บทที่ บทที่ 46 · ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING

. ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING

This garden was very big, it had been planned a

few years ago in perfect taste. But the trees were

more than a century old. It had a certain rustic

atmosphere.--_Massinger_.

He was going to write a countermanding letter to Fouqué when eleven

o'clock struck. He noisily turned the lock of the door of his room as

though he had locked himself in. He went with a sleuth-like step to

observe what was happening over the house, especially on the fourth

storey where the servants slept. There was nothing unusual. One of

madame de la Mole's chambermaids was giving an entertainment, the

servants were taking punch with much gaiety. "Those who laugh like

that," thought Julien, "cannot be participating in the nocturnal

expedition; if they were, they would be more serious."

Eventually he stationed himself in an obscure corner of the garden. "If

their plan is to hide themselves from the servants of the house, they

will despatch the persons whom they have told off to surprise me over

the garden wall.

"If M. de Croisenois shows any sense of proportion in this matter, he

is bound to find it less compromising for the young person, whom he

wishes to make his wife if he has me surprised before I enter her room."

He made a military and extremely detailed reconnaissance. "My honour is

at stake," he thought. "If I tumble into some pitfall it will not be an

excuse in my own eyes to say, 'I never thought of it.'"

The weather was desperately serene. About eleven o'clock the moon rose,

at half-past twelve it completely illuminated the facade of the hôtel

looking out upon the garden.

"She is mad," Julien said to himself. As one o'clock struck there

was still a light in comte Norbert's windows. Julien had never been

so frightened in his life, he only saw the dangers of the enterprise

and had no enthusiasm at all. He went and took the immense ladder,

waited five minutes to give her time to tell him not to go, and five

minutes after one placed the ladder against Mathilde's window. He

mounted softly, pistol in hand, astonished at not being attacked. As he

approached the window it opened noiselessly.

"So there you are, monsieur," said Mathilde to him with considerable

emotion. "I have been following your movements for the last hour."

Julien was very much embarrassed. He did not know how to conduct

himself. He did not feel at all in love. He thought in his

embarrassment that he ought to be venturesome. He tried to kiss

Mathilde.

"For shame," she said to him, pushing him away.

Extremely glad at being rebuffed, he hastened to look round him. The

moon was so brilliant that the shadows which it made in mademoiselle de

la Mole's room were black. "It's quite possible for men to be concealed

without my seeing them," he thought.

"What have you got in your pocket at the side of your coat?" Mathilde

said to him, delighted at finding something to talk about. She was

suffering strangely; all those sentiments of reserve and timidity which

were so natural to a girl of good birth, had reasserted their dominion

and were torturing her.

"I have all kinds of arms and pistols," answered Julien equally glad at

having something to say.

"You must take the ladder away," said Mathilde.

"It is very big, and may break the windows of the salon down below or

the room on the ground floor."

"You must not break the windows," replied Mathilde making a vain effort

to assume an ordinary conversational tone; "it seems to me you can

lower the ladder by tying a cord to the first rung. I have always a

supply of cords at hand."

"So this is a woman in love," thought Julien. "She actually dares to

say that she is in love. So much self-possession and such shrewdness in

taking precautions are sufficient indications that I am not triumphing

over M. de Croisenois as I foolishly believed, but that I am simply

succeeding him. As a matter of fact, what does it matter to me? Do I

love her? I am triumphing over the marquis in so far as he would be

very angry at having a successor, and angrier still at that successor

being myself. How haughtily he looked at me this evening in the Café

Tortoni when he pretended not to recognise me! And how maliciously he

bowed to me afterwards, when he could not get out of it."

Julien had tied the cord to the last rung of the ladder. He lowered it

softly and leant far out of the balcony in order to avoid its touching

the window pane. "A fine opportunity to kill me," he thought, "if

anyone is hidden in Mathilde's room;" but a profound silence continued

to reign everywhere.

The ladder touched the ground. Julien succeeded in laying it on the

border of the exotic flowers along side the wall.

"What will my mother say," said Mathilde, "when she sees her beautiful

plants all crushed? You must throw down the cord," she added with great

self-possession. "If it were noticed going up to the balcony, it would

be a difficult circumstance to explain."

"And how am I to get away?" said Julien in a jesting tone affecting the

Creole accent. (One of the chambermaids of the household had been born

in Saint-Domingo.)

"You? Why you will leave by the door," said Mathilde, delighted at the

idea.

"Ah! how worthy this man is of all my love," she thought.

Julien had just let the cord fall into the garden; Mathilde grasped

his arm. He thought he had been seized by an enemy and turned round

sharply, drawing a dagger. She had thought that she had heard a window

opening. They remained motionless and scarcely breathed. The moonlight

lit up everything. The noise was not renewed and there was no more

cause for anxiety.

Then their embarrassment began again; it was great on both sides.

Julien assured himself that the door was completely locked; he thought

of looking under the bed, but he did not dare; "they might have

stationed one or two lackeys there." Finally he feared that he might

reproach himself in the future for this lack of prudence, and did

look. Mathilde had fallen into all the anguish of the most extreme

timidity. She was horrified at her position.

"What have you done with my letters?" she said at last.

"What a good opportunity to upset these gentlemen, if they are

eavesdropping, and thus avoiding the battle," thought Julien.

"The first is hid in a big Protestant Bible, which last night's

diligence is taking far away from here."

He spoke very distinctly as he went into these details, so as to be

heard by any persons who might be concealed in two large mahogany

cupboards which he had not dared to inspect.

"The other two are in the post and are bound for the same destination

as the first."

