Part 2 Chapter 3
First StepsThat immense valley filled with brilliant lights and with all thosethousands of people dazzles my sight. Not one of them knowsme, all are superior to me. My head reels.
Poemi dell' avvocato, REINAEarly in the morning of the following day, Julien was copying lettersin the library, when Mademoiselle Mathilde entered by a little privatedoor, cleverly concealed with shelves of dummy books. While Julien wasadmiring this device, Mademoiselle Mathilde appeared greatly surprisedand distinctly annoyed to see him there. Julien decided that her curlpapers gave her a hard, haughty, almost masculine air. Mademoiselle de LaMole had a secret habit of stealing books from her father's library, undetected. Julien's presence frustrated her expedition that morning, whichannoyed her all the more as she had come to secure the second volumeof Voltaire's Princesse de Babylone, a fitting complement to an eminentlymonarchical and religious education, a triumph on the part of the Sacre-Coeur! This poor girl, at nineteen, already required the spice of wit tomake her interested in a novel.
Comte Norbert appeared in the library about three o'clock; he hadcome to study a newspaper, in order to be able to talk politics that evening, and was quite pleased to find Julien, whose existence he had forgotten. He was charming to him, and offered to lend him a horse.
'My father is letting us off until dinner.'
Julien appreciated this us, and thought it charming.
'Heavens, Monsieur le Comte,' said Julien, 'if it were a question offelling an eighty-foot tree, trimming it and sawing it into planks, I venture to say that I should manage it well enough; but riding a horse is athing I haven't done six times in my life.'
'Well, this will be the seventh,' said Norbert.
Privately, Julien remembered the entry of the King of —— into Verrieres and imagined himself a superior horseman. But, on their way backfrom the Bois de Boulogne, in the very middle of the Rue du Bac, he felloff, while trying to avoid a passing cab, and covered himself in mud. Itwas fortunate for him that he had a change of clothes. At the dinner theMarquis, wishing to include him in the conversation, asked him abouthis ride; Norbert made haste to reply in generous language.
'Monsieur le Comte is too kind to me,' put in Julien. 'I thank him for it,and fully appreciate his kindness. He has been so good as to give me thequietest and handsomest of horses; but after all he could not glue me onto it, and, that being so, I fell off right in the middle of that very longstreet near the bridge.'
Mademoiselle Mathilde tried in vain to stifle a peal of laughter; finallyindiscretion prevailed and she begged for details. Julien emerged fromthe difficulty with great simplicity; he had an unconscious grace.
'I augur well of this little priest,' the Marquis said to the Academician;'a simple countryman in such a scrape! Such a thing was never yet seenand never will be seen; in addition to which he relates his misadventurebefore the ladies!'
Julien set his listeners so thoroughly at ease over his mishap that at theend of dinner, when the general conversation had taken another turn,Mademoiselle Mathilde began to ply her brother with questions as to thedetails of the distressing event. As her inquiry continued, and as Julienmore than once caught her eye, he ventured to reply directly, althoughhe had not been questioned, and all three ended in laughter, just likethree young peasants from a village in the heart of a forest.
On the following day Julien attended two lectures on theology, andthen returned to transcribe a score of letters. He found ensconced by hisown place in the library a young man dressed with great neatness, buthis general appearance was ignominious and his expression one of envy.
The Marquis entered.
'What are you doing here, Monsieur Tanbeau?' he asked the newcomerin a severe tone.
'I thought,' the young man began with a servile smile.
'No, Sir, you did not think. This is an attempt, but it is an unfortunateone.'
Young Tanbeau rose in a fury and left the room. He was a nephew ofthe Academician, Madame de La Mole's friend, and was intended for a literary career. The Academician had persuaded the Marquis to take himas a secretary. Tanbeau, who worked in a room apart, having heard ofthe favour that was being bestowed upon Julien, was anxious to share it,and that morning had come and set up his desk in the library.
At four o'clock, Julien ventured, after some hesitation, to seek outComte Norbert. This young gentleman was going out riding, and wassomewhat embarrassed, for his manners were perfect.
'I think,' he said to Julien, 'that presently you might go to the ridingschool; and after a few weeks I shall be delighted to ride with you.'
'I wished to have the honour of thanking you for all your kindness tome; pray believe, Sir,' Julien added with a most serious air, 'that I amfully conscious of all that I owe you. If your horse is not injured as a result of my clumsiness yesterday, and if it is free, I should like to ride ittoday.'
'Faith, my dear Sorel, on your own head be it! Assume that I haveraised all the objections that prudence demands; the fact is that it is fouro'clock, we have no time to lose.'
After he was in the saddle:
'What must one do, not to fall off?' Julien asked the young Comte.
'All sorts of things,' replied Norbert with a shout of laughter: 'for instance, sit well back.'
Julien began to trot. They were crossing the Place Louis XVI.
'Ah! Young hothead, there are too many carriages here, and with careless drivers too. Once you are on the ground, their tilburys will go bowling over you; they are not going to risk hurting their horses' mouths bypulling up short.'
A score of times Norbert saw Julien on the point of falling; but at lasttheir ride ended without mishap. On their return, the young Comte saidto his sister:
'Let me introduce a regular dare-devil.'
At dinner, speaking to his father, down the length of the table, he didjustice to Julien's courage; it was all that one could praise in his methodof riding. During the day the young Comte had heard the men who weregrooming the horses in the yard make Julien's fall an excuse for the mostoutrageous mockery of him.
In spite of all this kindness, Julien soon felt himself completely isolatedamong this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and he wasalways making mistakes. His blunders were the delight of the footmen.
The abbe Pirard had gone off to his living. 'If Julien is a frail reed, lethim perish; if he is a man of courage, let him make his way by himself,'
he thought.
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