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

by Stendhal

  They were hardly seated in the garden when, without waiting for it to be sufficiently dark, Julien put his lips to Mme de Rênal's ear and, at the risk of compromising her most horribly, said:

  'Madam, this very night I shall come to your room at two o'clock, I've got something to say to you.'

  Julien trembled lest his request be granted; his seducer's role was such a horrible burden on him that if he had been able to follow his inclination, he would have withdrawn to his room for several days, and avoided seeing the ladies. He was aware that his expert behaviour the previous day had ruined all the promising signs of the day before that, and he was genuinely at a loss which way to turn.

  Mme de Rênal responded with real, unforced indignation to the impertinent announcement that Julien had been bold enough to make to her. He thought he detected scorn in her short reply. There is no doubt that this reply, uttered in a low tone, had contained the phrase how dare you. Under the guise of saying something to the children, Julien went off to their room, and on his return he took a seat beside Mme Derville, a long way away from Mme de Rênal. He thus made it impossible for himself to take her hand. The conversation was serious,

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  and Julien made a very good showing, apart from one or two moments of silence while he was racking his brains. Oh why can't I think up a really good move, he said to himself, to force Mme de Rênal back into giving me those unequivocal demonstrations of fondness which led me to believe three days ago that she was mine!

  Julien was extremely put out by the almost hopeless state into which he had got his affairs. Yet nothing would have embarrassed him more than success.

  When they all went their own ways at midnight, his pessimism convinced him that he had earned Mme Derville's scorn, and that he had probably fared no better in the eyes of Mme de Rênal.

  In this state of ill-temper and great humiliation, Julien was unable to fall asleep. He couldn't have been further from the thought of giving up all pretence, all strategy, and of living from one day to the next with Mme de Rênal, perfectly content like a child with the happiness that each day brought him.

  He exhausted his mind thinking up clever moves, and then the next moment he decided they were absurd; in short, he was in an exceedingly miserable mood when the château clock struck two

  The noise roused him as the crowing of the cock roused St Peter. He realized the time had come to embark on the most arduous of undertakings. He hadn't given any further thought to his impertinent proposal since making it; it had been so badly received!

  I told her I'd go to her room at two o'clock, he said to himself as he got up. I may indeed be inexperienced and coarse as befits a peasant's son--Mme Derville has made that only too clear to me--but at least I won't be feeble.

  Julien was right to congratulate himself on his courage; he had never imposed a more arduous obligation on himself. He was shaking so much as he opened his door that his knees gave way under him, and he was forced to lean against the wall for support.

  He had no shoes on. He went and listened at M. de Rênal's door, and heard the sound of his snoring. He was bitterly disappointed. So there was no excuse now for not going to her.

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  But what on earth would he do there? He had no plan, and even if he had had one, he felt in such turmoil that he would have been in no state to follow it.

  At last, suffering infinitely more than if he had been walking to his death, he turned down the little corridor leading to Mme de Rênal's bedroom. He opened the door with a shaking hand, making a terrible noise as he did so.

  The room was lit: a nightlight was burning in the chimneyplace. He wasn't expecting this new misfortune. On seeing him come in, Mme de Rênal sprang out of bed. 'You wretch!' she cried. There was a bit of confusion. Julien forgot his idle plans and reverted to his natural role: not to find favour with such a charming woman struck him as the height of misfortune. His only response to her words of reproach was to fling himself at her feet and clasp her knees. As she spoke extremely harshly to him, he burst into tears.

  Some hours later, when Julien left Mme de Rênal's room, one could say, in novelettish style, that he had nothing left to desire. For the love he had inspired and the unexpected impression made on him by her seductive charms had given him a victory which would never have been achieved by all his clumsy skill.

  But, in the sweetest moments, he was still the victim of a bizarre pride, and aspired to play the role of a man accustomed to subjugate women: he tried unbelievably hard to spoil his endearing characteristics. Instead of being attentive to the ecstasy which he aroused, and the expressions of remorse which heightened its intensity, he was constantly beset by the idea of duty. He was afraid of terrible remorse and eternal ridicule if he deviated from the ideal model he had set himself to follow. In short, what made Julien a superior being was precisely what prevented him from savouring the happiness which came his way. Every inch the young girl of sixteen who has delightful colouring, and is foolish enough to put on rouge to go to a ball.

  Terrified out of her wits by the sudden appearance of Julien, Mme de Rênal was soon in the throes of the most cruel fears. She was intensely stirred by Julien's tears and his despair.

  Even when she had nothing left to refuse him, she pushed

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  Julien away from her with genuine indignation, only to fling herself back into his arms. There was no forethought apparent in this sequence of behaviour. She believed herself damned beyond reprieve, and sought to conceal the sight of hell from herself by smothering Julien with the most passionate of caresses. In short, nothing would have been lacking to our hero's happiness, not even a passionate sensuousness in the woman he had just conquered, if he had but known how to enjoy it. Julien's departure did not put an end to the storms of passion which buffeted her in spite of herself, or to her struggles with the remorse that devoured her.

