Chapter summary
Suspecting an ambush, Julien Sorel conducts a military reconnaissance of the garden and, at five past one in the morning, climbs the ladder to the room of Mathilde de La Mole, pistol in hand, more frightened than in love. The scene is very cold: Mathilde negotiates the ladder and the rope with the composure of a strategist, and Julien feels no tenderness. He realizes that he does not triumph over Croisenois, he merely succeeds him, and only reaches, by reason, the joy of self-esteem. She fulfills the resolution she had made, to belong to him entirely if he dared to come that far, and the night ends without complaint or tenderness. Julien escapes only after waiting standing in a mahogany wardrobe, when Mathilde's mother gets up, and he rides off through the forest more astonished than happy.
Analysis
Julien climbs with a pistol in hand because, even though Mathilde has invited him, for him the night is a duel, and he reconnoiters the garden like a soldier. She fulfills the resolution she made, to belong to him entirely if he dared to come that far. Neither of them feels tenderness: the night is a test of courage, not of love.
The narrator marks the difference explicitly, and it is the axis of the following chapters: what happened there was not the volupté of the soul that Julien knew with Madame de Rênal. For her it was duty, and for him ambition.
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