"Heavens, why all these precautions?" said Mathilde in alarm.

"What is the good of my lying?" thought Julien, and he confessed all

his suspicions.

"So that's the cause for the coldness of your letters, dear," exclaimed

Mathilde in a tone of madness rather than of tenderness.

Julien did not notice that nuance. The endearment made him lose his

head, or at any rate his suspicions vanished. He dared to clasp in his

arms that beautiful girl who inspired him with such respect. He was

only partially rebuffed. He fell back on his memory as he had once at

Besançon with Armanda Binet, and recited by heart several of the finest

phrases out of the _Nouvelle Héloise_.

"You have the heart of a man," was the answer she made without

listening too attentively to his phrases; "I wanted to test your

courage, I confess it. Your first suspicions and your resolutions show

you even more intrepid, dear, than I had believed."

Mathilde had to make an effort to call him "dear," and was evidently

paying more attention to this strange method of speech than to

the substance of what she was saying. Being called "dear" without

any tenderness in the tone afforded no pleasure to Julien; he was

astonished at not being happy, and eventually fell back on his

reasoning in order to be so. He saw that he was respected by this proud

young girl who never gave undeserved praise; by means of this reasoning

he managed to enjoy the happiness of satisfied vanity. It was not,

it was true, that soulful pleasure which he had sometimes found with

madame de Rênal. There was no element of tenderness in the feelings

of these first few minutes. It was the keen happiness of a gratified

ambition, and Julien was, above all, ambitious. He talked again of

the people whom he had suspected and of the precautions which he had

devised. As he spoke, he thought of the best means of exploiting his

victory.

Mathilde was still very embarrassed and seemed paralysed by the

steps which she had taken. She appeared delighted to find a topic

of conversation. They talked of how they were to see each other

again. Julien extracted a delicious joy from the consciousness of

the intelligence and the courage, of which he again proved himself

possessed during this discussion. They had to reckon with extremely

sharp people, the little Tanbeau was certainly a spy, but Mathilde and

himself as well had their share of cleverness.

What was easier than to meet in the library, and there make all

arrangements?

"I can appear in all parts of the hôtel," added Julien, "without

rousing suspicion almost, in fact, in madame de la Mole's own room."

It was absolutely necessary to go through it in order to reach her

daughter's room. If Mathilde thought it preferable for him always to

come by a ladder, then he would expose himself to that paltry danger

with a heart intoxicated with joy.

As she listened to him speaking, Mathilde was shocked by this air of

triumph. "So he is my master," she said to herself, she was already a

prey to remorse. Her reason was horrified at the signal folly which she

had just committed. If she had had the power she would have annihilated

both herself and Julien. When for a few moments she managed by sheer

will-power to silence her pangs of remorse, she was rendered very

unhappy by her timidity and wounded shame. She had quite failed to

foresee the awful plight in which she now found herself.

"I must speak to him, however," she said at last. "That is the proper

thing to do. One does talk to one's lover." And then with a view of

accomplishing a duty, and with a tenderness which was manifested rather

in the words which she employed than in the inflection of her voice,

she recounted various resolutions which she had made concerning him

during the last few days.

She had decided that if he should dare to come to her room by the help

of the gardener's ladder according to his instructions, she would be

entirely his. But never were such tender passages spoken in a more

polite and frigid tone. Up to the present this assignation had been

icy. It was enough to make one hate the name of love. What a lesson

in morality for a young and imprudent girl! Is it worth while to ruin

one's future for moments such as this?

After long fits of hesitation which a superficial observer might have

mistaken for the result of the most emphatic hate (so great is the

difficulty which a woman's self-respect finds in yielding even to so

firm a will as hers) Mathilde became eventually a charming mistress.

In point of fact, these ecstasies were a little artificial. Passionate

love was still more the model which they imitated than a real actuality.

Mademoiselle de la Mole thought she was fulfilling a duty towards

herself and towards her lover. "The poor boy," she said to herself,

"has shewn a consummate bravery. He deserves to be happy or it is

really I who will be shewing a lack of character." But she would have

been glad to have redeemed the cruel necessity in which she found

herself even at the price of an eternity of unhappiness.

In spite of the awful violence she was doing to herself she was

completely mistress of her words.

No regret and no reproach spoiled that night which Julien found

extraordinary rather than happy. Great heavens! what a difference to

his last twenty-four hours' stay in Verrières. These fine Paris manners

manage to spoil everything, even love, he said to himself, quite

unjustly.

He abandoned himself to these reflections as he stood upright in one of

the great mahogany cupboards into which he had been put at the sign of

the first sounds of movement in the neighbouring apartment, which was

madame de la Mole's. Mathilde followed her mother to mass, the servants

soon left the apartment and Julien easily escaped before they came back

to finish their work.

He mounted a horse and tried to find the most solitary spots in one

of the forests near Paris. He was more astonished than happy. The

happiness which filled his soul from time to time resembled that of a

young sub-lieutenant who as the result of some surprising feat has just

been made a full-fledged colonel by the commander-in-chief; he felt

himself lifted up to an immense height. Everything which was above him

the day before was now on a level with him or even below him. Little

by little Julien's happiness increased in proportion as he got further

away from Paris.

If there was no tenderness in his soul, the reason was that, however

strange it may appear to say so, Mathilde had in everything she had

done, simply accomplished a duty. The only thing she had not foreseen

in all the events of that night, was the shame and unhappiness which

she had experienced instead of that absolute felicity which is found in

novels.

"Can I have made a mistake, and not be in love with him?" she said to

herself.