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

by Stendhal

  Let's try not to give this scoundrel Valenod any grounds for laughter, thought Julien. What a contrite and hypocritical expression he had when he pronounced the verdict that carries the death penalty! Whereas that poor president of the assizes, for all his years of being a judge, had tears in his eyes as he sentenced me. What a thrill for our Valenod to get his revenge for our old rivalry over Mme de Rênal!... So I'll never see her again! It's all over... A last farewell is impossible between us, I feel it in my bones... How happy I'd have been to tell her what repugnance I feel for my crime!

  Just these words: 'I consider myself justly condemned.'

  -503-

  CHAPTER 42 *

  WHEN Julien had been taken back to prison, he had been put in a room reserved for those under sentence of death.

  Although he was someone who usually noticed the minutest detail, he had failed to observe that they were not taking him back up to his tower. He was imagining what he would say to Mme de Rênal if he had the good fortune to see her before the last moment. He thought she would interrupt him, and he wanted to be able in his opening words to convey to her just how much he repented. After such an action, how can I persuade her that I love no one but her? For after all, I tried to kill her out of ambition, or love for Mathilde.

  As he got into bed he discovered that the sheets were made of a coarse material. The scales fell from his eyes. Ah! I'm in a cell, he said to himself, because I've been condemned to death. That's only right.

  Count Altamira told me that Danton, on the eve of his death, declared in his loud voice: 'It's odd, the verb to guillotine can't be conjugated in all its tenses; you can certainly say: I shall be guillotined, you shall be guillotined, but no one says: I have been guillotined.'

  Why not, Julien continued, if there is an afterlife? . . . Count upon it, if I find the Christians' God, I'm done for: he's a despot, and as such, he's full of thoughts of vengeance; his Bible talks of nothing but dreadful punishments. I've never loved him; I've never even wanted to believe that anyone could love him sincerely. He's merciless (and Julien recalled several passages from the Bible). He'll punish me quite abominably . . .

  But what if I find Fénelon's * God! Maybe he'll say to me: 'Much shall be forgiven thee, for thou hast loved much . . .' * Have I loved much? Ah! I loved Mme de Rênal, but I behaved appallingly. There, as elsewhere, simple and unassuming worth was abandoned for glittering show . . .

  But then again, what a prospect!. . . Colonel in the Hussars, if we were at war; secretary of a legation in peacetime; then ambassador. . . for I'd soon have become familiar with international affairs. . . , and even if I'd been a mere fool, does the

  -504-

  Marquis de la Mole's son-in-law have any rivalry to fear? All my follies would have been forgiven, or rather considered to be qualities. A man of quality, enjoying the grandest of lifestyles in Vienna or London. . .

  'Not exactly, sir, guillotined in three days' time.' Julien laughed heartily at this quip from his intellect. In all truth, man has two selves in him, he thought. Who the devil was it thinking up that sly comment?

  'Yes, I grant you! good fellow, guillotined in three days' time,' he replied to the interrupter. ' M. de Cholin will hire a window, going halves with Father Maslon. Well now, which of these two worthies will be robbing the other over the cost of hiring this window?

  This passage from Rotrou Venceslas suddenly came back to him.

  LADISLAS. . . . My soul is all prepared.

  THE KING, Ladislas's father. The scaffold likewise; thither bear your head.

  A fine answer! he thought, and fell asleep. He was woken in the morning by someone embracing him tightly.

  What, already! said Julien, opening a wild eye. He thought he was in the executioner's hands.

  It was Mathilde. Luckily she didn't understand me. This reflection restored all his composure. He found Mathilde changed as if by six months of illness: she was genuinely unrecognizable.

  'That unspeakable Frilair has betrayed me,' she said to him, wringing her hands; fury prevented her from crying.

  'Wasn't I fine yesterday when I made my speech?' replied Julien. 'I was improvising, and for the first time in my life too! It's true there's every fear that it may also be the last!'

  At that moment Julien was playing upon Mathilde's character with all the composure of a skilled pianist running his fingers over a piano . . . 'I lack the advantage of an illustrious birth, it's true,' he went on, 'but Mathilde's great spirit has raised her lover to her height. Do you believe that Boniface de la Mole cut a better figure in front of his judges?'

  -505-

  Mathilde was tender, that day, without affectation, like a poor girl living somewhere up on the fifth floor; but she was unable to get any simpler words out of him. Without knowing it, he was paying her back the torment that she had often inflicted on him.

  No one knows the source of the Nile, Julien said to himself. It hasn't been granted to mortal eyes to see the king of rivers in the state of a simple stream: thus no human eye shall see Julien weak, first and foremost because he isn't. But my heart is easily touched; the most ordinary of words, said in tones of sincerity, can fill my voice with emotion and even make my tears flow. How often have I been despised by the stonyhearted for this failing! They thought I was imploring them: that is what's intolerable.

