The BallThe splendour of the dresses, the blaze of the candles, the perfumes; all those rounded arms, and fine shoulders; bouquets, thesound of Rossini's music, pictures by Ciceri! I am beside myself!

　　Travels of Uzeri'You are feeling cross,' the Marquise de La Mole said to her; 'I warnyou, that is not good manners at a ball.'

　　'It is only a headache,' replied Mathilde contemptuously, 'it is too hotin here.'

　　At that moment, as though to corroborate Mademoiselle de La Mole,the old Baron de Tolly fainted and fell to the ground; he had to be carriedout. There was talk of apoplexy, it was a disagreeable incident.

　　Mathilde did not give it a thought. It was one of her definite habitsnever to look at an old man or at anyone known to be given to talkingabout sad things.

　　She danced to escape the conversation about the apoplexy, which wasnothing of the sort, for a day or two later the Baron reappeared.

　　'But M. Sorel does not appear,' she said to herself again after she hadfinished dancing. She was almost searching for him with her eyes whenshe caught sight of him in another room. Strange to say, he seemed tohave shed the tone of impassive coldness which was so natural to him;he had no longer the air of an Englishman.

　　'He is talking to Conte Altamira, my condemned man!' Mathilde saidto herself. 'His eye is ablaze with a sombre fire; he has the air of a Princein disguise; the arrogance of his gaze has increased.'

　　Julien was coming towards the spot where she was, still talking toAltamira; she looked fixedly at him, studying his features in search ofthose lofty qualities which may entitle a man to the honour of being sentenced to death.

　　 As he passed by her:

　　'Yes,' he was saying to Conte Altamira, 'Danton was a man!'

　　'Oh, heavens! Is he to be another Danton,' thought Mathilde; 'but hehas such a noble face, and that Danton was so horribly ugly, a butcher, Ifancy.' Julien was still quite near her, she had no hesitation in calling tohim; she was conscious and proud of asking a question that was extraordinary, coming from a girl.

　　'Was not Danton a butcher?' she asked him.

　　'Yes, in the eyes of certain people,' Julien answered her with an expression of the most ill-concealed scorn, his eye still ablaze from his conversation with Altamira, 'but unfortunately for people of birth, he was alawyer at Mery-sur-Seine; that is to say, Mademoiselle,' he went on withan air of sarcasm, 'that he began life like several of the Peers whom I seehere this evening. It is true that Danton had an enormous disadvantagein the eyes of beauty: he was extremely ugly.'

　　The last words were uttered rapidly, with an extraordinary and certainly far from courteous air.

　　Julien waited for a moment, bowing slightly from the waist and withan arrogantly humble air. He seemed to be saying: 'I am paid to answeryou, and I live upon my pay.' He did not deign to raise his eyes to herface. She, with her fine eyes opened extraordinarily wide and fastenedupon him, seemed like his slave. At length, as the silence continued, helooked at her as a servant looks at his master, when receiving orders. Although his eyes looked full into those of Mathilde, still fastened uponhim with a strange gaze, he withdrew with marked alacrity.

　　'That he, who really is so handsome,' Mathilde said to herself at length,awakening from her dreams, 'should pay such a tribute to ugliness!

　　Never a thought of himself! He is not like Caylus or Croisenois. ThisSorel has something of the air my father adopts when he is playing theNapoleon, at a ball.' She had entirely forgotten Danton. 'No doubt aboutit, I am bored this evening.' She seized her brother by the arm, and,greatly to his disgust, forced him to take her for a tour of the rooms. Theidea occurred to her of following the condemned man's conversationwith Julien.

　　The crowd was immense. She succeeded, however, in overtaking themat the moment when, just in front of her, Altamira had stopped by a trayof ices to help himself. He was talking to Julien, half turning towardshim. He saw an arm in a braided sleeve stretched out to take an ice from the same tray. The gold lace seemed to attract his attention; he turnedround bodily to see whose this arm was. Immediately his eyes, so nobleand unaffected, assumed a slight expression of scorn.

　　'You see that man,' he murmured to Julien; 'he is the Principed'Araceli, the —— Ambassador. This morning he applied for my extradition to your French Foreign Minister, M. de Nerval. Look, there he isover there, playing whist. M. de Nerval is quite ready to give me up, forwe gave you back two or three conspirators in 1816. If they surrender meto my King I shall be hanged within twenty-four hours. And it will beone of those pretty gentlemen with moustaches who will seize me.'

