The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century

by Stendhal

  'Monsieur Julien, I beg you, control yourself; consider that we all have our moments of ill-temper,' said Mme Derville quickly.

  Julien looked coldly at her with eyes which reflected the most supreme disdain.

  His look astonished Mme Derville, and would have done so even more if she had fathomed what it really expressed. She would have read in it a glimpse of hope of the most atrocious revenge. It is doubtless such moments of humiliation that create the Robespierres * of this world.

  'This Julien of yours is very aggressive, he frightens me,' Mme Derville said to her friend in a low voice.

  'He has every reason to be angry,' the latter replied. 'After the astonishing progress which the children have made at his hands, what does it matter if he spends one morning without speaking to them. You must agree that men are very hard.'

  For the first time in her life, Mme de Rênal felt a kind of desire to get her revenge on her husband. The dire hatred which Julien was nursing against the rich was about to explode. Fortunately M. de Rênal summoned his gardener and was kept

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  busy getting him to block off the illicit path across the orchard with bundles of thorny twigs. Julien did not utter a single word in response to the solicitous attentions paid to him during the remainder of the walk. M. de Rênal had hardly left them before the two friends, claiming to be tired, had each of them asked him for an arm.

  Flanked by these two women whose cheeks were flushed with deep embarrassment and discomfiture, Julien's haughty pallor and his glum and resolute air formed an odd contrast. He despised these women and every kind of tender feeling.

  So! he said to himself. I don't even get an income of five hundred francs to finish my studies! Wouldn't I just like to tell him where he gets off! Absorbed by these harsh thoughts, he was irritated by what little he deigned to take in of the two friends' soothing words: they struck him as empty, silly, ineffectual--in a word, feminine.

  In the course of talking for the sake of talking, and trying to keep the conversation alive, Mme de Rênal chanced to mention that her husband had returned from Verrières because he had done a deal for some maize straw with one of his farmers. (In this part of the country, maize straw is used to fill undermattresses.)

  'My husband won't be joining us again,' added Mme de Rênal. 'With the help of the gardener and his valet, he'll be busy finishing off the job of renewing the mattresses in the house. This morning he put maize straw in all the beds on the first floor, and now he's on to the second.'

  Julien changed colour; he gave Mme de Rênal a strange look and soon drew her aside, as it were, by quickening his pace. Mme Derville let them go on ahead.

  'Please save my life,' he said to Mme de Rênal, 'only you can do it; for you know the valet loathes me mercilessly. I must confess to you, madam, that I have a portrait; I've hidden it inside the under-mattress on my bed.'

  At these words Mme de Rênal grew pale in her turn.

  'You alone, madam, can go into my room right now; please search, without letting anyone see what you are doing, in the comer of the under-mattress nearest to the window, and you'll find a little box of smooth black cardboard.'

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  'And there's a portrait inside it!' said Mme de Rênal, scarcely able to remain on her feet.

  Her demoralized look did not pass unnoticed by Julien, who hastened to take advantage of it.

  'I've a second favour to ask of you, madam: I beg you not to look at this portrait, it's my secret.'

  'It's a secret!' repeated Mme de Rênal in a faint voice.

  But although she had been brought up among people proud of their fortunes, and only moved by financial interest, love had already planted generosity in Mme de Rênal's heart. Cruelly wounded as she was, she had an air of the most straightforward devotion when she asked Julien the necessary questions to enable her to carry out her errand properly.

  'So,' she said to him as she went off, 'it's a little round box of black cardboard, nice and smooth.'

  'Yes, madam,' Julien replied with the hard look which danger gives to men.

  She went up to the second floor of the house, as pale as if she were going to her death. To complete her wretchedness, she felt herself on the point of being taken ill; but the necessity of doing Julien a service restored strength to her.

  'I must have that box,' she said to herself as she quickened her step.

