CHAPTER 9

The Ball

The luxury of the gowns, the blaze of the candles, the scents: so many pretty arms and beautiful shoulders; the display, the transporting airs of Rossini, the paintings of Ciceri! I am beside myself!

THE VOYAGES OF UZERI

"YOU LOOK CROSS," said the Marquise de la Mole to Mathilde; "yet let me tell you, that is not proper at a ball."

"I have only a bad headache," she replied; "it is so warm here."

Just at this moment old Baron de Tolly, as if to corroborate Mademoiselle de la Mole’s statement, fainted and fell, and had to be carried away. Some one said something about apoplexy, which put somewhat of a damper on the evening. Mathilde did not concern herself about that, for she had made up her mind never to look at old men or at anyone else known to speak on sad subjects. She danced in order to avoid a conversation about apoplexy. But nothing of the kind had taken place, for the next day the Baron came out all right.

"But M. Sorel is not coming toward me," she said to herself, after she had danced a while. She looked for him everywhere, finding him finally at the other end of the room. He seemed, strangely enough, to have left off that air of reserve, that sneering English look that was so natural to him.

"He is conversing with Count Altamira, my man who was sentenced to death," Mathilde said to herself. "His eye has a severe look; he seems to be a prince in disguise; he looks prouder than ever."

Julien then came where she was standing, still talking with Altamira. She looked at the latter steadily as if to ascertain those high qualities which lead a man to such sacrifice.

As he passed near her he was saying to Count Altamira:

"Yes, Danton was a man."

"Oh, my! would he be a Danton?" Mathilde said to herself "But his face is so noble and Danton was so horribly ugly, a butcher, I believe!"

Julien was then very close to her, and she did not hesitate to call him. For a young girl, she was rather proud of asking the extraordinary question, "Was not Danton a butcher?"

"Oh, yes, in the eyes of certain people," Julien replied, with an expression of ill-disguised disdain, his eyes still flashing from the animated conversation he had had with Altamira. "But, unfortunately for well-born people, he was an attorney at Mery-sur-Seine; that is to say, Mademoiselle," he added, mischievously, "he began just like some peers I see here now. ’Tis true that Danton was quite at a disadvantage in the eyes of beauty, he was so very ugly."

The last few words were spoken rapidly, in a strange, awkward manner. Julien waited an instant, slightly leaning over, seemingly humble in his pride. He seemed to say, "I am paid to answer you, and I have given you ’value received.’" He did not deign to raise his eyes to Mathilde. On her part, with her beautiful eyes wide open and fixed on him, she seemed to be in the beseeching attitude of a slave. Then, as the silence continued, he looked at her as a footman looks at his master for an order. Although his eyes met Mathilde’s, which were still strangely fixed on him, he moved away with marked effort.

"He who is so handsome," Mathilde finally said to herself, coming out of a reverie, "to eulogize ugliness in such a fashion! Never does he speak of himself, he is not like Caylus or de Croisenois. This Sorel looks something like my father when he appears as Napoleon at a ball." She had forgotten all about Danton by this time.

"Well, really, I am weary to-night."

She seized her brother’s arm, and, in spite of his objections, compelled him to walk around the ballroom. The idea occurred to her to follow up the conversation of Altamira with Julien.

There was an enormous crowd. She caught up to them just as two steps ahead of her Altamira was going to take an ice. Half turned round, he was still speaking to Julien. He saw an embroidered arm, that also took refreshment, at his side; the embroidery seeming to arouse his curiosity. Then, turning round to see the person to whom the arm belonged, his noble eyes instantly took on an expression of disdain.

"You see that man?" he whispered to Julien, "that is the Prince d’Araceli, the Ambassador from X__. This morning he asked for my extradition of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. de Nerval. Look, there he is down there playing whist. M. de Nerval would not hesitate to give me up, for we gave you some two or three conspirators in 1816. Well, if I am given back to my King, I shall be hanged in just about twenty-four hours, and it will be one of those pretty gentlemen with the moustaches who will use his fist on me besides."

"The wretches!" cried Julien, half aloud.

Mathilde was not losing a syllable of their conversation; her ennui seemed to have disappeared.

"Not exactly wretches," replied Count Altamira. "I spoke to you about the King in order to give you a good idea of the thing. Now look at the Prince d’Araceli; every five minutes he looks at his Golden Fleece. He cannot get enough pleasure of seeing it on his breast. That man at bottom is only an anacronism. For a hundred years that Fleece has been a signal honor, but that long passed away before him. To-day, with all these members of the nobility, one must be a d’Araceli to be enchanted with it all. He would have destroyed a whole town to obtain it."

"Is it at that price that he obtained it?" asked Julien, anxiously.

"No, not precisely," answered Altamira, coldly. "Perhaps he threw into the river some thirty or so rich farmers who were supposed to be Liberals."

"What a monster!" said Julien.

Mademoiselle de la Mole leaned over so far as to have her pretty hair touch his shoulder.

