Manon LescautNow once he was fully convinced of the foolishness and idiocy ofthe prior, he succeeded quite straightforwardly by calling blackwhite, and white black.

　　LICHTENBERGThe Russian instructions laid down categorically that one must nevercontradict in speech the person with whom one corresponded. One mustnever depart, upon any account, from an attitude of the most ecstatic admiration; the letters were all based upon this supposition.

　　One evening, at the Opera, in Madame de Fervaques's box, Julienpraised to the skies the ballet in Manon Lescaut. 16 His sole reason for doing so was that he found it insipid.

　　The Marechale said that this ballet was greatly inferior to abbePrevost's novel.

　　'What!' thought Julien, with surprise and amusement, 'a person of suchextreme virtue praise a novel!' Madame de Fervaques used to profess,two or three times weekly, the most utter scorn for the writers, who, bymeans of those vulgar works, sought to corrupt a younger generationonly too prone to the errors of the senses.

　　'In that immoral and pernicious class, Manon Lescaut,' the Marechalewent on, 'occupies, they say, one of the first places. The frailties and well-merited sufferings of a thoroughly criminal heart are, they say, describedin it with a truth that is almost profound; which did not prevent yourBonaparte from declaring on Saint Helena that it was a novel written forservants.'

　　This speech restored all its activity to Julien's spirit. 'People have beentrying to damage me with the Marechale; they have told her of my16.Composed by Halevy upon a libretto by Scribe, and performed in 1830.

　　 enthusiasm for Napoleon. This intelligence has stung her sufficiently forher to yield to the temptation to let me feel her resentment.' This discovery kept him amused for the rest of the evening and made him amusing.

　　As he was bidding the Marechale good night in the vestibule of theOpera: 'Bear in mind, Sir,' she said to him, 'that people must not love Napoleon when they love me; they may, at the most, accept him as a necessity imposed by Providence. Anyhow, the man had not a soul pliantenough to feel great works of art.'

　　'When they love me!' Julien repeated to himself; 'either that means nothing at all, or it means everything. There is one of the secrets of languagethat are hidden from us poor provincials.' And he thought incessantly ofMadame de Renal as he copied an immensely long letter intended for theMarechale.

　　'How is it,' she asked him the following evening, with an air of indifference which seemed to him unconvincing, 'that you speak to me ofLondon and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, it appears,after leaving the Opera?'

　　Julien was greatly embarrassed; he had copied the letter line for line,without thinking of what he was writing, and apparently had forgottento substitute for the words London and Richmond, which occurred in theoriginal, Paris and Saint-Cloud. He began two or three excuses, but foundit impossible to finish any of them; he felt himself on the point of givingway to an outburst of helpless laughter. At length, in his search for theright words, he arrived at the following idea: 'Exalted by the discussionof the most sublime, the highest interests of the human soul, my own, inwriting to you, must have become distracted.

　　'I am creating an impression,' he said to himself, 'therefore I can sparemyself the tedium of the rest of the evening.' He left the Hotel de Fervaques in hot haste. That evening, as he looked over the original text ofthe letter which he had copied the night before, he very soon came to thefatal passage where the young Russian spoke of London and Richmond.

　　Julien was quite surprised to find this letter almost tender.

　　It was the contrast between the apparent frivolity of his talk and thesublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters that had markedhim out. The length of his sentences was especially pleasing to the Marechale; this was not the cursory style brought into fashion by Voltaire,that most immoral of men! Although our hero did everything in theworld to banish any suggestion of common sense from his conversation,it had still an anti-monarchical and impious colour which did not escape the notice of Madame de Fervaques. Surrounded by persons who ............