The Red and the Black/Chapter 63
CHAPTER LXIII
THE HELL OF WEAKNESS
A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had force of will.—Mirabeau,
Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken.
"The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of Tartuffe supplied the answer
"I am not an angel. … I served you well; you paid me generously. … I was grateful, but I am twenty-two. … Only you and that charming person understood my thoughts in this household."
"Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The day when you found her charming you ought to have fled."
"I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for Languedoc."
Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No, no, he is not a wicked man."
"No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees. But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly got up again.
The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a distraction.
"What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture, and lost all power over the movements of his mind.
Julien was afraid of being beaten.
In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men."
Julien approached the table and wrote:
"I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to accept my apologies (together with the expression of my infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be occasioned by my death in his hôtel."
"Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien. "Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall at the bottom."
"Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away.
"I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to spare his valet the trouble of killing me.…
"Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer him.… But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son."
This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his danger.
This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to how to behave towards this infuriated man.… He is devoid of reason; he is capable of everything. Fouqué is too far away; besides, he would not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's."
"Count Altamira … am I certain of eternal silence? My request for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbé Pirard. His mind is crabbed by Jansenism.… A damned Jesuit would know the world, and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the very mention of my crime."
The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy.
Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence.
"I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father."
"What will he do?" said Julien keenly.
At that moment he loved the abbé, and would have found a scene between them very painful.
"I see three alternatives," continued Julien.
"M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide letter which he had left with the Marquis;" (2) He can get Count Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank."
"You would accept?" said the abbé furiously as he got up.
"You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son."
"Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that depraved man."
At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger.
"If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you who will be the cause of his death.… Perhaps you will rejoice at it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning, and shall publicly appear as Madame the widow Sorel, I shall send out my invitations, you can count on it… You will find me neither pusillanimous nor cowardly."
Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted in his turn.
He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic. Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed that she had said nothing to her mother.
Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had come away from his long consultation with the abbé Pirard in a very diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that she had read his suicide letter.
"My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the hotel before they get up from table."
When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement, she burst into tears.
"Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee."
This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these aristocrats manage to shock me."
Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time."
This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger, eventually made the marquis hesitate.
"Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly make it impossible for me to retract it."
In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbé Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence. Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the eyes of God.
"And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much longer with this strange mésalliance. Everything must be said all at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest mystery."
"It is true," said the marquis pensively.
Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the abbé Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his daughter.
He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in which he had indulged for the last ten years.
"Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked for by all the cream of the nobility of France."
"We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound everything. We are marching towards chaos."