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

by Stendhal

  He walked briskly over to the bar and the pretty girl, as he would have marched to face the enemy. In this great action, his bundle fell to the floor.

  Imagine the pity our little provincial is going to arouse in those young Parisian schoolboys who at the age of fifteen are already adept at sauntering into a café with the most distinguished of airs! But these boys who have so much style at fifteen become common at eighteen. The intense reserve found in the provinces is sometimes overcome, and it then brings out will-power. As he went over to this beautiful girl who deigned to speak to him: I must tell her the truth, thought Julien, who was growing brave through triumphing over his reserve. 'Madam, this is the first time in my life I've come to Besançon: I'd like to have a roll and a cup of coffee--I can pay.'

  The barmaid smiled a little and then blushed; she was afraid of hearing the billiard players direct quips and ironic comments

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  at this attractive young man. He'd be frightened off and wouldn't come back.

  'Take a seat here near me,' she said, showing him a marble table almost completely hidden by the enormous mahogany bar projecting into the room.

  The girl leaned out over the bar, which gave her the opportunity to display her superb figure. Julien noticed it; his ideas underwent a rapid shift. The beautiful girl had just put down a cup, some sugar and a roll in front of him. She was hesitating to call a waiter for the coffee, realizing that his arrival would put an end to her tête-à-tête with Julien.

  Julien was pensive, comparing this fair, sparkling beauty with certain memories which often disturbed him. The thought of the passion he had inspired banished almost all his nervousness. The beautiful girl only had a moment; she read Julien's gaze.

  'This pipe smoke is making you cough, come for breakfast before eight o'clock tomorrow: at that time, I'm almost alone.'

  'What's your name?' asked Julien with the caressing smile of nervousness reassured.

  ' Amanda Binet.'

  'Will you allow me to send you, in an hour's time, a little bundle the size of this one?'

  The beautiful Amanda thought for a moment.

  'They've got their eye on me: what you're asking may compromise me; all the same, I'll go off and write down my address on a card for you to put on your bundle. You can send it to me without any worries.'

  'I'm called Julien Sorel,' said the young man; I have neither relatives nor acquaintances in Besançon.'

  'Ah! I understand,' she said delightedly, 'you're here to study law.'

  'Alas! no,' Julien replied, 'I'm being sent to the seminary.'

  The light in Amanda's face was instantly extinguished by a look of the most total discouragement; she called a waiter: she felt able to now. The waiter poured Julien some coffee without looking at him.

  Amanda was taking money at the bar; Julien felt proud of having dared to speak; a quarrel broke out at one of the billiard

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  tables. The shouts and denials of the players echoing round the enormous room created a din that amazed Julien. Amanda was looking dreamy and had her eyes lowered.

  'If you like, mademoiselle,' he said to her suddenly in confident tones, 'I'll say I'm your cousin.'

  This little air of authority appealed to Amanda. This young man isn't a nobody, she thought. She said to him very quickly, without looking at him, since she was keeping a watchful eye to see if anyone was coming up to the bar:

  'I'm from Genlis, near Dijon; say you're from Genlis too, and a cousin of my mother's.'

  'I'll be sure to.'

  'Every Thursday at five o'clock in summertime the young gentlemen from the seminary pass by in front of the café.'

  'When I go past, if you're thinking of me, have a bunch of violets in your hand.'

  Amanda looked at him in astonishment; this look turned Julien's courage into temerity; yet he blushed deeply as he said to her:

  'I feel I love you with the most passionate love.'

  'Do lower your voice,' she said to him with a terrified look.

  Julien was thinking of calling up some passages he had read in an incomplete volume of La Nouvelle Héloïse * that he had found at Vergy. His memory served him well. He had been reciting La Nouvelle Héloïse for a good ten minutes to a delighted Mlle Amanda, and was feeling pleased with his bravery, when suddenly the belle of the Franche-Comté assumed an icy glare. One of her lovers was on the doorstep of the café.

  He walked over to the bar, whistling and swinging his shoulders in step; he looked at Julien. Instantly, the latter's imagination, always veering to extremes, was filled exclusively with thoughts of a duel. He turned extremely pale, pushed his cup away, assumed a self-confident air and stared closely at his rival. While this rival had his head lowered, intent on pouring himself a glass of brandy at the bar like an old customer, Amanda ordered Julien with a glance to lower his gaze. He obeyed, and for two minutes remained motionless in his seat, pale, resolute and wholly absorbed in what was to come; he

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  looked really impressive at that moment. The rival had been astonished at Julien's eyes; downing his brandy in one go, he said a word to Amanda, stuck his two hands in the side pockets of his heavy frock-coat and went over to one of the billiard tables, blowing the air out of his mouth as he looked at Julien. The latter stood up in a fit of rage; but he did not know how to go about being insulting. He put down his little bundle and walked towards the billiard table, swinging his hips as best he could manage.

  It was to no avail that prudence said to him: Look, with a duel the moment you arrive in Besançon, your ecclesiastical career is ruined.

  So what, let no one say I let a cheeky devil get away with it.

