Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/381

Rh during the last week had made her find so much pleasure in treating Julien as her most intimate friend was out of the question; the very sight of him was disagreeable. The sensation Mathilde felt reached the point of disgust; nothing can express the extreme contempt which she experienced when her eyes fell upon him.

Julien had understood nothing of the history of Mathilde's heart during the last week, but he distinguished the contempt. He had the good sense only to appear before her on the rarest possible occasions, and never looked at her.

But it was not without a mortal anguish that he, as it were, deprived himself of her presence. He thought he felt his unhappiness increasing still further. "The courage of a man's heart cannot be carried further," he said to himself. He passed his life seated at a little window at the top of the hotel; the blind was carefully closed, and from here at anyrate he could see mademoiselle de la Mole when she appeared in the garden.

What were his emotions when he saw her walking after dinner with M. de Caylus, M. de Luz, or some other for whom she had confessed to him some former amorous weakness!

Julien had no idea that unhappiness could be so intense; he was on the point of shouting out. This firm soul was at last completely overwhelmed.

Thinking about anything else except mademoiselle de la Mole had become odious to him; he became incapable of writing the simplest letters.

"You are mad," the marquis said to him.

Julien was frightened that his secret might be guessed, talked about illness and succeeded in being believed. Fortunately for him the marquis rallied him at dinner about his next journey; Mathilde understood that it might be a very long one. It was now several days that Julien had avoided her, and the brilliant young men who had all that this pale sombre being she had once loved was lacking, had no longer the power of drawing her out of her reverie.

"An ordinary girl," she said to herself, "would have sought out the man she preferred among those young people who are the cynosure of a salon; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to drive its thoughts over the rut traced by the vulgar.

"Why, if I were the companion of a man like Julien, who