CHAPTER LVIII
MANON LESCAUT
Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed well enough by calling white black, and black white.Lichiemberg.
The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext could excuse any deviation from the rôle of that most estatic admiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis.
One evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien spoke of the ballet of Manon Lescaut in the most enthusiastic terms. His only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought it insignificant.
The maréchale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbé Prévost's novel.
"The idea," thought Julien, both surprised and amused, "of so highly virtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess two or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers, who, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is, alas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses."
"Manon Lescaut," continued the maréchale, "is said to be one of the best of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the deserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a truth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your Bonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written for lackeys."
The word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind. "They have tried to ruin me with the maréchale; they have told her of my enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to make her yield to the temptation to make me feel it." This discovery amused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave of the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him, "Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at the best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence. Besides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate masterpieces of art."
"When you like me," Julien kept on repeating to himself, "that means nothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which are beyond us poor provincials." And he thought a great deal about madame de Rênal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the marechale.
"How is it," she said to him the following day, with an assumed indifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, "that you talk to me about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I think, when you came back from the opera?"
Julien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without thinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to substitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond which occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences, but found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of succumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words he succeeded in formulating this inspiration: "Exalted as I was by the discussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human soul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you."
"I am making an impression," he said to himself, "so I can spare myself the boredom of the rest of the evening." He left the hôtel de Fervaques at a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the letter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to the fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of Richmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender.
It had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his conversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters which had marked him out for favour. The maréchale was particularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very far from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire had brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human effort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it still preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which did not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons who, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a whole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling a novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to be offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the lightness of the age.
But such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to procure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless life which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of our journey.
Mademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid thinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques episode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued herself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation captivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by his absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the maréchale which was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own way of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This Macchiavellianiasm impressed her. "What subtlety," she said to herself. "What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common rascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain."
Nevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish the most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the maréchale's salon.
The strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its strength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the hotel de Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic that he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair.
"I overcame despair at the seminary," he said, "yet what an awful prospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or come to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my life in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting things in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short months later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own age."
But very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful reality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew from the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was on the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called twice a day at the hôtel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover was alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed that mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended, Julien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to his room.
"Ah," he said to himself, "would it not be much wiser to take the marks out of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from Paris to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the district, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would bother about me after a fortnight?"
This reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of Mathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed to plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising, none the less gave him a hold on life. "Well," he said to himself, "I will follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?"
"So far as the maréchale is concerned, after I have copied out these fifty-three letters, I shall not write any others.
"As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave her anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great God! I should die of happiness."
And he could not finish his train of thought. After a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his argument. "In that case," he said to himself, "I should win one day of happiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my lack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing left to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character as hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt lacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous. Great God, why am I myself?"