Love! In what madness do you not manage to make us find pleasure!
Letters of a Portuguese Nun.
Julien reread his letters. “How ridiculous I must have appeared in the eyes of that Parisian doll,” he said to himself when the dinner-bell rang. “How foolish to have really told her what I was thinking! Perhaps it was not so foolish. Telling the truth on that occasion was worthy of me. Why did she come to question me on personal matters? That question was indiscreet on her part. She broke the convention. My thoughts about Danton are not part of the sacrifice which her father pays me to make.”
When he came into the dining-room Julien’s thoughts were distracted from his bad temper by mademoiselle de la Mole’s mourning which was all the more striking because none of the other members of the family were in black.
After dinner he felt completely rid of the feeling which had obsessed him all day. Fortunately the academician who knew Latin was at dinner. “That’s the man who will make the least fun of me,” said Julien to himself, “if, as I surmise, my question about mademoiselle de la Mole’s mourning is in bad taste.”
Mathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. “So this is the coquetry of the women of this part of the country, just as madame de Rênal described it to me,” said Julien to himself. “I was not nice to her this morning. I did not humour her caprice of talking to me. I got up in value in her eyes. The Devil doubtless is no loser by it.
“Later on her haughty disdain will manage to revenge herself. I defy her to do her worst. What a contrast with what I have lost! What charming naturalness? What naivety! I used to know her thoughts before she did herself. I used to see them come into existence. The only rival she had in her heart was the fear of her childrens’ death. It was a reasonable, natural feeling to me, and even though I suffered from it I found it charming. I have been a fool. The ideas I had in my head about Paris prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.
“Great God what a contrast and what do I find here? Arid, haughty vanity: all the fine shades of wounded egotism and nothing more.”
They got up from table. “I must not let my academician get snapped up,” said Julien to himself. He went up to him as they were passing into the garden, assumed an air of soft submissiveness and shared in his fury against the success of Hernani.