It was in vain that she asked him for Vély’s History of France which was on the highest shelf, and thus necessitated Julien going to fetch the longer of the two ladders. Julien had brought the ladder and had fetched the volume and given it to her, but had not yet been able to give her a single thought. As he was taking the ladder back he hit in his hurry one of the glass panes in the library with his elbow; the noise of the glass falling on the floor finally brought him to himself. He hastened to apologise to mademoiselle de la Mole. He tried to be polite and was certainly nothing more. Mathilde saw clearly that she had disturbed him, and that he would have preferred to have gone on thinking about what he had been engrossed in before her arrival, to speaking to her. After looking at him for some time she went slowly away. Julien watched her walk. He enjoyed the contrast of her present dress with the elegant magnificence of the previous night. The difference between the two expressions was equally striking. The young girl who had been so haughty at the Duke de Retz’s ball, had, at the present moment, an almost plaintive expression. “As a matter of fact,” said Julien to himself, “that black dress makes the beauty of her figure all the more striking. She has a queenly carriage; but why is she in mourning?”
“If I ask someone the reason for this mourning, they will think I am putting my foot in it again.” Julien had now quite emerged from the depth of his enthusiasm. “I must read over again all the letters I have written this morning. God knows how many missed out words and blunders I shall find. As he was forcing himself to concentrate his mind on the first of these letters he heard the rustle of a silk dress near him. He suddenly turned round, mademoiselle de la Mole was two yards from his table, she was smiling. This second interruption put Julien into a bad temper. Mathilde had just fully realized that she meant nothing to this young man. Her smile was intended to hide her embarrassment; she succeeded in doing so.
“You are evidently thinking of something very interesting, Monsieur Sorel. Is it not some curious anecdote about that conspiracy which is responsible for comte Altamira being in Paris? Tell me what it is about, I am burning to know. I will be discreet, I swear it.” She was astonished at hearing herself utter these words. What! was she asking a favour of an inferior! Her embarrassment increased, and she added with a little touch of flippancy,
“What has managed to turn such a usually cold person as yourself, into an inspired being, a kind of Michael Angelo prophet?”
This sharp and indiscreet question wounded Julien deeply, and rendered him madder than ever.
“Was Danton right in stealing?” he said to her brusquely in a manner that grew more and more surly. “Ought the revolutionaries of Piedmont and of Spain to have injured the people by crimes? To have given all the places in the army and all the orders to undeserving persons? Would not the persons who wore these orders have feared the return of the king? Ought they to have allowed the treasure of Turin to be looted? In a word, mademoiselle,” he said, coming near her with a terrifying expression, “ought the man who wishes to chase ignorance and crime from the world to pass like the whirlwind and do evil indiscriminately?”
Mathilde felt frightened, was unable to stand his look, and retreated a couples of paces. She looked at him a moment, and then ashamed of her own fear, left the library with a light step.