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420 lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, infinity, etc., is an abominable fear of ridicule."

The monologue which we have just condensed was repeated for fifteen days on end. Falling off to sleep as he copied out a sort of commentary on the Apocalypse, going with a melancholy expression to deliver it the following day, taking his horse back to the stable in the hope of catching sight of Mathilde's dress, working, going in the evening to the opera on those evenings when madame de Fervaques did not come to the hôtel de la Mole, such were the monotonous events in Julien's life. His life had more interest, when madame la Fervaques visited the marquise; he could then catch a glimpse of Mathilde's eyes underneath a feather of the maréchale's hat, and he would wax eloquent. His picturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a style, which was both more striking and more elegant.

He quite realised that what he said was absurd in Mathilde's eyes, but he wished to impress her by the elegance of his diction. " The falser my speeches are the more I ought to please," thought Julien, and he then had the abominable audacity to exaggerate certain elements in his own character. He soon appreciated that to avoid appearing vulgar in the eyes of the maréchale it was necessary to eschew simple and rational ideas. He would continue on these lines, or would cut short his grand eloquence according as he saw appreciation or indifference in the eyes of the two great ladies whom he had set out to please.

Taking it all round, his life was less awful than when his days were passed in inaction.

"But," he said to himself one evening, "here I am copying out the fifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have been duly delivered to the maréchale's porter. I shall have the honour of filling all the drawers in her escritoire. And yet she treats me as though I never wrote. What can be the end of all this? Will my constancy bore her as much as it does me? I must admit that that Russian friend of Korasoff's who was in love with the pretty Quakeress of Richmond, was a terrible man in his time; no one could be more overwhelming."

Like all mediocre individuals, who chance to come into contact with the manœuvres of a great general, Julien