　　'The wretches!' exclaimed Julien, half aloud.

　　Mathilde did not lose a syllable of their conversation. Her boredomhad vanished.

　　'Not such wretches as all that,' replied Conte Altamira. 'I have spokento you of myself to impress you with a real instance. Look at Principed'Araceli; every five minutes he casts a glance at his Golden Fleece; hecannot get over the pleasure of seeing that trinket on his breast. The poorman is really nothing worse than an anachronism. A hundred years ago,the Golden Fleece was a signal honour, but then it would have been farabove his head. Today, among people of breeding, one must be anAraceli to be thrilled by it. He would have hanged a whole town to obtain it.'

　　'Was that the price he paid for it?' said Julien, with anxiety.

　　'Not exactly,' replied Altamira coldly; 'he perhaps had some thirtywealthy landowners of his country, who were supposed to be Liberals,flung into the river.'

　　'What a monster!' said Julien again.

　　Mademoiselle de La Mole, leaning forward with the keenest interest,was so close to him that her beautiful hair almost brushed his shoulder.

　　'You are very young!' replied Altamira. 'I told you that I have a married sister in Provence; she is still pretty, good, gentle; she is an excellentmother, faithful to all her duties, pious without bigotry.'

　　'What is he leading up to?' thought Mademoiselle de La Mole.

　　'She is happy,' Conte Altamira continued; 'she was happy in 1815. Atthat time I was in hiding there, on her property near Antibes; well, assoon as she heard of the execution of Marshal Ney, she began to dance!'

　　'Is it possible?' said the horrified Julien.

　　 'It is the partisan spirit,' replied Altamira. There are no longer anygenuine passions in the nineteenth century; that is why people are sobored in France. We commit the greatest cruelties, but without cruelty.'

　　'All the worse!' said Julien; 'at least, when we commit crimes, weshould commit them with pleasure: that is the only good thing aboutthem, and the only excuse that can in any way justify them.'

　　Mademoiselle de La Mole, entirely forgetting what she owed to herself, had placed herself almost bodily between Altamira and Julien. Herbrother, upon whose arm she leaned, being accustomed to obey her, waslooking about the room, and, to hide his lack of composure, pretendingto be held up by the crowd.

　　'You are right,' said Altamira; 'we do everything without pleasure andwithout remembering it afterwards, even our crimes. I can point out toyou at this ball ten men, perhaps, who will be damned as murderers.

　　They have forgotten it, and the world also. 11'Many of them are moved to tears if their dog breaks its paw. At Pere-Lachaise, when people strew flowers on their graves, as you so charmingly say in Paris, we are told that they combined all the virtues of theknights of old, and we hear of the great deeds of their ancestor who livedin the days of Henri IV: If, despite the good offices of Principe d'Araceli, Iam not hanged, and if I ever come to enjoy my fortune in Paris, I hope toinvite you to dine with nine or ten murderers who are honoured and feelno remorse.

　　'You and I, at that dinner, will be the only two whose hands are freefrom blood, but I shall be despised and almost hated, as a bloody and Jacobinical monster, and you will simply be despised as a plebeian whohas thrust his way into good society.'

　　'Nothing could be more true,' said Mademoiselle de La Mole.

　　Altamira looked at her in astonishment; Julien did not deign to look ather.

　　'Note that the revolution at the head of which I found myself,' ConteAltamira went on, 'was unsuccessful, solely because I would not cut offthree heads, and distribute among our supporters seven or eight millionswhich happened to be in a safe of which I held the key. My King, who isnow burning to have me hanged, and who, before the revolt, used to address me as tu, would have given me the Grand Cordon of his Order if Ihad cut off those three heads and distributed the money in those safes:

　　11.'A malcontent is speaking.' (Note by Moliere to Tartuffe.) for then I should have scored at least a partial success, and my countrywould have had a Charter of sorts … Such is the way of the world, it is agame of chess.'

　　'Then,' replied Julien, his eyes ablaze, 'you did not know the game;now … '

　　'I should cut off the heads, you mean, and I should not be a Girondinas you gave me to understand the other day? I will answer you,' saidAltamira sadly, 'when you have killed a man in a duel, and that is a greatdeal less unpleasant than having ............