  She heard her husband talking to his valet in Julien's very room. Luckily they went through into the children's bedroom. She lifted the mattress and plunged her hand into the straw underneath it with such violence that she took some of the skin off her fingers. But although she was very sensitive to minor pain of this kind, she was unaware of anything on this occasion, for almost simultaneously she felt the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized it and slipped away.

  No sooner was she relieved of the fear of being surprised by her husband than the horror instilled in her by the box almost caused her to be well and truly taken ill.

  So Julien's in love, and I've got the portrait of the woman he loves in there!

  Sitting on a chair in the entrance to this set of rooms, Mme de Rênal was racked by all the torments of jealousy. Her extreme ignorance was again of service to her at the moment,

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  since her pain was tempered by astonishment. Julien appeared, seized the box without a word of thanks or any other kind, and ran into his room where he lit a fire and burned it on the spot. He was pale and shattered, greatly exaggerating the extent of the risk he had just run.

  Napoleon's portrait, he said to himself, shaking his head, found hidden in the room of a man who openly professes such hatred for the usurper! found by M. de Rênal, such an extreme Ultra and in such a state of anger! and to crown my rashness, on the white card at the back of the portrait there are lines written in my own hand, which leave no doubt about the excess of my admiration! And each of these passionate outbursts is dated--there's one from the day before yesterday!

  All my reputation gone, destroyed in a moment! said Julien to himself as he saw the box go up in flames, and my reputation is my only asset; it's all I have to live by . . . and what a life at that, by God!

  An hour later, fatigue and self-pity inclined him towards a tender mood. On meeting Mme de Rênal he took her hand and kissed it with more sincerity than he had ever shown. She blushed with happiness and almost at the same instant pushed Julien away with jealous anger. His pride, which had been so recently wounded, made him act foolishly at that point. All he saw in Mme de Rênal was a rich woman; he let go of her hand with disdain and strode off. He went and walked round the garden, deep in thought. Soon a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

  Here I am walking about undisturbed like a man who is master of his own time! I'm not looking after the children! I'm laying myself open to being humiliated by M. de Rênal, and he'll be quite right. Julien ran to the children's room.

  The caresses of the youngest boy, for whom he had much affection, soothed his burning pain a little.

  He at least doesn't despise me yet, Julien thought. But soon he reproached himself with this diminution of his pain as a fresh sign of weakness. These children fondle me just as they would the hunting pup that was bought yesterday.

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  CHAPTER 10

  A generous heart and a meagre fortune

  But passion most dissembles, yet betrays,

  Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky

  Foretells the heaviest tempest.

  Don Juan, C. I, st. 73.

  M. DE RÊNAL, who was going round all the rooms in the house, returned to the childrens' room with the servants who were bringing back the mattresses. The sudden appearance of this man was the last straw for Julien.

  Looking paler and more sombre than usual, Julien rushed towards him. M. de Rênal stopped and glanced at his servants.

  'Sir,' Julien said to him, 'do you think that with any other tutor your children would have made the same progress as with me? I
f your answer is no,' he went on without giving M. de Rênal a chance to reply, 'then how can you dare reproach me with neglecting them?'

  M. de Rênal had no sooner got over his fright than he inferred from the strange manner he observed the little peasant adopt that he was in possession of some advantageous offer from elsewhere, and that he was about to leave his service. Julien's anger increased as he spoke:

  'I can make a living without you, sir,' he added.

  'I am genuinely disturbed to see you so upset,' replied M. de Rênal with something of a stammer. The servants were some way off, busy putting back the beds.

  'That doesn't satisfy me, sir,' Julien went on, quite beside himself with anger. 'Consider the disgraceful language you used to me--and in the presence of ladies, too!

  M. de Rênal understood only too well what Julien was asking for, and he was torn by a painful conflict. Julien did indeed exclaim in a real fit of rage:

  'I know where to go, sir, when I leave your house.'

  At this M. de Rênal pictured Julien installed in M. Valenod's establishment.