"Now you are very young," replied Altamira. "I was telling you that I have a sister married in Provence. She is still pretty; good, sweet-tempered, she is an excellent woman about a house, faithful to all her duties, pious, but not to an extreme."

"What is he coming to?" thought Mademoiselle de la Mole.

"And she is happy," continued Altamira; "she was the same in 1815. Then I hid myself at her house on the estate near Antibes. Oh, well, as soon as she learned of the execution of Marechal Ney she took to dancing."

"Is it possible?" asked Julien, dumbfounded.

"That is the spirit of the party," replied Altamira. "There is no more real passion in the nineteenth century; it is for that reason that people get so weary of life in France. The greatest cruelties are committed without cruelty."

"So much the worse," said Julien; "at least when one commits crimes he should do it with a certain amount of pleasure. The good of it is only in that, and it cannot be justified except by such a reason."

Mademoiselle de la Mole, forgetting herself entirely, had come almost between Altamira and Julien. Her brother, whose arm she had taken, accustomed to obeying her, was looking elsewhere in the ballroom; and in order to keep himself in countenance was looking as if he had been stopped by the crowd.

"You are right," Altamira was saying; "everything is done without a thought, even crimes. I can show you in this ballroom ten men, perhaps, who may be condemned to death as assassins; they are not thinking of it, nor is the world. Many people are moved almost to tears if their dog breaks a leg. At Pere la Chaise, where flowers are strewn over the graves, as you pleasantly remarked at Paris, we learn that they unite in themselves all the virtues of a valiant knight, and they speak of the heroic actions of their ancestors who lived under Henry IV. If, in spite of Prince d’Araceli’s kindness, I am not hanged, and I ever get to enjoy my fortune in Paris, I will invite you to a dinner with eight or ten assassins who are honored and who have no remorse. You and I will be almost the only ones of pure blood at that dinner; but I, I will be hated and despised as a sanguinary monster and Jacobin, and you will be sneered at for being a man of the people who has intruded himself into good company."

"True enough," said Mademoiselle de la Mole. Altamira looked at her astonished; Julien, on the other hand, not deigning even to look.

"Now notice that the revolution at the head of which I am placed," continued Count Altamira, "has not succeeded, simply because I did not want to have three heads cut off, and distribute among our partisans the seven or eight millions in our treasury, to which I have the key. My King, who is dying now to hang me, and who, before the Revolution, would speak to me so familiarly, would have given me the Grand Cordon of his order if I had let those three heads fall and if I had distributed the money in our treasury. I should have obtained at least a partial success, and my money would have bought a constitution- So goes the world! It is a game of chess!"

"So, then," replied Julien, his eyes aflame, "so you did not know the game; now-"

"I should have let those heads fall- is that what you mean to say? And I should have been a Girondist, as you spoke to me the other day? Now, I shall tell you why," continued Altamira, gloomily. "When you have killed a man in a duel, that is not as horrible as having him butchered by an executioner."

"My Lord!" replied Julien, "the end justifies the means. If I, in place of being a mere atom, had a little power, I would let three men hang to save four." His eyes had that disdainful look which announces an utter contempt of men. His look met Mademoiselle de la Mole’s; but far from changing to anything more gracious, seemed to grow more intensely contemptuous. She felt repulsed, but it was no longer in her power to forget Julien. She withdrew, taking her brother with her.

"I think I will get some punch and dance a little," she said to herself. "I am going to pick out what is best here, and produce an impression at all cost. Well, here is that famous fop, Count de Fervaques." She accepted the latter’s invitation for a dance.

"I must find out which of these two is most impertinent, but to enjoy the sport I must make him talk."

She danced the rest of the quadrille mechanically. Her escort did not wish to lose any of Mathilde’s brilliant repartee. M. de Fervaque was somewhat confused, and being at a loss for elegant words, simply looked. Mathilde was decidedly cruel to him and made of him a positive enemy. She danced till morning, utterly exhausting herself. In the carriage, however, what little strength she had left she spent in regrets and worriment. She had been despised by Julien, and she could not despise him in return.

Julien was filled with happiness. Enchanted by the music, the flowers, the beautiful women, and the elegance everywhere, and, more than all, by his own imagination, which was wandering in distinctions for himself and liberty for all, he was saying what a beautiful ball it was; how nothing, nothing had been wanting.

"Yes, thought was wanting," replied Altamira, his face betraying that contempt the more piquant for being hidden under politeness.

"But you have thought, Monsieur le Comte. Haven’t you still the thought of the conspiracy?"

"I am here because of my name; but thought is hated in your drawing-rooms. One must not rise above a line from vaudeville; then he will be appreciated. But the man who thinks, if he has any energy, and if there is anything new in what he says, why, he is called a cynic. Was not that the name which one of your judges gave to Courieres? You put him in prison just like Beranger. Whoever amounts to anything with you the Congregation throws into prison, and the good company applauds. That is because your effete civilization cannot rise above conventionality; you never rise above military bravado; you will have your Murats, but never Washingtons. I see in France only vanity. If a man speaks vivaciously or expresses an unusual idea, the host thinks himself scandalized."

