Kabanata Kabanata 16 · THE DAY AFTER

. THE DAY AFTER

He turned his lips to hers and with his hand

Called back the tangles of her wandering hair.

_Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170.

Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Rênal had been too agitated and

too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a

single moment become the whole to world her.

"Oh, my God!" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when

she saw the dawn break, "if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost."

Julien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this

one,

"Would you regret your life?"

"Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having

known you."

Julien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in

broad daylight and with deliberate imprudence.

The continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest

actions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only

one advantage. When he saw Madame de Rênal again at breakfast his

conduct was a masterpiece of prudence.

As for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes,

and could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her

own nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only

lifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Rênal admired

his prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repeated, she

became alarmed. "Could it be that he does not love me?" she said to

herself. "Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he

is."

As she passed from the dining-room to the garden, she pressed Julien's

hand. In the surprise caused by so singular a mark of love, he regarded

her with passion, for he had thought her very pretty over breakfast,

and while keeping his eyes downcast he had passed his time in thinking

of the details of her charms. This look consoled Madame de Rênal. It

did not take away all her anxiety, but her anxiety tended to take away

nearly completely all her remorse towards her husband.

The husband had noticed nothing at breakfast. It was not so with

Madame Derville. She thought she saw Madame de Rênal on the point of

succumbing. During the whole day her bold and incisive friendship

regaled her cousin with those innuendoes which were intended to paint

in hideous colours the dangers she was running.

Madame de Rênal was burning to find herself alone with Julien. She

wished to ask him if he still loved her. In spite of the unalterable

sweetness of her character, she was several times on the point of

notifying her friend how officious she was.

Madame Derville arranged things so adroitly that evening in the garden,

that she found herself placed between Madame de Rênal and Julien.

Madame de Rênal, who had thought in her imagination how delicious it

would be to press Julien's hand and carry it to her lips, was not able

to address a single word to him.

This hitch increased her agitation. She was devoured by one pang of

remorse. She had so scolded Julien for his imprudence in coming to her

room on the preceding night, that she trembled lest he should not come

to-night. She left the garden early and went and ensconced herself in

her room, but not being able to control her impatience, she went and

glued her ear to Julien's door. In spite of the uncertainty and passion

which devoured her, she did not dare to enter. This action seemed

to her the greatest possible meanness, for it forms the basis of a

provincial proverb.

The servants had not yet all gone to bed. Prudence at last compelled

her to return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of

torture.

Julien was too faithful to what he called his duty to fail to

accomplish stage by stage what he had mapped out for himself.

As one o'clock struck, he escaped softly from his room, assured himself

that the master of the house was soundly asleep, and appeared in Madame

de Rênal's room. To-night he experienced more happiness by the side of

his love, for he thought less constantly about the part he had to play.

He had eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Madame de Rênal said to him

about his age contributed to give him some assurance.

"Alas! I am ten years older than you. How can you love me?" she

repeated vaguely, because the idea oppressed her.

Julien could not realise her happiness, but he saw that it was genuine

and he forgot almost entirely his own fear of being ridiculous.

The foolish thought that he was regarded as an inferior, by reason of

his obscure birth, disappeared also. As Julien's transports reassured

his timid mistress, she regained a little of her happiness, and of her

power to judge her lover. Happily, he had not, on this occasion, that

artificial air which had made the assignation of the previous night a

triumph rather than a pleasure. If she had realised his concentration

on playing a part that melancholy discovery would have taken away all

her happiness for ever. She could only have seen in it the result of

the difference in their ages.

Although Madame de Rênal had never thought of the theories of love,

difference in age is next to difference in fortune, one of the great

commonplaces of provincial witticisms, whenever love is the topic of

conversation.

In a few days Julien surrendered himself with all the ardour of his

age, and was desperately in love.

"One must own," he said to himself, "that she has an angelic kindness

of soul, and no one in the world is prettier."

He had almost completely given up playing a part. In a moment of

abandon, he even confessed to her all his nervousness. This confidence

raised the passion which he was inspiring to its zenith. "And I have no

lucky rival after all," said Madame de Rênal to herself with delight.

She ventured to question him on the portrait in which he used to be so

interested. Julien swore to her that it was that of a man.

When Madame de Rênal had enough presence of mind left to reflect, she

did not recover from her astonishment that so great a happiness could

exist; and that she had never had anything of.

"Oh," she said to herself, "if I had only known Julien ten years ago

when I was still considered pretty."

Julien was far from having thoughts like these. His love was still

akin to ambition. It was the joy of possessing, poor, unfortunate and

despised as he was, so beautiful a woman. His acts of devotion, and his

ecstacies at the sight of his mistress's charms finished by reassuring

her a little with regard to the difference of age. If she had possessed

a little of that knowledge of life which the woman of thirty has

enjoyed in the more civilised of countries for quite a long time, she

would have trembled for the duration of a love, which only seemed to

thrive on novelty and the intoxication of a young man's vanity. In

those moments when he forgot his ambition, Julien admired ecstatically

even the hats and even the dresses of Madame de Rênal. He could not

sate himself with the pleasure of smelling their perfume. He would open

her mirrored cupboard, and remain hours on end admiring the beauty and

the order of everything that he found there. His love leaned on him and

looked at him. He was looking at those jewels and those dresses which

had had been her wedding presents.

"I might have married a man like that," thought Madame de Rênal

sometimes. "What a fiery soul! What a delightful life one would have

with him?"

As for Julien, he had never been so near to those terrible instruments

of feminine artillery. "It is impossible," he said to himself "for

there to be anything more beautiful in Paris." He could find no flaw

in his happiness. The sincere admiration and ecstacies of his mistress

would frequently make him forget that silly pose which had rendered

him so stiff and almost ridiculous during the first moments of the

intrigue. There were moments where, in spite of his habitual hypocrisy,

he found an extreme delight in confessing to this great lady who

admired him, his ignorance of a crowd of little usages. His mistress's

rank seemed to lift him above himself. Madame de Rênal, on her side,

would find the sweetest thrill of intellectual voluptuousness in thus

instructing in a number of little things this young man who was so full

of genius, and who was looked upon by everyone as destined one day to

go so far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring

him. She thought it made them less foolish. As for Madame Derville, she

was very far from being in a position to express the same sentiments.

Rendered desperate by what she thought she divined, and seeing that

her good advice was becoming offensive to a woman who had literally

lost her head, she left Vergy without giving the explanation, which

her friend carefully refrained from asking. Madame de Rênal shed a few

tears for her, and soon found her happiness greater than ever. As a

result of her departure, she found herself alone with her lover nearly

the whole day.

Julien abandoned himself all the more to the delightful society of his

sweetheart, since, whenever he was alone, Fouqué's fatal proposition

still continued to agitate him. During the first days of his novel life

there were moments when the man who had never loved, who had never been

loved by anyone, would find so delicious a pleasure in being sincere,

that he was on the point of confessing to Madame de Rênal that ambition

which up to then had been the very essence of his existence. He would

have liked to have been able to consult her on the strange temptation

which Fouqué's offer held out to him, but a little episode rendered any

frankness impossible.