Sleep would have been a happiness to Julien. In spite of his physical fatigue, memories which were only too seductive commenced to invade his imagination. He had not the genius to see that, inasmuch as his long rides on horseback over forests on the outskirts of Paris only affected him, and had no affect at all on Mathilde’s heart or mind, he was consequently leaving his eventual destiny to the caprice of chance. He thought that one thing would give his pain an infinite relief: it would be to speak to Mathilde. Yet what would he venture to say to her?
He was dreaming deeply about this at seven o’clock one morning when he suddenly saw her enter the library.
“I know, monsieur, that you are anxious to speak to me.”
“Great heavens! who told you?”
“I know, anyway; that is enough. If you are dishonourable, you can ruin me, or at least try to. But this danger, which I do not believe to be real, will certainly not prevent me from being sincere. I do not love you any more, monsieur, I have been led astray by my foolish imagination.”
Distracted by love and unhappiness, as a result of this terrible blow, Julien tried to justify himself. Nothing could have been more absurd. Does one make any excuses for failure to please? But reason had no longer any control over his actions. A blind instinct urged him to get the determination of his fate postponed. He thought that, so long as he kept on speaking, all could not be over. Mathilde had not listened to his words; their sound irritated her. She could not conceive how he could have the audacity to interrupt her.
She was rendered equally unhappy this morning by remorseful virtue and remorseful pride. She felt to some extent pulverised by the idea of having given a little abbé, who was the son of a peasant, rights over her. “It is almost,” she said to herself, in those moments when she exaggerated her own misfortune, “as though I had a weakness for one of my footmen to reproach myself with.” In bold, proud natures there is only one step from anger against themselves to wrath against others. In these cases the very transports of fury constitute a vivid pleasure.
In a single minute mademoiselle de la Mole reached the point of loading Julien with the signs of the most extreme contempt. She had infinite wit, and this wit was always triumphant in the art of torturing vanity and wounding it cruelly.
For the first time in his life Julien found himself subjected to the energy of a superior intellect, which was animated against him by the most violent hate. Far from having at present the slightest thought of defending himself, he came to despise himself. Hearing himself overwhelmed with such marks of contempt which were so cleverly calculated to destroy any good opinion that he might have of himself, he thought that Mathilde was right, and that she did not say enough.
As for her, she found it deliciously gratifying to her pride to punish in this way both herself and him for the adoration that she had felt some days previously.