At these words the Count’s carriage stopped before the Hotel de la Mole. Julien was in love with the conspirator. Altamira had paid him this compliment, evidently coming from profound conviction: "You have not that French lightness, and you understand the principle of practical ends." It just happened that the evening before Julien had seen "Marino Faliero," a tragedy by Casimir Delavigne.

"Has not Israel Bertruccio more character than all the rest of the Venetian nobles?" our recalcitrant plebeian was saying to himself, "and yet those people lived in the year 700, a century before Charlemagne. Why, all those who were at the ball tonight can date back their nobility only to the thirteenth century, and that only lamely. So, then, of all those Venetian nobles, with all their high birth, it is Israel Bertruccio one thinks of, after all. A revolution annihilated all titles coming from social caprice. Immediately a man reaches high rank if he knows only how to look at death. Genius itself weakens-

"What would Danton be to-day in an age of Valenods and de Renals? Not even a substitute for a King’s governor! What am I saying? Why, he would have sold himself to the Congregation; he would have been Minister; for, after all, this great Danton stole. Mirabeau also sold himself. Napoleon stole millions in Italy, otherwise he would have had to stop short through sheer poverty like Pichegrue. Only La Fayette never stole. Must a man steal? must a man sell himself?" thought Julien. Face to face with that question, he spent the rest of the night reading the history of the Revolution.

The next day, writing the letters in the library, he only thought of the conversation with Count Altamira.

"In fact," he said to himself, after a long reverie, "if these Spanish Liberals had compromised the people with their crimes, they would not have been swept away with such ease. They were such proud, foolish fellows, like myself!" he cried, all at once, bounding out of his chair.

"What difficulty is there in judging those poor devils who once in their life have dared to act? I am just like a man who, leaving the table, cries out, ’To-morrow I shall not dine, but that will not prevent me at all from being light and gay as I am to-day.’ Who knows what one will find half way when he sets himself to do something great?" Those lofty thoughts were disturbed by the sudden entrance of Mademoiselle de la Mole. He was so greatly moved by his admiration for the great qualities of Danton, of Mirabeau, and of Carnot, who never knew defeat, that his eye rested on Mademoiselle de la Mole without seeing her. When, finally, he became aware of her presence, his face fell. Mademoiselle de la Mole noticed it with bitterness. She asked him for a volume of Vely’s history of France which was on the top shelf, compelling Julien to look for the larger of the two ladders in the library. He mounted the ladder, looked for the volume, and handed it to her mechanically.

In replacing the ladder, he struck one of the glass doors with his elbow. The noise of breaking glass as it fell on the floor at last aroused him, and he forthwith began making apologies to Mademoiselle de la Mole. He was then extremely polite, that was all.

Mathilde saw that she had disturbed him and that he would have preferred to occupy himself with his own thoughts. She looked at him for a long time, and finally withdrew, and Julien saw her quietly walk away. He enjoyed the contrast between the simplicity of her dress now and her elegance of the night before; the difference in her expression was also striking. That young girl, who had looked so proud at Duke de Retz’s ball, seemed at that moment to look almost pleadingly. "Really," Julien thought, "that black gown makes her figure beautiful, and she has the carriage of a queen; but why is she in mourning? If I ask anyone for the reason why she is in mourning it will be considered rude." Gradually Julien’s enthusiasm disappeared.

"I must read over all the letters I have written this morning; Lord knows how many mistakes I have made."

As he was reading over the first letter, he heard the swish of a gown near him. Turning quickly around he saw Mademoiselle de la Mole just two steps from the table, laughing. This second interruption made Julien angry. As for Mathilde, feeling deeply that she was nothing to the young man, she was laughing only to hide her embarrassment. She succeeded.

"Evidently you are thinking of something very interesting, M. Sorel? Is it not something in connection with a curious anecdote about a conspiracy which has brought Count Altamira to Paris? Tell me what it is about. Oh, I won’t tell, I swear." She was astonished at the word herself when she heard it pronounced. What! she was thinking of asking a favor of an inferior?

With increasing embarrassment she said lightly: "What has inspired you, who are ordinarily so cold, in this Michelangelo prophet?"

That indiscreet question wounded Julien. He was furious.

"Did Danton do well to steal?" he asked her, fiercely. "Should the rebels of Piedmont in Spain have betrayed the people by their crimes? Should they have given men without brains all the places in the army and all the Crosses? And these people who wear the Crosses, did they not dread the return of the King? Was it necessary to pillage the treasury of Turin? In a word, Mademoiselle," he said, approaching her impetuously, "must the man who wants to remove ignorance and crime from the world be regarded as a monster and an impostor?"

Mathilde, frightened, unable to withstand his gaze, fell back. She looked at him for a minute, and then, ashamed of her fear, walked slowly out of the library.