บทที่ บทที่ 35 · SENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY

. SENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY

An idea which has any life in it seems like a crudity,

so accustomed are they to colourless expression. Woe to

him who introduces new ideas into his conversation!

--_Faublas_.

This was the stage Julien had reached, when after several months of

probation the steward of the household handed him the third quarter of

his wages. M. de la Mole had entrusted him with the administration of

his estates in Brittany and Normandy. Julien made frequent journeys

there. He had chief control of the correspondence relating to the

famous lawsuit with the abbé de Frilair. M. Pirard had instructed him.

On the data of the short notes which the marquis would scribble on the

margin of all the various paper which were addressed to him, Julien

would compose answers which were nearly all signed.

At the Theology School his professors complained of his lack of

industry, but they did not fail to regard him as one of their most

distinguished pupils. This varied work, tackled as it was with all

the ardour of suffering ambition, soon robbed Julien of that fresh

complexion which he had brought from the provinces. His pallor

constituted one of his merits in the eyes of his comrades, the young

seminarist; he found them much less malicious, much less ready to bow

down to a silver crown than those of Besançon; they thought he was

consumptive. The marquis had given him a horse.

Julien fearing that he might meet people during his rides on horseback,

had given out that this exercise had been prescribed by the doctors.

The abbé Pirard had taken him into several Jansenist Societies. Julien

was astonished; the idea of religion was indissolubly connected in his

mind with the ideas of hypocrisy and covetousness. He admired those

austere pious men who never gave a thought to their income. Several

Jansenists became friendly with him and would give him advice. A new

world opened before him. At the Jansenists he got to know a comte

Altamira, who was nearly six feet high, was a Liberal, a believer, and

had been condemned to death in his own country. He was struck by the

strange contrast of devoutness and love of liberty.

Julien's relations with the young comte had become cool. Norbert

had thought that he answered the jokes of his friends with too much

sharpness. Julien had committed one or two breaches of social etiquette

and vowed to himself that he would never speak to mademoiselle

Mathilde. They were always perfectly polite to him in the Hôtel de

la Mole but he felt himself quite lost. His provincial common sense

explained this result by the vulgar proverb _Tout beau tout nouveau_.

He gradually came to have a little more penetration than during his

first days, or it may have been that the first glamour of Parisian

urbanity had passed off. As soon as he left off working, he fell a prey

to a mortal boredom. He was experiencing the withering effects of that

admirable politeness so typical of good society, which is so perfectly

modulated to every degree of the social hierarchy.

No doubt the provinces can be reproached with a commonness and lack of

polish in their tone; but they show a certain amount of passion, when

they answer you. Julien's self-respect was never wounded at the Hôtel

de la Mole, but he often felt at the end of the day as though he would

like to cry. A café-waiter in the provinces will take an interest in

you if you happen to have some accident as you enter his café, but if

this accident has everything about it which is disagreeable to your

vanity, he will repeat ten times in succession the very word which

tortures you, as he tells you how sorry he is. At Paris they make a

point of laughing in secret, but you always remain a stranger.

We pass in silence over a number of little episodes which would have

made Julien ridiculous, if he had not been to some extent above

ridicule. A foolish sensibility resulted in his committing innumerable

acts of bad taste. All his pleasures were precautions; he practiced

pistol shooting every day, he was one of the promising pupils of the

most famous maîtres d'armes. As soon as he had an instant to himself,

instead of employing it in reading as he did before, he would rush

off to the riding school and ask for the most vicious horses. When he

went out with the master of the riding school he was almost invariably

thrown.

The marquis found him convenient by reason of his persistent industry,

his silence and his intelligence, and gradually took him into his

confidence with regard to all his affairs, which were in any way

difficult to unravel. The marquis was a sagacious business man on all

those occasions when his lofty ambition gave him some respite; having

special information within his reach, he would speculate successfully

on the Exchange. He would buy mansions and forests; but he would easily

lose his temper. He would give away hundreds of louis, and would go

to law for a few hundred francs. Rich men with a lofty spirit have

recourse to business not so much for results as for distraction. The

marquis needed a chief of staff who would put all his money affairs

into clear and lucid order. Madame de la Mole, although of so even a

character, sometimes made fun of Julien. Great ladies have a horror

of those unexpected incidents which are produced by a sensitive

character; they constitute the opposite pole of etiquette. On two or

three occasions the marquis took his part. "If he is ridiculous in your

salon, he triumphs in his office." Julien on his side thought he had

caught the marquise's secret. She deigned to manifest an interest in

everything the minute the Baron de la Joumate was announced. He was a

cold individual with an expressionless physiognomy. He was tall, thin,

ugly, very well dressed, passed his life in his château, and generally

speaking said nothing about anything. Such was his outlook on life.

Madame de la Mole would have been happy for the first time in her life

if she could have made him her daughter's husband.