Bab Bab 33 · THE FIRST STEPS

. THE FIRST STEPS

This immense valley, filled with brilliant lights and so

many thousands of men dazzles my sight. No one knows me.

All are superior to me. I lose my head. _Poemi dell' av.

REINA_.

Julien was copying letters in the library very early the next day

when Mademoiselle Mathilde came in by a little dummy door very well

masked by the backs of the books. While Julien was admiring the

device, Mademoiselle Mathilde seemed astonished and somewhat annoyed

at finding him there: Julien saw that she was in curl-papers and had

a hard, haughty, and masculine expression. Mademoiselle de la Mole

had the habit of surreptitiously stealing books from her father's

library. Julien's presence rendered this morning's journey abortive,

a fact which annoyed her all the more as she had come to fetch the

second volume of Voltaire's _Princess of Babylon_, a worthy climax to

one of the most eminently monarchical and religious educations which

the convent of the Sacred Heart had ever provided. This poor girl of

nineteen already required some element of spiciness in order to get up

an interest in a novel.

Count Norbert put in an appearance in the library about three o'clock.

He had come to study a paper so as to be able to talk politics in the

evening, and was very glad to meet Julien, whose existence he had

forgotten. He was charming, and offered him a ride on horseback.

"My father will excuse us until dinner."

Julien appreciated the us and thought it charming.

"Great heavens! M. le Comte," said Julien, "if it were a question of

felling an eighty-foot tree or hewing it out and making it into planks

I would acquit myself all right, I daresay, but as for riding a horse,

I haven't done such a thing six times in my life."

"Well, this will be the seventh," said Norbert.

As a matter of fact, Julien remembered the king of ----'s entry into

Verrières, and thought he rode extremely well. But as they were

returning from the Bois de Boulogne he fell right in the middle of the

Rue du Bac, as he suddenly tried to get out of the way of a cabriolet,

and was spattered all over with mud. It was lucky that he had two

suits. The marquis, wishing to favour him with a few words at dinner,

asked him for news of his excursion. Norbert began immediately to

answer him in general terms.

"M. le Comte is extremely kind to me," answered Julien. "I thank him

for it, and I fully appreciate it. He was good enough to have the

quietest and prettiest horse given to me, but after all he could

not tie me on to it, and owing to the lack of that precaution, I

had a fall right in the middle of that long street near the bridge.

Madame Mathilde made a futile effort to hide a burst of laughter, and

subsequently was indiscreet enough to ask for details. Julien acquitted

himself with much simplicity. He had grace without knowing it.

"I prophesy favourably about that little priest," said the marquis to

the academician. "Think of a provincial being simple over a matter like

that. Such a thing has never been witnessed before, and will never be

witnessed again; and what is more, he describes his misfortune before

ladies."

Julien put his listeners so thoroughly at their ease over his

misfortune that at the end of the dinner, when the general conversation

had gone off on to another subject, Mademoiselle Mathilde asked her

brother some questions over the details of the unfortunate occurrence.

As she put numerous questions, and as Julien met her eyes several

times, he ventured to answer himself, although the questions had not

been addressed to him, and all three of them finished up by laughing

just as though they had all been inhabitants of some village in the

depths of a forest.

On the following day Julien attended two theology lectures, and then

came back to copy out about twenty letters. He found a young man, who

though very carefully dressed, had a mean appearance and an envious

expression, established near him in the library.

The marquis entered, "What are you doing here, M. Tanbeau?" he said

severely to the new-comer.

"I thought--" answered the young man, with a base smile.

"No, monsieur, you thought nothing of the kind. This is a try-on, but

it is an unfortunate one."

Young Tanbeau got up in a rage and disappeared. He was a nephew of the

academician who was a friend of Madame de la Mole, and intended to take

up the profession of letters. The academician had induced the marquis

to take him as a secretary. Tanbeau used to work in a separate room,

but having heard of the favour that was vouchsafed to Julien he wished

to share it, and he had gone this morning and established his desk in

the library.

At four o'clock Julien ventured, after a little hesitation, to present

himself to Count Norbert. The latter was on the point of going riding,

and being a man of perfect politeness felt embarrassed.

"I think," he said to Julien, "that you had better go to the riding

school, and after a few weeks, I shall be charmed to ride with you."

"I should like to have the honour of thanking you for the kindness

which you have shewn me. Believe me, monsieur," added Julien very

seriously, "that I appreciate all I owe you. If your horse has not been

hurt by the reason of my clumsiness of yesterday, and if it is free I

should like to ride it this afternoon."

"Well, upon my word, my dear Sorel, you do so at your own risk and

peril; kindly assume that I have put forth all the objections required

by prudence. As a matter of fact it is four o'clock, we have no time to

lose."

As soon as Julien was on horseback, he said to the young count, "What

must one do not to fall off?"

"Lots of things," answered Norbert, bursting into laughter. "Keep your

body back for instance."

Julien put his horse to the trot. They were at the Place Louis XVI.

"Oh, you foolhardy youngster," said Norbert "there are too many

carriages here, and they are driven by careless drivers into the

bargain. Once you are on the ground their tilburies will run over your

body, they will not risk spoiling their horses' mouths by pulling up

short."

Norbert saw Julien twenty times on the point of tumbling, but in the

end the excursion finished without misadventure. As they came back the

young count said to his sister,

"Allow me to introduce a dashing dare-devil."

When he talked to his father over the dinner from one end of the table

to the other, he did justice to Julien's courage. It was the only

thing one could possibly praise about his style of riding. The young

count had heard in the morning the men who groomed the horses in the

courtyard making Julien's fall an opportunity for the most outrageous

jokes at his expense.

In spite of so much kindness Julien soon felt himself completely

isolated in this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and

he was cognizant of none of them. His blunders were the delight of the

valets.

The abbé Pirard had left for his living. "If Julien is a weak reed,

let him perish. If he is a man of spirit, let him get out of his

difficulties all alone," he thought.