  Good Lord! Being happy, being loved--is that all there is to it? This was Julien's first thought on returning to his room. He was in that state of astonishment and uneasy agitation which overwhelms a person who has just obtained something long desired. You're in the habit of desiring, you can't find anything to desire any more, but you don't yet have any memories. Like a soldier returning from parade, Julien was intently engaged in reviewing all the details of his conduct.

  'I didn't fail, did I, in any of the things I owe to myself? Did I play my part properly?'

  And what part was it? That of a man accustomed to dazzling success with women.

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  CHAPTER 16

  The day after

  He turn'd his lips to hers, and with his hand

  Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair.

  Don Juan, C. I, st. 170

  FORTUNATELY--for Julien's image--Mme de Rênal had been too agitated, too astonished to notice the foolishness of the man who in an instant had become everything in the world to her.

  As she entreated him to leave, seeing the dawn about to break, she said:

  'Oh! my goodness! if my husband has heard any noise, it's the end of me.'

  Julien, who had time to turn a fine phrase, remembered this one:

  'Would you leave this world with regret?'

  'Ah! very much at this moment! but I wouldn't regret having known you.'

  Julien thought it befitted his dignity to make a point of going back to his room in broad daylight, defying prudence.

  The constant attention with which he studied his every action in the mad hope of appearing a man of experience did have one fortunate consequence: when he saw Mme de Rênal again at lunch, his behaviour was a masterpiece of prudence.

  For her part she could not look at him without blushing deeply, and she could not exist for a moment without looking at him; she was aware of her discomfiture, but her efforts to conceal it only made matters worse. Julien only glanced up at her once. At first, Mme de Rênal admired his prudence. Soon, seeing that this single glance was not repeated, she became alarmed: Can
it be that he doesn't love me? she wondered. Alas! I'm rather old for him; there's ten years difference between us.

  As they moved from the dining-room into the garden, she squeezed Julien's hand. Taken aback by such an extraordinary

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  sign of love, he gave her a passionate look, for she had seemed very pretty to him at lunch, and while keeping his eyes lowered, he had spent the time going over her charms in his mind. This look consoled Mme de Rênal; it did not banish all her anxieties, but her anxieties almost entirely banished her remorse towards her husband.

  At lunch this husband of hers had not noticed anything. The same could not be said of Mme Derville: she thought that Mme de Rênal was on the verge of succumbing. Throughout the whole day her bold and forthright friendship did not spare Mme de Rênal any innuendo designed to portray in hideous colours the danger she was in.

  Mme de Rênal ached to be alone with Julien; she wanted to ask him if he still loved her. In spite of the unvarying sweetness of her temper, there were several occasions when she almost gave her friend to understand how unwelcome her interference was.

  That evening in the garden M me Derville arranged things so well that she found herself sitting between Mme de Rênal and Julien. Mme de Rênal, who had conjured up an exquisite image of the pleasure of squeezing Julien's hand and putting it to her lips, was unable to address a single word to him.

  This setback increased her agitation. She was consumed with remorse over something: she had scolded Julien so much for his imprudent act in coming to her room the previous night, that she was now in fear and trembling that he would not come that evening. She left the garden early and went and settled herself in her room. But unable to contain her impatience she came and pressed her ear to Julien's door. In spite of the uncertainty and the passion consuming her, she did not dare go in. To do so seemed to her the most infamous step, for it features in a provincial saying. *

  The servants had not all gone to bed. Prudence at length dictated that she return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of torment.

  But Julien was too faithful to what he called duty to fail to carry out in every detail what he had laid down for himself.

  As one o'clock was striking he slipped quietly from his room, made sure that the master of the house was deeply

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  asleep, and made his appearance in Mme de Rênal's room. That day he found greater happiness in the arms of his love, for his thoughts dwelled less constantly on the role he had to play. He had eyes to see with and ears to hear. What Mme de Rênal said about her age contributed to his feeling of increased assurance.

  'Alas! I'm ten years older than you! How can you love me!' she repeated to him aimlessly, because the idea of it oppressed her.

  Julien could not grasp this misfortune, but he saw that it was real enough, and he forgot almost all his fear of being ridiculous.

  The silly idea of being regarded as an inferior lover because of his humble birth vanished as well. As Julien's rapture gradually reassured his timid mistress, so she recovered a little happiness and the ability to judge her lover. Luckily he showed virtually no signs on that occasion of the stilted manner which had made the previous day's encounter a victory but not a pleasure. If she had noticed the attention he devoted to acting a part, this sad discovery would have robbed her of all happiness for ever. She could only have taken it as a sad result of the age-gap between them.

  Although Mme de Rênal had never thought about theories of love, difference in age follows close on difference in fortune as being one of the great commonplaces of provincial humour whenever it comes to joking about love.

