Part 2 Chapter 28

Manon LescautNow once he was fully convinced of the foolishness and idiocy ofthe prior, he succeeded quite straightforwardly by calling blackwhite, and white black.

LICHTENBERGThe Russian instructions laid down categorically that one must nevercontradict in speech the person with whom one corresponded. One mustnever depart, upon any account, from an attitude of the most ecstatic admiration; the letters were all based upon this supposition.

One evening, at the Opera, in Madame de Fervaques's box, Julienpraised to the skies the ballet in Manon Lescaut. 16 His sole reason for doing so was that he found it insipid.

The Marechale said that this ballet was greatly inferior to abbePrevost's novel.

'What!' thought Julien, with surprise and amusement, 'a person of suchextreme virtue praise a novel!' Madame de Fervaques used to profess,two or three times weekly, the most utter scorn for the writers, who, bymeans of those vulgar works, sought to corrupt a younger generationonly too prone to the errors of the senses.

'In that immoral and pernicious class, Manon Lescaut,' the Marechalewent on, 'occupies, they say, one of the first places. The frailties and well-merited sufferings of a thoroughly criminal heart are, they say, describedin it with a truth that is almost profound; which did not prevent yourBonaparte from declaring on Saint Helena that it was a novel written forservants.'

This speech restored all its activity to Julien's spirit. 'People have beentrying to damage me with the Marechale; they have told her of my16.Composed by Halevy upon a libretto by Scribe, and performed in 1830.

enthusiasm for Napoleon. This intelligence has stung her sufficiently forher to yield to the temptation to let me feel her resentment.' This discovery kept him amused for the rest of the evening and made him amusing.

As he was bidding the Marechale good night in the vestibule of theOpera: 'Bear in mind, Sir,' she said to him, 'that people must not love Napoleon when they love me; they may, at the most, accept him as a necessity imposed by Providence. Anyhow, the man had not a soul pliantenough to feel great works of art.'

'When they love me!' Julien repeated to himself; 'either that means nothing at all, or it means everything. There is one of the secrets of languagethat are hidden from us poor provincials.' And he thought incessantly ofMadame de Renal as he copied an immensely long letter intended for theMarechale.

'How is it,' she asked him the following evening, with an air of indifference which seemed to him unconvincing, 'that you speak to me ofLondon and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, it appears,after leaving the Opera?'

Julien was greatly embarrassed; he had copied the letter line for line,without thinking of what he was writing, and apparently had forgottento substitute for the words London and Richmond, which occurred in theoriginal, Paris and Saint-Cloud. He began two or three excuses, but foundit impossible to finish any of them; he felt himself on the point of givingway to an outburst of helpless laughter. At length, in his search for theright words, he arrived at the following idea: 'Exalted by the discussionof the most sublime, the highest interests of the human soul, my own, inwriting to you, must have become distracted.

'I am creating an impression,' he said to himself, 'therefore I can sparemyself the tedium of the rest of the evening.' He left the Hotel de Fervaques in hot haste. That evening, as he looked over the original text ofthe letter which he had copied the night before, he very soon came to thefatal passage where the young Russian spoke of London and Richmond.

Julien was quite surprised to find this letter almost tender.

It was the contrast between the apparent frivolity of his talk and thesublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters that had markedhim out. The length of his sentences was especially pleasing to the Marechale; this was not the cursory style brought into fashion by Voltaire,that most immoral of men! Although our hero did everything in theworld to banish any suggestion of common sense from his conversation,it had still an anti-monarchical and impious colour which did not escape the notice of Madame de Fervaques. Surrounded by persons who wereeminently moral, but who often had not one idea in an evening, this ladywas profoundly impressed by everything that bore a semblance of novelty; but, at the same time, she felt that she owed it to herself to beshocked by it. She called this defect, 'retaining the imprint of the frivolityof the age'.

But such drawing-rooms are worth visiting only when one has a favour to ask. All the boredom of this life without interests which Julienwas leading is doubtless shared by the reader. These are the barrenmoorlands on our journey.

Throughout the time usurped in Julien's life by the Fervaques episode,Mademoiselle de La Mole had to make a constant effort not to think ofhim. Her heart was exposed to violent combats: sometimes she flatteredherself that she was despising this gloomy young man; but, in spite ofher efforts, his conversation captivated her. What astonished her most ofall was his complete insincerity; he never uttered a word to the Marechale which was not a lie, or at least a shocking travesty of his point ofview, which Mathilde knew so perfectly upon almost every subject. ThisMachiavellism impressed her. 'What profundity!' she said to herself;'how different from the emphatic blockheads or the common rascals, likeM. Tanbeau, who speak the same language!'

Nevertheless, Julien passed some fearful days. It was to perform themost arduous of his duties that he appeared each evening in theMarechale's drawing-room. His efforts to play a part ended by sappingall his spiritual strength. Often, at night, as he crossed the vast courtyardof the Hotel de Fervaques, it was only by force of character and reasonthat he succeeded in keeping himself from sinking into despair.

'I conquered despair at the Seminary,' he said to himself: 'and yet whatan appalling prospect I had before me then! I stood to make my fortuneor to fail; in either case, I saw myself obliged to spend my whole life inthe intimate society of all that is most contemptible and disgusting underheaven. The following spring, when only eleven short months hadpassed, I was perhaps the happiest of all the young men of my age.'

But often enough all these fine arguments proved futile when facedwith the frightful reality. Every day he saw Mathilde at luncheon and atdinner. From the frequent letters which M. de La Mole dictated to him,he knew her to be on the eve of marrying M. de Croisenois. Already thatamiable young man was calling twice daily at the Hotel de La Mole: the jealous eye of an abandoned lover did not miss a single one of hisactions.

When he thought he had noticed that Mademoiselle de La Mole wastreating her suitor kindly, on returning to his room, Julien could not helpcasting a loving glance at his pistols.

'Ah, how much wiser I should be,' he said to himself, 'to remove themarks from my linen, and retire to some lonely forest, twenty leaguesfrom Paris, there to end this accursed existence! A stranger to the countryside, my death would remain unknown for a fortnight, and whowould think of me after a fortnight had passed?'

This reasoning was extremely sound. But next day, a glimpse ofMathilde's arm, seen between her sleeve and her glove, was enough toplunge our young philosopher in cruel memories, which, at the sametime, made him cling to life. 'Very well!' he would then say to himself, 'Ishall follow out this Russian policy to the end. How is it going to end?

'As for the Marechale, certainly, after I have copied these fifty-threeletters, I shall write no more.

'As for Mathilde, these six weeks of such painful play-acting, willeither fail altogether to appease her anger, or will win me a moment ofreconciliation. Great God! I should die of joy!' And he was unable to pursue the idea farther.

When, after a long spell of meditation, he succeeded in recovering theuse of his reason: 'Then,' he said to himself, 'I should obtain a day's happiness, after which would begin again her severities, founded, alas, uponthe scant power that I have to please her, and I should be left withoutany further resource, I should be ruined, lost for ever …'What guarantee can she give me, with her character? Alas, my scantmerit is responsible for everything. I must be wanting in elegance in mymanners, my way of speaking must be heavy and monotonous. GreatGod! Why am I myself?'