  'Well then, sir!' he said to him at last with the sigh and the

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  look he would have produced for summoning a surgeon to perform the most painful of operations, 'I grant your request. Starting from the day after tomorrow, which is the first of the month, I shall give you fifty francs a month.'

  Julien felt like laughing and was completely taken aback; an his anger had vanished.

  I didn't despise this animal enough, he said to himself. This is no doubt the greatest apology such a petty mind is capable of.

  The children, who were listening to this scene with mouths agape, ran off into the the garden to tell their mother that Mr Julien was terribly angry, but he was going to get fifty francs a month.

  Julien followed them out of habit, without even looking at M. de Rênal, whom he left in a state of profound vexation.

  That makes a hundred and sixty-eight francs that M. Valenod is costing me, said the mayor to himself. It's essential I have stern words with him about his contract to provide supplies for the foundlings.

  A moment later Julien was back again face to face with M. de Rênal:

  'I must speak to Father Chélan about my conscience; may I most respectfully inform you that I shall be absent for a few hours.'

  'Ah! my dear Julien,' said the mayor with a laugh that rang utterly false, 'all day if you wish, and all tomorrow, my dear fellow. Take the gardener's horse to get to Verrières.'

  There he goes, M. de Rênal said to himself, to give an answer to Valenod; he hasn't promised me anything, but I'll have to let the young hothead simmer down.

  Julien made a quick escape and climbed up through the thick woods which lead from Vergy to Verrières. He did not want to get to Father Chélan's immediately. Far from wishing to inflict on himself a further scene of hypocrisy, he needed to sort out what was going on inside himself, and to attend to the welter of feelings which were agitating him.

  I've won a battle, he said to himself as soon as he was safely in the woods, out of anyone's sight. So I've won a battle!

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  This word depicted his situation to him in a favourable light, and restored some of his peace of mind.

  Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month: M. de Rênal must have been well and truly frightened. But what of?

  This meditation on what could possibly have frightened the happy and powerful man who had made him fume with rage only an hour beforehand completed the process of calming Julien down. He almost responded for a moment to the bewitching beauty of the woods he was walking through. Enormous blocks of bare rock had at one time fallen from the mountainside into the middle of the forest. Tall beeches grew almost as high as these rocks, which afforded delightfully cool shade only a few feet away from spots where the heat of the sun's rays would have made it impossible to stop.

  Julien paused an instant for breath in the shade of these great rocks, and then resumed his climb. Soon a narrow, barely visible track used only by goatherds took him to the top of a huge rock, where he stood in the certainty of being away from all humankind. His physical location made him smile, depicting for him the position he yearned to attain in the spiritual sphere. The pure air in these high mountains imparted serenity to him, and even joy. The mayor of Verrières was indeed in Julien's eyes still the representative of all the rich and the impudent on earth; but he sensed that for all the violence of his reactions, there was nothing personal about the hatred which had moved him. If he were to stop seeing M. de Rênal, he would have forgotten him in a week--him, his fine house, his dogs, his children and all his family. I've forced him, I don't understand how, to make an enormous sacrifice. Imagine! More than fifty crowns * a year! Only an instant before, I had extracted myself from dire danger. That makes two victories in one day; the second brings me no credit, I shall have to get to the bottom of it. But tomorrow is time enough for painstaking investigation.

  Standing on the top of his great rock Julien gazed at the sky which glowed in the August sunshine. Cicadas were chirruping in the field beneath the rock, and when they fell silent all was stillness around him. At his feet he could see the countryside for twenty leagues round about. A sparrowhawk which had

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  taken wing from the great rocks above his head came into view from time to time as it wheeled its great circles in silence. Mechanically, Julien's eyes followed the bird of prey. He was struck by its serene, powerful movements; he envied such strength, he envied such isolation.

  Such was Napoleon's destiny; would it one day be his?