  It was only a matter of days before Julien, regaining the full ardour of his youth, was head over heels in love.

  I must admit, he said to himself, that she's as sweet-natured as an angel, and it would be difficult to be prettier.

  He had almost completely lost the idea of the role he had to play. In an unguarded moment he even confided all his worries to her. This confession fanned into a blaze the passion he inspired. So I never had a happy rival! said Mme de Rênal to herself in ecstasy. She plucked up courage to question him on the portrait he had been so concerned about; Julien swore to her that it was the picture of a man.

  At times when Mme de Rênal still had enough composure to reflect, she couldn't get over her astonishment that such happiness should exist, and that she had never suspected it.

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  Ah! she mused, if only I'd known Julien ten years ago when I was still considered pretty!

  Julien was very far removed from such thoughts. His love still stemmed from ambition, from the joy of knowing that he, a poor wretch so deeply despised, could possess such a noble and beautiful woman. His acts of adoration, his excitement at the sight of his loved one's charms, eventually reassured her about the difference in their ages. If she had had any of the worldly wisdom which women of thirty have possessed for quite some time in more civilized parts of the country, she would have feared for the duration of a love which only seemed to feed on novelty and flattered self-esteem.

  At moments when Julien forgot his ambition, his rapturous admiration extended to the very hats, the very dresses that Mme de Rênal wore. He could not have enough of the pleasure of smelling their perfume. He opened her mirrored wardrobe and spent hours on end admiring the beauty and the style of everything he found there. Leaning against him, his mistress looked at him, while he looked at the jewels and garments which might have composed a trousseau on the eve of a wedding.

  I might have married a man like that! Mme de Rênal thought from time to time. What a passionate creature! What an enchanting life together!

  Julien for his part had never come so close to these terrible instruments of feminine artillery. It just isn't possible, he said to himself, that there's anything more beautiful to be had in Paris! At this point he could find no further obstacle to his happiness. Often his mistress's sincere admiration and her rapture caused him to forget the futile theory which had made him so unnatural and almost ridiculous at the beginning of their liaison. There were moments when, in spite of his habitually assumed hypocrisy, he found it extremely comforting to confesss to this grand lady who so admired him how ignorant he was of a host of little customs. His mistress's rank seemed to raise him up above himself. Mme de Rênal on her side derived the sweetest of mental enjoyment from providing instruction in this way, in a host of little matters, to a young man so full of genius, who was universally regarded as someone

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  who would one day go far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring him; and they seemed to him the less foolish for it. As for Mme Derville, she was far from having such sentiments to express. In despair at what she guessed to be going on, and realizing that her wise counsel was becoming distasteful to a woman who had literally lost her head, she left Vergy without offering any explanation, and none was asked of her. Mme de Rênal shed one or two tears over it, but it soon seemed to her that her bliss had only increased. This departure gave her virtually the whole of the daytime alone with her lover.

  Julien was all the more ready to give himself up to the delightful company of his beloved since, whenever he was alone with himself for too long, Fouqué's fateful proposition returned to the forefront of his mind to unsettle him. In the early days of his new life, there were moments when Julien, who had never loved or been loved by anyone, found such delightful pleasure in being sincere that he was on the point of telling Mme de Rênal of the ambition that had up till then been the be-all and end-all of his existence. He would have liked to seek her opinion on the strange temptation which Fouqué's proposition held out for him, but a little happening put any frankness out of the question.

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  CHAPTER 17

  First deputy

  O, how this spring of love resembleth

  The uncertain glory of an April day,

  Which now shows all the beauty of the sun

  A
nd by and by a cloud takes all away!

  TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

  ONE evening at sunset he sat deeply musing beside his mistress at the bottom of the orchard, far from any intruder's gaze. Will such sweet moments last for ever? he wondered. His mind was preoccupied with the difficulty of adopting a profession, and he resented this great new burden which brings an end to childhood and spoils the early years of poverty-stricken youth.

  'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'Napoleon really was a man sent from God for the young men of France! Who will replace him? Without him, what will become of the unfortunate people-even those richer than I am--who can just scrape together what it takes to pay for a good education, but haven't got enough money at twenty to buy their way into a career! Whatever we do', he added with a deep sigh, 'this fateful memory will always prevent us from being happy!'

  All of a sudden he saw Mme de Rênal frown and take on a cold and disdainful look: this way of thinking struck her as something to be expected of a servant. Brought up in the knowledge that she was extremely wealthy, it seemed to her to go without saying that Julien was too. She loved him infinitely more dearly than her life, and was quite indifferent to money.

  Julien was nowhere near guessing these thoughts. Her frown brought him down to earth again. He had enough presence of mind to modify what he said and give the noble lady sitting on the grassy bank beside him to understand that the words he had just repeated had been heard by him on his visit to his friend the timber merchant. They represented the way of thinking of the ungodly.

  'Very well then! Don't mix with people like that any more,'