Chapter summary
After reading the long letters of Julien Sorel without pleasure, Madame de Fervaques begins to become involved, and the narrator gives the reason: the boredom of a life that aspires only to the effect on the public had become so intolerable since she began thinking of Julien that an hour spent with him the evening before was enough for the maids not to be mistreated the next day. One thing distresses her: she regrets that Mr. Sorel is not a real priest, because with that decoration and that almost bourgeois dress he exposes her to malicious questions, and his arrivist vanity works against the interest that is born. She resists anonymous letters and the slanders of young Tanbeau, and one day, on an impulse, decides to answer Julien, which the narrator calls the victory of boredom. They begin writing almost every day: Julien sends back faithful copies of the love letters given to him by Prince Korasoff, his Russian friend, and she does not even notice that there is no relation between the letters and the replies, while he tosses her letters into a drawer without opening them.
One morning, Mathilde de La Mole finds on Julien's desk the letter the doorkeeper had just brought, demands explanations, says he forgets her, that she is his wife, and bursts into tears. Julien supports her and, at first, feels extreme joy; the next moment, he recalls Korasoff and stiffens his arms so as not to embrace the yielding body that offers itself, for according to the prince's rule a single word can lose everything. Mathilde, wounded in her pride at being rejected by an employee of her father's, opens the drawer of his table and finds eight or ten letters from the Marechale, unopened. Chilled with horror, she understands that he despises the Marechale, throws herself at his knees, begs forgiveness and says she can no longer live without his love. Julien thinks: there is that proud woman, at my feet.
Analysis
Mathilde demands explanations on finding on Julien's desk the letter the doorkeeper had just brought: the idea that he loves the Marechale hurts again. Later, when she almost surrenders in his arms, Julien stiffens his arms so as not to embrace the yielding body that offers itself, remembering Korasoff. The scene shows the plan reaching its point: the one who was scorned becomes the one desired, and the method does without feeling.
It is boredom, not seduction, that unlocks Fervaques's door: the same boredom from which Mathilde de La Mole freed herself when she began to occupy herself with Julien.
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