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  CHAPTER 11

  In the evening

  Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,

  And tremulously gentle her small hand

  Withdrew itself from his, but left behind

  A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland

  And slight, so very slight that to the mind

  'Twas but a doubt.

  Don Juan, C. I, st. 71

  IT was necessary nevertheless to put in an appearance in Verrières. By a stroke of good luck, Julien ran into M. Valenod on leaving the presbytery, and hastened to tell him of the increase in his salary.

  Once back in Vergy, Julien did not go down to the garden until night had fallen. He was worn out by the many powerful emotions which had shaken him during the course of the day. What shall I say to them? he worried to himself as he thought of the ladies. He was a long way from realizing that his mind was precisely on the level of the petty circumstances which normally absorb the whole of women's attention. Julien was often unintelligible to Mme Derville, and even to her friend, and in his turn he only half understood all the things they said to him. Such was the effect of the strength, and if I may be permitted the expression, the grandeur of the passionate impulses which rocked this ambitious young man's inner being. Within this strange individual, almost every day was stormy.

  As he went into the garden that evening, Julien was all prepared to take an interest in the pretty cousins' ideas. They were waiting impatiently for him. He took his customary seat next to Mme de Rênal. It soon became pitch dark. He wanted to take hold of a white hand which he had seen beside him for some time resting on the back of a chair. There was some hesitation, but at length the hand was withdrawn in a way which indicated pique. Julien was inclined to take that for an

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  answer and to continue brightly with the conversation, when he heard M. de Rênal approaching.

  Julien's ears were still ringing with the rude words from that morning. Wouldn't it be a way of mocking this so-and-so who has everything fortune can offer, he said to himself, if I took possession of his wife's hand, and in his presence too? Yes I'll do it, I will--the person he treated with so much scorn.

  After this the calm that came so unnaturally to Julien was very soon banished; he desired frenetically, and without being able to think of anything else, that Mme de Rênal consent to yield him her
hand.

  M. de Rênal was angrily talking politics: two or three industrialists in Verrières were definitely getting richer than he was, and were trying to go against him in the elections. Mme Derville was listening to him. Annoyed at his haranguing, Julien drew his chair close to Mme de Rênal's. Darkness hid all his movements. He was bold enough to lay his hand very close to the pretty arm left bare by the dress. He was aroused and took leave of his senses; he put his cheek to this pretty arm and dared to touch it with his lips.

  Mme de Rênal quivered. Her husband was only a few feet away; she hastily gave Julien her hand, and at the same time pushed him away a little. As M. de Rênal continued his diatribe against people with nothing to their name and Jacobins who grew rich, Julien smothered the hand which had been abandoned to him with passionate kisses, or at least so they seemed to Mme de Rênal. Yet the poor woman had had proof on that fateful day that the heart of the man she adored without admitting it to herself belonged to another! For the whole of Julien's absence she had been in the throes of a deep distress which had caused her to reflect.

  Goodness! Could I be in love! she said to herself. Could this be love I feel! I'm a married woman, and I've fallen in love! But, she said to herself, I've never felt for my husband this sinister madness which makes me unable to take my mind off Julien. He's really only a child full of respect for me. It'll only be a passing madness. What does it matter to my husband what feelings I may have for this young man! M. de Rênal would be bored by my conversations with Julien on matters of

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  the imagination. He only thinks about his business. I'm not taking anything away from him to give it to Julien.

  There was no hypocrisy there to taint the purity of this innocent soul, led astray by a passion she had never experienced. She was deceived, but unwittingly, and yet some virtuous instinct within her had taken fright. These were the struggles disturbing her when Julien appeared in the garden. She heard him speak, and almost at the same instant saw him sit down beside her. She was quite carried away by this delightful happiness which for the past fortnight had astonished her even more than it had seduced her. She never knew what to expect. After a few moments, however, she said to herself: Is Julien's presence enough to wipe out all his wrongs? She took fright, and that was when she withdrew her hand from his.