His mirror shows the mire, and you accuse the mirror!
Rather accuse the main road where the mud is, or rather the inspector of roads who allows the water to accumulate and the mud to form.
Now that it is quite understood that Mathilde's character is impossible in our own age, which is as discreet as it is virtuous, I am less frightened of offence by continuing the history of the follies of this charming girl.
During the whole of the following day she looked out for opportunities of convincing herself of her triumph over her mad passion.
Her great aim was to displease Julien in everything; but not one of his movements escaped her.
Julien was too unhappy, and above all too agitated to appreciate so complicated a stratagem of passion. Still less was he capable of seeing how favourable it really was to him. He was duped by it.
His unhappiness had perhaps never been so extreme. His actions were so little controlled by his intellect that if some mournful philosopher had said to him,
"Think how to exploit as quickly as you can those symptoms which promise to be favourable to you. In this kind of head-love which is seen at Paris, the same mood cannot last more than two days," he would not have understood him.
But however ecstatic he might feel, Julien was a man of honour.
Discretion was his first duty. He appreciated it.
Asking advice, describing his agony to the first man who came along would have constituted a happiness analogous to that of the unhappy man who, when traversing a burning desert receives from heaven a drop of icy water.
He realised the danger, was frightened of answering an indiscreet question by a torrent of tears, and shut himself up in his own room.
He saw Mathilde walking in the garden for a long time. When she at last left it, he went down there and approached the rose bush from which she had taken a flower.
The night was dark and he could abandon himself to his unhappiness without fear of being seen.
It was obvious to him that mademoiselle de la Mole loved one of those young officers with whom she had chatted so gaily. She had loved him, but she had realised his little merit, "and as a matter of fact I had very little," Julien said to himself with full conviction. "Taking me all round I am a very dull, vulgar person, very boring to others and quite unbearable to myself."
He was mortally disgusted with all his good qualities, and with all the things which he had once loved so enthusiastically; and it was when his imagination was in this distorted condition that he undertook to judge life by means of its aid.
This mistake is typical of a superior man.
The idea of suicide presented itself to him several times; the idea was full of charm, and like a delicious rest; because it was the glass of iced water offered to the wretch dying of thirst and heat in the desert.
"My death will increase the contempt she has for me," he exclaimed.
"What a memory I should leave her."
Courage is the only resource of a human being who has fallen into this last abyss of unhappiness.
Julien did not have sufficient genius to say to himself,
"I must dare," but as he looked at the window of Mathilde's room he saw through the blinds that she was putting out her light. He conjured up that charming room which he had seen, alas! once in his whole life.
His imagination did not go any further.
One o'clock struck.
Hearing the stroke of the clock and saying to himself,
"I will climb up the ladder," scarcely took a moment.
It was the flash of genius, good reasons crowded on his mind.
"May I be more fortunate than before," he said to himself.
He ran to the ladder. The gardener had chained it up.
With the help of the cock of one of his little pistols which he broke, Julien, who for the time being was animated by a superhuman force, twisted one of the links of the chain which held the ladder.
He was master of it in a few minutes, and placed it against Mathilde's window.
"She will be angry and riddle me with scornful words! What does it matter?
I will give her a kiss, one last kiss. I will go up to my room and kill myself ... my lips will touch her cheek before I die."
He flew up the ladder and knocked at the blind; Mathilde heard him after some minutes and tried to open the blind but the ladder was in the way.
Julien hung to the iron hook intending to keep the blind open, and at the imminent risk of falling down, gave the ladder a violent shake which moved it a little.
Mathilde was able to open the blind.
He threw himself into the window more dead than alive.
"So it is you, dear," she said as she rushed into his arms.
_____
The excess of Julien's happiness was indescribable.
Mathilde's almost equalled his own.
She talked against herself to him and denounced herself.
"Punish me for my awful pride," she said to him, clasping him in her arms so tightly as almost to choke him.
"You are my master, dear, I am your slave. I must ask your pardon on my knees for having tried to rebel."
She left his arms to fall at his feet.
"Yes," she said to him, still intoxicated with happiness and with love, "you are my master, reign over me for ever. When your slave tries to revolt, punish her severely."
In another moment she tore herself from his arms, and lit a candle, and it was only by a supreme effort that Julien could prevent her from cutting off a whole tress of her hair.
"I want to remind myself," she said to him, "that I am your handmaid. If I am ever led astray again by my abominable pride, show me this hair and say,
'It is not a question of the emotion which your soul may be feeling at present, you have sworn to obey, obey on your honour.'"