a woman like any other, well I must dance." She yielded to the solicitations of M. de Croisenois who had been asking for a gallop for the last hour. To distract herself from her failure in philosophy, Mathilde made a point of being perfectly fascinating. M. de Croisenois was enchanted. But neither the dance nor her wish to please one of the handsomest men at court, nor anything at all, succeeded in distracting Mathilde. She could not possibly have been more of a success. She was the queen of the ball. She coldly appreciated the fact.
"What a blank life I shall pass with a person like Croisenois," she said to herself as he took her back to her place an hour afterwards. "What pleasure do I get," she added sadly, "if after an absence of six months I find myself at a ball which all the women of Paris were mad with jealousy to go to? And what is more I am surrounded by the homage of an ideally constituted circle of society. The only bourgeois are some peers and perhaps one or two Juliens. And yet," she added with increasing sadness, "what advantages has not fate bestowed upon me! Distinction, fortune, youth, everything except happiness. My most dubious advantages are the very ones they have been speaking to me about all the evening. Wit, I believe I have it, because I obviously frighten everyone. If they venture to tackle a serious subject, they will arrive after five minutes of conversation and as though they had made a great discovery at a conclusion which we have been repeating to them for the last hour. I am beautiful, I have that advantage for which madame de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet I'm dying of boredom. Shall I have reason to be less bored when I have changed my name for that of the marquis de Croisenois?
"My God though," she added, while she almost felt as if she would like to cry, "isn't he really quite perfect? He's a paragon of the education of the age; you can't look at him without his finding something charming and even witty to say to you; he is brave. But that Sorel is strange," she said to herself, and the expression of her eyes changed from melancholy to anger. "I told him that I had something to say to him and he hasn't deigned to reappear."