3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ paying much attention to what he was saying; ‘I wished to test thy bravery, I admit. Thy first suspicions and thy determination to come shew thee to be even more intrepid than I supposed.’

      Mathilde made an effort to use the more intimate form; she was evidently more attentive to this unusual way of speaking than to what she was saying. This use of the tu form, stripped of the tone of affection, ceased, after a moment, to afford Julien any pleasure, he was astonished at the absence of happiness; finally, in order to feel it, he had recourse to his reason. He saw himself highly esteemed by this girl who was so proud, and never bestowed unrestricted praise; by this line of reasoning he arrived at a gratification of his self-esteem.

      This was not, it is true, that spiritual ecstasy which he had found at times in the company of Madame de Renal. There was nothing tender in his sentiments at this first moment. What he felt was the keenest gratification of his ambition, and Julien was above all things ambitious. He spoke again of the people he suspected and of the precautions he had contrived. As he spoke he was thinking of how best to profit by his victory.

      Mathilde, who was still greatly embarrassed and had the air of one appalled by what she had done, seemed enchanted at finding a topic of conversation. They discussed how they should meet again. Julien employed to the full the intelligence and daring of which he furnished fresh proofs in the course of this discussion. They had some extremely sharp-sighted people against them, young Tanbeau was certainly a spy, but Mathilde and he were not altogether incompetent either.

      What could be easier than to meet in the library, and arrange everything?

      ‘I can appear, without arousing suspicion, in any part of the house, I could almost appear in Madame de La Mole’s bedroom.’ It was absolutely necessary to pass through this room to reach her daughter’s. If Mathilde preferred that he should always come by a ladder, it was with a heart wild with joy that he would expose himself to this slight risk.

      As she listened to him speaking, Mathilde was shocked by his air of triumph. ‘He is my master, then!’ she told herself. Already she was devoured by remorse. Her reason felt a horror of the signal act of folly which she had just committed. Had it been possible, she would have destroyed herself and Julien. Whenever, for an instant, the strength of her will made her remorse silent, feelings of shyness and outraged modesty made her extremely wretched. She had never for a moment anticipated the dreadful plight in which she now found herself.

      ‘I must speak to him, though,’ she said to herself, finally, ‘that is laid down in the rules, one speaks to one’s lover.’ And then, as though performing a duty, and with a tenderness that was evident rather in the words that she used than in the sound of her voice, she told him of the various decisions to which she had come with regard to him during the last few days.

      She had made up her mind that if he ventured to come to her with the aid of the gardener’s ladder, as she had bidden him, she would give herself to him. But never were things so tender said in a colder and more formal tone. So far, their intercourse was ice-bound. It was enough to make one hate the thought of love. What a moral lesson for a rash young woman! Is it worth her while to wreck her future for such a moment?

      After prolonged uncertainties, which might have appeared to a superficial observer to be due to the most decided hatred, so hard was it for the feeling of self-respect which a woman owes to herself, to yield to so masterful a will, Mathilde finally became his mistress.

      To tell the truth, their transports were somewhat deliberate. Passionate love was far more a model which they were imitating than a reality with them.

      Mademoiselle de La Mole believed that she was performing a duty towards herself and towards her lover. ‘The poor boy,’ she told herself, ‘has been the last word in daring, he deserves to be made happy, or else I am wanting in character.’ But she would gladly have redeemed at the cost of an eternity of suffering the cruel necessity to which she found herself committed.

      In spite of the violence she was doing to herself, she retained entire command of her speech.

      No regret, no reproach came to mar this night which seemed odd rather than happy to Julien. What a difference, great God, from his last visit, of twenty-four hours, to Verrieres! ‘These fine Paris manners have found out the secret of spoiling everything, even love,’ he said to himself with an extreme disregard of justice.

      He abandoned himself to these reflections, standing upright in one of the great mahogany wardrobes into which he had been thrust at the first sound heard from the next room, which was Madame de La Mole’s bedroom. Mathilde accompanied her mother to mass, the maids soon left the apartment, and Julien easily made his escape before they returned to complete their labours.

      He mounted his horse and made at a leisurely pace for the most solitary recesses of one of the forests near Paris. He was still more surprised than happy. The happiness which, from time to time, came flooding into his heart, was akin to that of a young Second Lieutenant who, after some astounding action, has just been promoted Colonel by the Commander in Chief; he felt himself carried to an immense height. Everything that had been above him the day before was now on his level or far beneath him. Gradually Julien’s happiness increased as he put the miles behind him.

      If there was nothing tender in his heart, it was because, strange as it may appear, Mathilde, throughout the whole of her conduct with him, had been performing a duty. There was nothing unforeseen for her in all the events of this night but the misery and shame which she had found in the place of that utter bliss of which we read in novels.

      ‘Can I have been mistaken? Am I not in love with him?’ she asked herself.

      Chapter 17

      AN OLD SWORD

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      I now mean to be serious:— it is time,

      Since laughter nowadays is deem’d too serious.

      A jest at Vice by Virtue’s call’d a crime.

      Don Juan, XIII.

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      SHE DID NOT APPEAR at dinner. In the evening she came to the drawing-room for a moment, but did not look at Julien. This behaviour seemed to him strange; ‘but,’ he thought, ‘I do not know the ways of good society, she will give me some good reason for all this.’ At the same time, urged by the most intense curiosity, he studied the expression on Mathilde’s features; he could not conceal from himself that she had a sharp and malevolent air. Evidently this was not the same woman who, the night before, had felt or pretended to feel transports of joy too excessive to be genuine.

      Next day, and the day after, the same coldness on her part; she never once looked at him, she seemed unaware of his existence. Julien, devoured by the keenest anxiety, was a thousand leagues from the feeling of triumph which alone had animated him on the first day. ‘Can it, by any chance,’ he asked himself, ‘be a return to the path of virtue?’ But that was a very middle-class expression to use of the proud Mathilde.

      ‘In the ordinary situations of life she has no belief in religion,’ thought Julien; ‘she values it as being very useful to the interests of her caste.

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