MORAL LOVE
There also was of course in Adeline
That calm patrician polish in the address,
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
Of anything which Nature would express;
Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine.
At least his manner suffers not to guess
That anything he views can greatly please.
_Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84.
"There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at
things," thought the maréchale; "they are infatuated with their young
abbé, whose only accomplishment is to be a good listener, though his
eyes are fine enough, it is true."
Julien, on his side, found in the maréchale's manners an almost perfect
instance of that patrician calm which exhales a scrupulous politeness;
and, what is more, announces at the same time the impossibility of
any violent emotion. Madame de Fervaques would have been as much
scandalised by any unexpected movement or any lack of self-control, as
by a lack of dignity towards one's inferiors. She would have regarded
the slightest symptom of sensibility as a kind of moral drunkenness
which puts one to the blush and was extremely prejudicial to what a
person of high rank owed to herself. Her great happiness was to talk of
the king's last hunt; her favourite book, was the Memoirs of the Duke
de Saint Simon, especially the genealogical part.
Julien knew the place where the arrangement of the light suited madame
de Fervaques' particular style of beauty. He got there in advance, but
was careful to turn his chair in such a way as not to see Mathilde.
Astonished one day at this consistent policy of hiding himself from
her, she left the blue sofa and came to work by the little table near
the maréchale's armchair. Julien had a fairly close view of her over
madame de Fervaques' hat.
Those eyes, which were the arbiters of his fate, frightened him, and
then hurled him violently out of his habitual apathy. He talked, and
talked very well.
He was speaking to the maréchale, but his one aim was to produce an
impression upon Mathilde's soul. He became so animated that eventually
madame de Fervaques did not manage to understand a word he said.
This was a prime merit. If it had occurred to Julien to follow it up by
some phrases of German mysticism, lofty religion, and Jesuitism, the
maréchale would have immediately given him a rank among the superior
men whose mission it was to regenerate the age.
"Since he has bad enough taste," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "to talk
so long and so ardently to madame de Fervaques, I shall not listen to
him any more." She kept her resolution during the whole latter part of
the evening, although she had difficulty in doing so.
At midnight, when she took her mother's candle to accompany her to
her room, madame de la Mole stopped on the staircase to enter into an
exhaustive eulogy of Julien. Mathilde ended by losing her temper. She
could not get to sleep. She felt calmed by this thought: "the very
things which I despise in a man may none the less constitute a great
merit in the eyes of the maréchale."
As for Julien, he had done something, he was less unhappy; his eyes
chanced to fall on the Russian leather portfolio in which prince
Korasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters which he had presented
to him. Julien saw a note at the bottom of the first letter: No. 1 is
sent eight days after the first meeting.
"I am behind hand," exclaimed Julien. "It is quite a long time since I
met madame de Fervaques." He immediately began to copy out this first
love letter. It was a homily packed with moral platitudes and deadly
dull. Julien was fortunate enough to fall asleep at the second page.
Some hours afterwards he was surprised to see the broad daylight as he
lent on his desk. The most painful moments in his life were those when
he woke up every morning to realise his unhappiness. On this particular
day he finished copying out his letter in a state verging on laughter.
"Is it possible," he said to himself, "that there ever lived a young
man who actually wrote like that." He counted several sentences of nine
lines each. At the bottom of the original he noticed a pencilled note.
"These letters are delivered personally, on horseback, black cravat,
blue tail-coat. You give the letter to the porter with a contrite air;
expression of profound melancholy. If you notice any chambermaid, dry
your eyes furtively and speak to her."
All this was duly carried out.
"I am taking a very bold course!" thought Julien as he came out of the
Hôtel de Fervaques, "but all the worse for Korasoff. To think of daring
to write to so virtuous a celebrity. I shall be treated with the utmost
contempt, and nothing will amuse me more. It is really the only comedy
that I can in any way appreciate. Yes, it will amuse me to load with
ridicule that odious creature whom I call myself. If I believed in
myself, I would commit some crime to distract myself."
The moment when Julien brought his horse back to the stable was the
happiest he had experienced for a whole month. Korasoff had expressly
forbidden him to look at the mistress who had left him, on any pretext
whatsoever. But the step of that horse, which she knew so well, and
Julien's way of knocking on the stable door with his riding-whip to
call a man, sometimes attracted Mathilde to behind the window-curtain.
The muslin was so light that Julien could see through it. By looking
under the brim of his hat in a certain way, he could get a view of
Mathilde's figure without seeing her eyes. "Consequently," he said to
himself, "she cannot see mine, and that is not really looking at her."
In the evening madame de Fervaques behaved towards him, exactly as
though she had never received the philosophic mystical and religious
dissertation which he had given to her porter in the morning with so
melancholy an air. Chance had shown Julien on the preceding day how
to be eloquent; he placed himself in such a position that he could
see Mathilde's eyes. She, on her side, left the blue sofa a minute
after the maréchale's arrival; this involved abandoning her usual
associates. M. de Croisenois seemed overwhelmed by this new caprice:
his palpable grief alleviated the awfulness of Julien's agony.
This unexpected turn in his life made him talk like an angel, and
inasmuch as a certain element of self-appreciation will insinuate
itself even into those hearts which serve as a temple for the
most august virtue, the maréchale said to herself as she got into
her carriage, "Madame de la Mole is right, this young priest has
distinction. My presence must have overawed him at first. As a matter
of fact, the whole tone of this house is very frivolous; I can see
nothing but instances of virtue helped by oldness, and standing in
great need of the chills of age. This young man must have managed to
appreciate the difference; he writes well, but I fear very much that
this request of his in his letter for me to enlighten him with my
advice, is really nothing less than an, as yet, unconscious sentiment.
"Nevertheless how many conversions have begun like that! What makes me
consider this a good omen is the difference between his style and that
of the young people whose letters I have had an opportunity of seeing.
One cannot avoid recognising unction, profound seriousness, and much
conviction in the prose of this young acolyte; he has no doubt the
sweet virtue of a Massillon."