by Stendhal
Without saying a word for fear of committing himself, M.de Rênal examined the second anonymous letter composed, the reader will remember, of printed words stuck on to a sheet of blue-tinged paper. I am being mocked in any event, M. de Rênal said to himself, overwhelmed with fatigue.
Yet more slander to examine, and my wife's the cause of it again! He was on the point of subjecting her to the coarsest of insults, when the prospect of the Besançon inheritance stopped him just in time. Devoured by the need to vent his destructive urge on something, he crumpled up the paper on which this second anonymous letter had been written, and began striding off; he needed to get away from his wife. A few moments later he returned to her, in a calmer frame of mind.
'You must take a decision and dismiss Julien,' she said to him at once; 'after all, he's only a workman's son. You can make him a small payment in compensation, and anyway he's very learned and will easily find himself another post, for instance with M. Valenod or the sub-prefect de Maugiron who both have children. In this way you won't be doing him any harm...'
'You're talking just like the silly idiot you are,' thundered M. de Rênal. 'What sense can anyone expect from a woman? You never pay any attention to what is reasonable; how can you possibly know a thing? your happy-go-lucky outlook and your laziness only give you energy for chasing after butterflies, you feeble creatures that we are unfortunate enough to have in the midst of our families!...'
Mme de Rênal let him have his say, and it went on for a good while; he was getting shot of his anger, as the local expression goes.
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'Sir,' she answered him at last, 'I speak as a woman impugned in her honour, that is to say in the most precious thing she has.'
Mme de Rênal remained completely unruffled throughout the whole of this painful conversation on which hung her chance of going on living under the same roof with Julien. She tried to produce ideas she thought most likely to guide the blind anger of her husband. She had been unmoved by all the insulting remarks he had addressed to her, she wasn't even listening, she was thinking about Julien at the time. Will he be pleased with me?
'This little peasant on whom we have showered kindness and even presents may be innocent,' she said at last, 'but he is none the less the pretext for the first affront I've received... Sir! when I read this abominable missive, I vowed to myself that either he or I would leave your house.'
'Do you want to cause a scandal to dishonour me and yourself too? You give rise to a lot of bad feeling in Verrières.'
'It's true: most people envy the prosperous state which your wise administration has secured for yourself, your family and the town... All right! I shall entreat Julien to ask you for a period of leave to go and spend a month with that timber merchant in the mountains--a worthy friend for this little workman.'
'Don't you take any kind of action,' replied M. de Renal quite calmly. 'What I insist on above all is that you should not speak to him. You would do it in anger and set him and me at loggerheads; you know how touchy the little gentleman is.'
'The young man has no sense of propriety,' went on Mme de Rênal, 'he may be learned--you're the judge of that--but underneath he's nothing but a real peasant. As far as I'm concerned, I've never thought well of him since he refused to marry Elisa; it was a guaranteed fortune; and all because she sometimes pays secret visits to M. Valenod.'
'Ah!' said M. de Rênal, raising his eyebrows quite excessively, 'what was that? Did Julien tell you that?'
'Not exactly; he has always talked to me about his calling for the sacred ministry; but believe you me, the first calling for common people like him is to earn their bread. He led me to
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understand clearly enough that he was aware of these secret visits.'
'And I was quite unaware of them, I was!' exclaimed M. de Rênal, full of fury once more and stressing his words. 'Things happen in my house that I'm unaware of... What, was there ever anything between Elisa and Valenod?'
'Ha! That's ancient history, my dearest,' laughed Mme de Rênal, 'and perhaps nothing wicked happened. It was at the time when your good friend Valenod wouldn't have been displeased if people in Verrières had thought that a little affair was developing between him and me--perfectly platonic, of course.'
'I thought as much at one time,' exclaimed M. de Rênal, hitting his head furiously as he made one discovery after another, 'and you never said anything to me about it?'
'Was there any need to cause two friends to quarrel for the sake of a little flight of vanity from our dear Master? You name me a society woman to whom he hasn't sent some extremely witty and even flirtatious letters!'