  Amanda observed his courage; it made a nice contrast with the naïvety of his manners; it was the work of an instant for her to prefer him to the tall young man in the frock-coat. She got up, and while appearing to be gazing after someone who was passing in the street, she quickly came and stationed herself between him and the billiard table.

  'Be careful not to give that gentleman dirty looks, he's my brother-in-law.'

  'What do I care? He stared at me.'

  'Do you want to make me unhappy? Maybe he did stare at you, perhaps he's even going to come over and talk to you. I told him you're a relative of my mother's and you've just arrived from Genlis. He's from the Franche-Comté, and he's never been further than Dôle, * on the way to Burgundy; so you can say what you like, there's nothing to fear.'

  Julien was still hesitating; she added very quickly, her barmaid's imagination supplying her with lies in plenty:

  'Maybe he did stare at you, but that was when he was asking me who you are. He's a man who's boorish to everybody; he didn't mean to insult you.'

  Julien was keeping an eye fixed on the so-called brother-inlaw; he saw him purchase a number for the pool being played at the further of the two billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice shouting in menacing tones: I'm stepping in now. He

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  slipped quickly behind Mlle Amanda and began to walk towards the billiard table. Amanda grabbed him by the arm:

  'Come and pay me first,' she said to him.

  That's right, thought Julien, she's afraid I'll leave without paying. Amanda was as agitated as he was and very flushed; she handed him his change as slowly as she could, while repeating to him in a low voice:

  'Leave the café this instant, or I won't love you any more; but I love you a lot, actually.'

  Julien did indeed leave, but taking his time. Isn't it my duty, he kept repeating to himself, to go and stare and puff at that rude individual? This uncertainty kept him for an hour on the boulevard outside the café; he was watching for his man to come out. He did not appear and Julien went away.

  He hadn't been in Besançon for more than a few hours and already he had notched up a sense of failure. The old army surgeon had once given him a few fencing lessons in spite of his gout; this was all the knowledge Julien could muster in the service of his anger. But this
embarrassment would not have mattered a whit, had he but known how to show his annoyance otherwise than by delivering a slap in the face; and if it came to a punch-up, his rival, an enormous man, would have beaten him and left him there.

  For a poor devil like me, said Julien to himself, with nobody to protect me and no money, there won't be much difference between a seminary and a prison; I must leave my plain clothes in some inn or other, and resume my black suit. If ever I manage to get out of the seminary for a few hours, I can perfectly well go and see Mlle Amanda wearing my plain clothes. It was a fine piece of reasoning, but Julien went past all the inns without daring to enter a single one.

  At last, as he was going past the Ambassadors Hotel for a second time, his anxious gaze met that of a fat woman, still fairly young, with a ruddy complexion and a happy, cheerful air. He went up to her and told her his story.

  'Of course, my fine little Father,' said the mistress of the Ambassadors, 'I'll keep your plain clothes for you, and I'll even get them dusted off regularly. In this weather it isn't a good idea to leave a cloth suit undisturbed.' She took a key

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  and led him off to one of the rooms herself, advising him to make a note of what he was depositing.

  'Lord a mercy! Don't you look dandy like that, Father Sorel, sir!' said the fat woman to him when he came down to the kitchen. 'I'll be seeing to it you get a good dinner put in front of you; and', she added in a low voice, 'it'll not cost you more than twenty sous, instead of the fifty that everyone else pays; for we've surely got to go easy on your little nest egg.'

  'I've got ten louis,' Julien retorted with some pride.

  'Oh Lord!' replied the good hostess in alarm, 'don't talk so loud; there's a lot of good-for-nothings in Besançon. You'll have it nicked in next to no time. Above all, don't ever set foot in those cafés, they're full of good-for-nothings.'

  'Really!' said Julien; the term set him thinking.

  'Don't come anywhere except my place; I'll see to it there's coffee made for you. Remember that here you'll always find a friend and a good dinner for twenty sous; that means something, I trust. Go and sit yourself down, I'll be serving you myself.'

  'I don't feel like eating,' Julien said to her, 'I'm too upset, I'm going into the seminary when I leave here.'

  The good woman did not let him leave until she had filled his pockets with supplies. At last Julien set off on his way to the terrible place; the hostess gave him directions leaning out through the top section of her door.

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  CHAPTER 25

  The seminary

  Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at 83 centimes, three hundred and thirty-six suppers at 38 centimes, chocolate for those entitled to it; how much profit is there to be made from my submission-and from theirs?

  THE BESANÇON VALENOD *

  HE caught sight of the gilded iron cross on the door from a long way off; he approached slowly; his legs seemed to be giving way beneath him. So this is the hell on earth that I shan't be able to escape from! Eventually he made up his mind to ring the doorbell. The noise resounded as in a desolate spot. Ten minutes later a pale man dressed in black came to let him in. Julien looked at him and at once lowered his gaze. The porter had a strange face. The bulging green irises of his eyes were rounded like a cat's; the motionless lines of his eyelids proclaimed the absence of any possible sympathy; his thin lips spread in a semicircle over a set of protruding teeth. However, this face did not proclaim criminality so much as the kind of total impassivity that arouses far greater terror in the young. The only feeling that Julien's rapid glance could detect in this long, pious face was a profound disdain for everything that anyone might wish to say to him unless it concerned the interests of heaven.

