She decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's letter to Julien.
It might perhaps have been that ferocious character driven to some act of madness.
Julien's joy was unlimited when she informed him in the evening that he was a lieutenant of Hussars.
Its extent can be imagined from the fact that this had constituted the ambition of his whole life, and also from the passion which he now had for his son.
The change of name struck him with astonishment.
"After all," he thought, "I have got to the end of my romance, and I deserve all the credit.
I have managed to win the love of that monster of pride," he added, looking at Mathilde. "Her father cannot live without her, nor she without me." _____
CHAPTER LXV
A STORM _____
My God, give me mediocrity.—Mirabeau. _____
His mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that she showed to him. He remained gloomy and taciturn.
He had never seemed so great and so adorable in Mathilde's eyes.
She was apprehensive of some subtle twist of his pride which would spoil the whole situation.
She saw the abbe Pirard come to the hotel nearly every morning.
Might not Julien have divined something of her father's intentions through him?
Might not the marquis himself have written to him in a momentary caprice.
What was the explanation of Julien's stern manner following on so great a happiness?
She did not dare to question.
She did not dare—she—Mathilde!
From that moment her feelings for Julien contained a certain vague and unexpected element which was almost panic.
This arid soul experienced all the passion possible in an individual who has been brought up amid that excessive civilisation which Paris so much admires.
Early on the following day Julien was at the house of the abbe Pirard.
Some post-horses were arriving in the courtyard with a dilapidated chaise which had been hired at a neighbouring station.
"A vehicle like that is out of fashion," said the stern abbe to him morosely.
"Here are twenty thousand francs which M. de la Mole makes you a gift of. He insists on your spending them within a year, but at the same time wants you to try to look as little ridiculous as possible." (The priest regarded flinging away so substantial a sum on a young man as simply an opportunity for sin).
"The marquis adds this: 'M. Julien de la Vernaye will have received this money from his father, whom it is needless to call by any other name. M. de la Vernaye will perhaps think it proper to give a present to M. Sorel, a carpenter of Verrieres, who cared for him in his childhood....'
I can undertake that commission," added the abbe. "I have at last prevailed upon M. de la Mole to come to a settlement with that Jesuit, the abbe de Frilair.
His influence is unquestionably too much for us.
The complete recognition of your high birth on the part of this man, who is in fact the governor of B—— will be one of the unwritten terms of the arrangement."
Julien could no longer control his ecstasy. He embraced the abbe.
He saw himself recognised.
"For shame," said M. Pirard, pushing him away. "What is the meaning of this worldly vanity?
As for Sorel and his sons, I will offer them in my own name a yearly allowance of five hundred francs, which will be paid to each of them as long as I am satisfied with them."
Julien was already cold and haughty.
He expressed his thanks, but in the vaguest terms which bound him to nothing.
"Could it be possible," he said to himself, "that I am the natural son of some great nobleman who was exiled to our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?"
This idea seemed less and less improbable every minute....
"My hatred of my father would be a proof of this.... In that case, I should not be an unnatural monster after all."
A few days after this soliloquy the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars, which was one of the most brilliant in the army, was being reviewed on the parade ground of Strasbourg.
M. the chevalier de La Vernaye sat the finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six thousand francs.
He was received as a lieutenant, though he had never been sub-lieutenant except on the rolls of a regiment of which he had never heard.
His impassive manner, his stern and almost malicious eyes, his pallor, and his invariable self-possession, founded his reputation from the very first day.
Shortly afterwards his perfect and calculated politeness, and his skill at shooting and fencing, of which, though without any undue ostentation, he made his comrades aware, did away with all idea of making fun of him openly.
After hesitating for five or six days, the public opinion of the regiment declared itself in his favour.
"This young man has everything," said the facetious old officers, "except youth."
Julien wrote from Strasbourg to the old cure of Verrieres, M. Chelan, who was now verging on extreme old age.
"You will have learnt, with a joy of which I have no doubt, of the events which have induced my family to enrich me.
Here are five hundred francs which I request you to distribute quietly, and without any mention of my name, among those unfortunate ones who are now poor as I myself was once, and whom you will doubtless help as you once helped me."
Julien was intoxicated with ambition, and not with vanity. He nevertheless devoted a great part of his time to attending to his external appearance.
His horses, his uniform, his orderlies' liveries, were all kept with a correctness which would have done credit to the punctiliousness of a great English nobleman.