'Did he write to you by any chance?'
'He writes a lot.'
'Show me those letters at once, I order you to!' and M. de Rênal drew himself up to a full six foot.
'I shall certainly not,' came the reply, gentle almost to the point of nonchalance, 'I'll show them to you one day, when you're behaving better.'
'This very instant, by God!' shouted M. de Rênal, intoxicated with anger, and yet happier than he had been for the past twelve hours.
'Do you swear to me', said Mme de Rênal very gravely, 'that you will never quarrel with the master of the workhouse on the subject of these letters?'
'Quarrel or no quarrel, I can take the foundlings from him; but', he went on furiously, 'I want those letters at once; where are they?'
'In a drawer of my desk; but I certainly won't give you the key.'
'I'll find a way of breaking into it,' he shouted as he ran off to his wife's room.
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He did indeed use an iron bar to smash a valuable writingdesk in veined mahogany obtained in Paris that he often used to buff up with his coat-tail when he thought he saw some mark on it.
Mme de Rênal had run up the hundred and twenty steps to the top of the dovecot; she was fastening the corner of a white handkerchief to one of the iron bars of the little window. She was the happiest of women. She gazed with tears in her eyes towards the great woods on the mountain. No doubt, she said to herself, Julien is underneath one of those leafy beeches, watching out for this good-luck signal. She strained her ears for a long time, then cursed the birdsong and the monotonous chirruping of the cicadas. If it weren't for this unwelcome noise, a shout of joy from the great rocks might have reached as far as here. Her avid gaze devoured the vast slope of dark greenery, smooth as a meadow, formed by the tops of the trees. How can he not have the wit, she said to herself quite overcome, to invent some signal to tell me that his happiness equals mine? She did not come down from the dovecot until she grew afraid that her husband might come and fetch her.
She found him in a state of fury. He was running through M. Valenod's anodyne prose, which was quite unaccustomed to being read with so much emotion.
Taking advantage of a pause in her husband's outbursts which allowed her to make herself heard:
'I keep coming back to this idea of mine,' said M. de Rênal, 'It would be a good thing for Julien to go on a journey. Whatever his talent for Latin, he's only a peasant after all, who is often coarse and lacking in tact; every day, thinking he's being civil, he pays me exaggerated compliments in poor taste which he learns by heart from some novel...'
'He never reads novels,' snapped M. de Rênal; 'I've made sure of that. Do you think I'm the kind of master to be blind and unaware of what goes on in his household?'
'All right! If he doesn't read these ridiculous compliments anywhere, he invents them, in which case, more fool him. He must have spoken about me in this vein in Verrières...; and without supposing as much as that', said M. de Rênal with the look of someone making a discovery, 'he must have spoken
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like that in front of Elisa, and that's to all intents and purposes as good as speaking in front of M. Valenod.'
'Ah!' shouted M. de Rênal shaking the table and the whole set of rooms by slamming down his fist as hard as is humanly possible, 'The printed anonymous letter and Valeno
d's letters are written on the same paper.'
'About time too!' thought Mme de Rênal; she put on a dumbfounded look at this discovery, and feeling too weak to add anything further, she went off and sat down on the sofa at the far end of the drawing-room.
From then on the battle was won; she had a hard time preventing M. de Rênal from going off to have words with the supposed author of the anonymous letter.
'How can you fail to understand that making a scene to M. Valenod without adequate proof is the most signal piece of ineptitude? You are envied, sir, and who is to blame? Your talents. Your wise administration, your buildings in such good taste, the dowry I brought you, and especially the substantial inheritance we may expect from my good aunt--people grossly exaggerate its size, but still--all this has made you the most important figure in Verrières'.
'You're forgetting my birth,' said M. de Rênal, with a hint of a smile.
'You are one of the most distinguished noblemen in the provinces,' Mme de Rênal went on eagerly; 'if the king were free and could do justice to high birth, you would no doubt be a member of the house of peers, etc. And with such a splendid position in society, do you really wish to give envious tongues food for comment?
