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 abbe, 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.
She did not have to invent and improvise the cruel remarks which she addressed to him with so much gusto.
All she had to do was to repeat what the advocate of the other side had been saying against her love in her own heart for the last eight days.
Each word intensified a hundredfold Julien's awful unhappiness.
He wanted to run away, but mademoiselle de la Mole took hold of his arm authoritatively.
"Be good enough to remark," he said to her, "that you are talking very loud.
You will be heard in the next room."
"What does it matter?" mademoiselle de la Mole answered haughtily.
"Who will dare to say they have heard me?
I want to cure your miserable vanity once and for all of any ideas you may have indulged in on my account."
When Julien was allowed to leave the library he was so astonished that he was less sensitive to his unhappiness.
"She does not love me any more," he repeated to himself, speaking aloud as though to teach himself how he stood.
"It seems that she has loved me eight or ten days, but I shall love her all my life."
"Is it really possible she was nothing to me, nothing to my heart so few days back?"
Mathilde's heart was inundated by the joy of satisfied pride.
So she had been able to break with him for ever! So complete a triumph over so strong an inclination rendered her completely happy.
"So this little gentleman will understand, once and for all, that he has not, and will never have, any dominion over me."
She was so happy that in reality she ceased to love at this particular moment.
In a less passionate being than Julien love would have become impossible after a scene of such awful humiliation.
Without deviating for a single minute from the requirements of her own self-respect, mademoiselle de la Mole had addressed to him some of those unpleasant remarks which are so well thought out that they may seem true, even when remembered in cold blood.
The conclusion which Julien drew in the first moment of so surprising a scene, was that Mathilde was infinitely proud.
He firmly believed that all was over between them for ever, and none the less, he was awkward and nervous towards her at breakfast on the following day.
This was a fault from which up to now he had been exempt.