CHAPTER XXXIV
THE HOTEL DE LA MOLE
What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he try to please?—Ronsard.
If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed strange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his turn very strange to those persons who deigned to notice him. Madame de la Mole suggested to her husband that he should send him off on some business on those days when they had certain persons to dinner.
"I wish to carry the experiment to its logical conclusion," answered the marquis. "The abbé Pirard contends that we are wrong in crushing the self-respect of the people whom we allow around us. One can only lean on what resists. The only thing against this man is his unknown face, apart from that he is a deaf mute."
"If I am to know my way about," said Julien to himself. "I must write down the names of the persons whom I see come to the salon together with a few words on their character."
He put at the head of the list five or six friends of the house who took every opportunity of paying court to him, believing that he was protected by a whim of the marquis. They were poor dull devils. But it must be said in praise of this class of men, such as they are found to-day in the salons of the aristocracy, that every one did not find them equally tame. One of them was now allowing himself to be bullied by the marquis, who was venting his irritation at a harsh remark which had been addressed to him by the marquise.
The masters of the house were too proud or too prone to boredom; they were too much used to finding their only distraction in the addressing of insults, to enable them to expect true friends. But, except on rainy days and in rare