To speak to M. Valenod about his anonymous letter amounts to proclaiming throughout the whole of Verrières--no, throughout Besançon, indeed throughout the whole of the provinces--that this little commoner, perhaps rather unwisely admitted to the family circle of a Rênal, has found a way of insulting him. Supposing these letters you've just turned up were to prove that I had responded to M. Valenod's love, you ought to kill me, I should richly deserve it; but you shouldn't show him any anger. Think how all your neighbours are just waiting for an excuse to get their revenge for your superiority;
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think how in 1816 you did your bit to get certain people arrested. That man taking refuge on his roof...' *
'What I'm thinking is that you are showing no consideration or friendship towards me,' exclaimed M. de Rênal with all the bitterness evoked by a memory of this kind, 'and I wasn't made a peer!...'
'I'm reflecting, my dear,' went on Mme de Rênal with a smile, 'that I shall be richer than you, I've been your companion for twelve years, and all these considerations ought to give me the right to a say in what goes on, especially in the matter concerning us today. If you prefer a Mr Julien to me', she added with ill-disguised pique, 'I'm ready to go and spend a winter with my aunt.'
This remark was uttered most appositely. There was a firm ring to it beneath a veneer of politeness; it settled matters for M. de Rênal. But, as is the custom in the provinces, he went on speaking for a long time, he went back over all the arguments; his wife let him have his say, there was still anger in his voice. At length, two hours of pointless chatter wore down the strength of a man who had been in a fit of rage all night. He settled the line he would take with M. Valenod, Julien and even Elisa.
Once or twice during this great scene Mme de Rênal was on the verge of feeling some sympathy for the very real misfortune of this man who had been her friend for twelve years. But true passions are selfish. Besides, she was expecting at every moment that he would confess to having received an anonymous letter the previous evening, and this confession was not forthcoming. Mme de Rênal's peace of mind was incomplete without knowledge of what might have been suggested to the man in whose hands lay her fate. For in the provinces husbands control public opinion. A husband who complains brings ridicule upon himself, something which is becoming daily less dangerous in France; but his wife, if deprived by him of money, sinks to the level of a woman forced to work for a living on a pitiful wage, and what's more, right-minded folk will scruple to employ her.
An odalisque in a harem may love the sultan through thick and thin; but he is all-powerful, and she has no hope of stealing
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his authority from him by a series of little acts of cunning. The master's vengeance is terrible and bloody, but military in its generosity: a dagger blow ends it all. The blows are dealt by public scorn when a husband kids his wife in the nineteenth century; he does it by closing all salon doors to her.
Mme de Rênal's feeling of danger was rudely awakened when she returned to her room; she was shocked at the state of chaos she found it in. The locks on all her pretty little caskets had been forced; several blocks of the parquet floor had been prised up. He would have had no pity on me! she said to herself. Fancy ruining this parquet floor in contrasting wood that he's so fond of; when one of his children comes in with wet shoes, he turns red with anger. And now it's ruined for good! The sight of this violence rapidly banished her last reproaches to herself for her over-hasty victory.
Shortly before the dinner bell, Julien returned with the children. During the sweet course, when the servants had withdrawn, Mme de Rênal said very curtly to him:
'You expressed the wish to me to go and spend a fortnight in Verrières; M. de Rênal is agreeable to granting you leave. You may go when you see fit. However, so that the children don't waste their time, their Latin proses will be sent to you every day for you to correct.'
'My mind is made up', M. de Rênal added in very sour tones, 'not to grant you more than a week.'
Julien read in his features the anxiety of a deeply tormented man.
'He hasn't yet settled on a course of action,' he said to his mistress when they were alone together for a moment in the drawing-room.
Mme de Rênal gave him a rapid account of everything she had done since the morning.
'The details can wait until tonight,' she added laughing.
Aren't women perverse! thought Julien. What pleasure, what instinct drives them to deceive us!
'I find you both enlightened and blinded by your love,' he said to her somewhat coldly; 'your conduct today is admirable; but is it prudent for us to try to see each other tonight? This
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house is lined with enemies; just think of the passionate hatred Elisa feels for me.'