  Julien made an effort to look up and, in a voice trembling from the pounding of his heart, explained that he wished to speak to M. Pirard, the master of the seminary. Without uttering a word, the man in black beckoned to him to follow. They went up two flights of a wide staircase with wooden banisters and sagging steps which sloped right down on the side away from the wall, and looked about to collapse. A small door with a large graveyard cross above it made of deal painted black was opened with difficulty, and the porter showed him in to a gloomy, low room with whitewashed walls, decorated

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  with two large pictures blackened with age. There Julien was left on his own; he was shattered, his heart was thumping; he would have been glad to have dared to cry. A deathly silence reigned throughout the house.

  When a quarter of an hour had gone by, seeming like a whole day to Julien, the sinister-faced porter reappeared on the threshold of a door at the far end of the room, and without deigning to speak, beckoned to him to come forward. He went into a room even bigger than the first and very poorly lit. The walls were likewise whitewashed, but it was unfurnished. Only in a corner by the door did Julien see as he passed a deal bed, two wicker chairs and a little slatted pine armchair without cushions. At the other end of the room, next to a little window with yellowing panes, adorned with tatty vases of flowers, he caught sight of a man sitting at a table, wearing a shabby cassock; he appeared to be angry, and was picking up little squares of paper one by one from a heap, and tidying them away on this table after writing one or two words on each. He did not notice Julien's presence. The latter was standing motionless in the middle of the room, exactly where he had been left by the porter, who had gone out again shutting the door behind him.

  Ten minutes went by thus; the ill-dressed man was still writing. Julien's emotion and terror were such that he felt as if he were about to collapse. A philosopher would have remarked, perhaps wrongly: 'It's the violent impression made by ugliness on a sensibility meant to love what is beautiful.'

  The man writing looked up; Julien only noticed after a moment or two, and even when he did, he went on standing stock still as if the terrible look which was fastened on him had struck him a mortal blow. Julien's eyes were swimming: he had difficulty in making out a long face covered with red blotches everywhere except on the forehead, which displayed a deathly pallor. Between the red cheeks and the white forehead shone two small black eyes such as would frighten the bravest of men. The broad expanse of forehead was outlined by thick, smooth, jet-black hair.

  'Are you going to come closer then? yes or no?' the man said at last, impatiently.

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  Julien went forward unsteadily, and at length, on the point of collapse and paler than he had ever been in his life before, he stopped three paces away from the little deal table covered with squares of paper.

  'Closer,' said the man.

  Julien went forward a little more, stretching out his hand as if trying to lean on something.

  'Your name?'

  ' Julien Sorel.'

  'You're very late,' came the response, and again the terrible eyes transfixed him.

  Julien was unable to bear this gaze; stretching out his hand as if to support himself, he fell prostrate on the floor.

  The man rang a bell. Julien had only lost the use of his eyes and the strength to move; he heard footsteps approaching.

  Someone picked him up and put him in the little deal chair. He heard the terrible man saying to the porter:

  'He fell down in a fit, so it would appear; this really is the limit.'

  When Julien was able to open his eyes, the red-faced man was writing away again; the porter had disappeared. I must be brave, our hero said to himself, and above all hide my feelings: he felt violently sick; if I have an accident, God knows what they'll think of me. At last the man stopped writing, and looking sideways at Julien:

  'Are you in a fit state to answer me?'

  'Yes, sir,' said Julien in a feeble voice.

  'Ah! that's fortunate.'

  The man in black had half-risen from his seat and was impatiently looking for a letter in the drawer of his pine table, which creaked as it opened. He found it, sat down slowly, and turned to Julien again with a look fit to wrest from him
the little life that remained:

  'You are recommended to me by Father Chélan: he was the best priest in the diocese, a man of virtue if ever there was one, and my friend for the last thirty years.'

  'Ah! It's M. Pirard I have the honour of speaking to,' said Julien in expiring tones.

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  'So it would appear,' retorted the master of the seminary, looking at him in annoyance.

  His little eyes flashed with twice the intensity, and there was a twitching of the muscles at the corners of his mouth. It was the face of a tiger savouring in advance the pleasure of devouring its prey.

  ' Chélan's letter is brief,' he said, as if speaking to himself. 'Intelligenti pauca; * in this day and age, one can scarcely write too little.' He read aloud:

  I am sending you Julien Sorel, of this parish, whom I baptized coming up for twenty years ago; son of a wealthy carpenter, who gives him nothing, however. Julien will be an outstanding worker in the Lord's vineyard. Memory and intelligence are not lacking, and there is a capacity for thought. Will his calling be a lasting one? Is it sincere?

  'Sincere!' repeated Father Pirard in astonishment, looking at Julien; but the priest's gaze was already less lacking in humanity. 'Sincere!' he repeated, lowering his voice, and he went on reading: