Mathilde gradually began to talk confidentially to him about the state of her heart. She found a singular pleasure in this kind of conversation, she even went so far as to describe to him the fleeting moments of enthusiasm which she had experienced for M. de Croisenois, for M. de Caylus——
“What! M. de Caylus as well!” exclaimed Julien, and all the jealousy of a discarded lover burst out in those words, Mathilde thought as much, but did not feel at all insulted.
She continued torturing Julien by describing her former sentiments with the most picturesque detail and the accent of the most intimate truth. He saw that she was portraying what she had in her mind’s eye. He had the pain of noticing that as she spoke she made new discoveries in her own heart.
The unhappiness of jealousy could not be carried further.
It is cruel enough to suspect that a rival is loved, but there is no doubt that to hear the woman one adores confess in detail the love which rivals inspires, is the utmost limit of anguish.
Oh, how great a punishment was there now for those impulses of pride which had induced Julien to place himself as superior to the Caylus and the Croisenois! How deeply did he feel his own unhappiness as he exaggerated to himself their most petty advantages. With what hearty good faith he despised himself.
Mathilde struck him as adorable. All words are weak to express his excessive admiration. As he walked beside her he looked surreptitiously at her hands, her arms, her queenly bearing. He was so completely overcome by love and unhappiness as to be on the point of falling at her feet and crying “pity.”
“Yes, and that person who is so beautiful, who is so superior to everything and who loved me once, will doubtless soon love M. de Caylus.”
Julien could have no doubts of mademoiselle de la Mole’s sincerity, the accent of truth was only too palpable in everything she said. In order that nothing might be wanting to complete his unhappiness there were moments when, as a result of thinking about the sentiments which she had once experienced for M. de Caylus, Mathilde came to talk of him, as though she loved him at the present time. She certainly put an inflection of love into her voice. Julien distinguished it clearly.
He would have suffered less if his bosom had been filled inside with molten lead. Plunged as he was in this abyss of unhappiness how could the poor boy have guessed that it was simply because she was talking to him, that mademoiselle de la Mole found so much pleasure in recalling those weaknesses of love which she had formerly experienced for M. de Caylus or M. de Luz.