'That hatred is very like the passionate indifference I must suppose you feel for me.'
'Even if I were indifferent, I must rescue you from the danger I've put you in. If chance has it that M. de Rênal speaks to Elisa, one word from her may reveal all to him. What's to stop him from hiding near my room, well armed...'
'What! not even any courage!' said Mme de Rênal with all the hauteur of a daughter of the nobility.
'I shall never stoop to speak of my courage,' said Julien coldly, 'It's beneath me. Let the world judge according to deeds. But', he added taking her hand, 'you cannot conceive how attached I am to you, and what a joy it is for me to be able to take leave of you before this cruel absence.'
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CHAPTER 22
Modes of behaviour in 1830
Speech was given to men to conceal their thoughts.
R. P. MALAGRIDA *
JULIEN had no sooner arrived in Verrières than he began to reproach himself for his conduct towards Mme de Rênal. I'd have despised her like a feeble little woman if, out of weakness, she'd messed up her scene with M. de Rênal. She pulls it off like a diplomat, and I go and sympathize with the victim who is my enemy. My action smacks of petty-mindedness; my vanity is shocked because M. de Rênal is a man! What a vast and illustrious company I have the honour of belonging to: I'm just an idiot.
Father Chélan had refused the lodgings that the most influential liberals in the locality had vied with one another in offering him when his removal from office drove him from the presbytery. The two rooms he had rented were cluttered up with his books. Wishing to show Verrières what a priest was worth, Julien went and fetched a dozen deal planks from his father and carried them on his own back all the way along the main street. He borrowed some tools from an old friend and had soon constructed a sort of bookcase in which he put away Father Chélan's books.
'I thought you'd been corrupted by worldly vanity,' said the old man to him with tears of delight. 'This certainly redeems the childish indulg
ence of wearing a dazzling guard of honour's uniform, which made you so many enemies.'
M. de Rênal had instructed Julien to lodge in his house. No one suspected what had happened. Three days after his arrival, Julien received a visit in his own room at the top of the stairs from no less important a personage than the sub-prefect M. de Maugiron. It was only after two lengthy hours of insipid gossip and long laments over the wickedness of men, the lack of honesty of the people in charge of administering public funds,
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the dangers besetting this poor France of ours, etc., etc., that Julien at long last saw the subject of this visit come up. They were already on the upstairs landing, and the poor tutor in semi-disgrace was ushering out with all due respect the future prefect of some fortunate département, when the latter was pleased to turn his mind to Julien's prospects, to praise his moderation in matters of material interest, etc., etc. At last, as M. de Maugiron was embracing him in the most genial fashion, he came out with the proposition that Julien leave M. de Rênal and take up employment in the household of an official who had children to edicate, * and who, like King Philip, * would offer up thanks to heaven not so much for having given them to him as for having ensured they were born in the vicinity of Mr Julien. Their tutor would enjoy a salary of eight hundred francs payable not by the month--'which is not the practice among the nobility,' said M. de Maugiron--but quarterly and always in advance.
It was Julien's turn, after an hour and a half of waiting in boredom for his cue to speak. His reply was perfect, and above all it was as long as an episcopalian homily; it implied everything, and yet said nothing directly. You would have found in it at one and the same time respect for M. de Rênal, veneration for the public in Verrières and gratitude towards the illustrious sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished to find a more jesuitical mind than his own, tried in vain to get a straight answer. Julien was delighted to seize this opportunity of practising his skills, and he began his reply all over again in different terms. Never has an eloquent minister, wishing to get through the end of a session when the Chamber appears to be trying to wake up, used more words to say less. M. de Maugiron had hardly left before Julian burst into uncontrollable laughter. To take advantage of his jesuitical verve, he wrote a nine-page letter to M. de Rênal, reporting to him everything that had been said to him, and humbly asking for his advice. The rascal didn't actually tell me the name of the person making the offer! It'll be M. Valenod, who takes my exile in Verrières to be the effect of his anonymous letters.