But it was not without a mortal anguish that he, as it were, deprived himself of her presence. He thought he felt his unhappiness increasing still further. "The courage of a man's heart cannot be carried further," he said to himself. He passed his life seated at a little window at the top of the hôtel; the blind was carefully closed, and from here at any rate he could see mademoiselle de la Mole when she appeared in the garden. What were his emotions when he saw her walking after dinner with M. de Caylus, M. de Luz, or some other for whom she had confessed to him some former amorous weakness! Julien had no idea that unhappiness could be so intense; he was on the point of shouting out. This firm soul was at last completely overwhelmed. Thinking about anything else except mademoiselle de la Mole had become odious to him; he became incapable of writing the simplest letters. "You are mad," the marquis said to him. Julien was frightened that his secret might be guessed, talked about illness and succeeded in being believed. Fortunately for him the marquis rallied him at dinner about his next journey; Mathilde understood that it might be a very long one. It was now several days that Julien had avoided her, and the brilliant young men who had all that this pale sombre being she had once loved was lacking, had no longer the power of drawing her out of her reverie. "An ordinary girl," she said to herself, "would have sought out the man she preferred among those young people who are the cynosure of a salon; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to drive its thoughts over the rut traced by the vulgar. "Why, if I were the companion of a man like Julien, who only lacks the fortune that I possess, I should be continually exciting attention, I should not pass through life unnoticed. Far from incessantly fearing a revolution like my cousins who are so frightened of the people that they have not the pluck to scold a postillion who drives them badly, I should be certain of playing a rôle and a great rôle, for the man whom I have chosen has a character and a boundless ambition. What does he lack? Friends, money? I will give them him." But she treated Julien in her thought as an inferior being whose love one could win whenever one wanted. CHAPTER XLIX THE OPERA BOUFFE How the spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away.--_Shakespeare_. Engrossed by thoughts of her future and the singular rôle which she hoped to play, Mathilde soon came to miss the dry metaphysical conversations which she had often had with Julien. Fatigued by these lofty thoughts she would sometimes also miss those moments of happiness which she had found by his side; these last memories were not unattended by remorse which at certain times even overwhelmed her.