to trace those lofty qualities which can earn a man the honour of being condemned to death.
"Yes," he was saying to comte Altamira as he passed by her, "Danton was a real man."
"Heavens can he be a Danton?" said Mathilde to herself, "but he has so noble a face, and that Danton was so horribly ugly, a butcher I believe." Julien was still fairly near her. She did not hesitate to call him; she had the consciousness and the pride of putting a question that was unusual for a young girl.
"Was not Danton a butcher?" she said to him.
"Yes, in the eyes of certain persons," Julien answered her with the most thinly disguised expression of contempt. His eyes were still ardent from his conversation with Altamira, "but unfortunately for the people of good birth he was an advocate at Méry-sur-Seine, that is to say, mademoiselle," he added maliciously, "he began like many peers whom I see here. It was true that Danton laboured under a great disadvantage in the eyes of beauty; he was ugly."
These last few words were spoken rapidly in an extraordinary and indeed very discourteous manner."
Julien waited for a moment, leaning slightly forward and with an air of proud humility. He seemed to be saying, "I am paid to answer you and I live on my pay." He did not deign to look up at Mathilde. She looked like his slave with her fine eyes open abnormally wide and fixed on him. Finally as the silence continued he looked at her, like a valet looking at his master to receive orders. Although his eyes met the full gaze of Mathilde which were fixed on him all the time with a strange expression, he went away with a marked eagerness.
"To think of a man who is as handsome as he is," said Mathilde to herself as she emerged from her reverie, "praising ugliness in such a way, he is not like Caylus or Croisenois. This Sorel has something like my father's look when he goes to a fancy dress ball as Napoleon." She had completely forgotten Danton. "Yes, I am decidedly bored tonight." She took her brother's arm and to his great disgust made him take her round the ball-room. The idea occurred to her of following the conversation between Julien and the man who had been condemned to death.