  They say that at the foot of the scaffold Danton was moved by the memory of his wife; but Danton had given strength to a nation of frivolous young upstarts, and prevented the enemy from reaching Paris . . . * I'm the only one who knows what I might have done . . . For everyone else, I'm nothing more than a QUESTION-MARK.

  If Mme de Rênal were here, in my cell, instead of Mathilde, would I have been able to answer for myself? The excess of my despair and my repentance would have been interpreted by the likes of Valenod and all the patricians in the neighbourhood as a base fear of death; they're so proud, these weak characters who are kept above temptations by their financial situation! 'You see what it means', M. de Moirod and M. de Cholin would have said, having just sentenced me to death, 'to be born a carpenter's son! A man may become learned and skilful--but his feelings!. . . Decent feelings can't be acquired.' Even with poor Mathilde here, who's crying now, or rather who can't cry any more, he said looking at her red eyes. . . and he clasped her in his arms: the sight of genuine sorrow made him forget his syllogism . . . She's been crying all night, maybe, he thought; but one day how ashamed she'll be of this memory! She'll regard herself as having been led astray, in her early youth, by the base attitudes of a plebeian. . . Friend Croisenois is feeble enough to marry her, and damn it all, he'll do the right thing. She'll cast him in a role,

  -506-

  By virtue of that right Which a strong mind, ambitious beyond bound Wields o'er the grosser minds of common men. *

  Come on! this is comic: ever since I've been facing death, all the lines of verse I've ever known in my life have been coming back to me. It must be a sign of decadence. . .

  Mathilde was repeating to him in a listless voice: 'He's there in the next room.' At last he paid attention to these words. Her voice is feeble, he thought, but her imperious character is still all there in her tone. She's talking quietly so as not to get angry.

  'Who's there, then?' he asked her gently. 'Your counsel, to get you to sign your appeal.' 'I shan't appeal.'

  'What do you mean, you won't appeal?' she said getting up, her eyes blazing with anger, 'And why not, may I ask?'

  'Because at this moment I feel the strength in me to die without letting people laugh too much at my expense. Who can guarantee that in two months' time, after a long stay in this dank cell, I shall be in an equally good frame of mind? I foresee meetings with priests, with my father. . . Nothing in the world can possibly be as unpleasant for me. Why not die!'

  This unexpected vexation revived all the haughty side of Mathilde's character. She had been unable to see the Abbé de Frilair before the cells in the Besançon prison were opened to visitors; h
er fury fell on Julien. She adored him, and for a good quarter of an hour he was again confronted, in her imprecations against his character, in her regrets at having loved him, with the full force of that arrogant spirit which had heaped such poignant insults on him on that earlier occasion in the library of the Hôtel de la Mole.

  'Heaven owed it to the glory of your race to have you born a man,' he said to her.

  But as far as I'm concerned, he thought, I'd be a real fool to spend two months more in this revolting place, a target for all the most vile and humiliating fabrications of the patrician faction, 1 --and my only solace being the imprecations of this

  ____________________ 1 This is a Jacobin speaking. [ Stendhal's footnote.]

  -507-

  mad woman. . . Well, two mornings from now, I'm fighting a duel with a man known for his imperturbability and his remarkable skill. . . 'Quite remarkable,' said the Mephistophelian voice; 'he never misses.'

  Oh well, so be it! Fair enough. ( Mathilde was continuing to be eloquent.) No, by God, he said to himself, I shan't appeal.

  Once this resolve was made, he fell to musing. . . The postman on his round will bring the newspaper at six o'clock as usual; at eight, after M. de Rênal has read it, Elisa will come tiptoeing in to put it on her bed. Later she'll wake up: suddenly, as she reads, she'll be overcome with emotion; her pretty hand will tremble; she'll read as far as these words. . . At five past ten he had ceased to exist.

  She'll weep bitterly, I know her; it won't make any difference that I tried to murder her, everything will be forgotten. And the person whose life I tried to take will be the only one to weep sincerely at my death.

  Ah! how's that for an antithesis! he thought, and for a good quarter of an hour while Mathilde continued to make a scene at him, his thoughts dwelled entirely on Mme de Rênal. In spite of himself, and though he often replied to what Mathilde was saying to him, he could not get his mind away from the memory of the bedroom in Verrières. He could see the Besançon Gazette on the orange taffeta quilt. He could see that white hand clutching it convulsively; he could see Mme de Rênal weeping. . . He followed the trace of each tear down that charming face.

  As Mlle de La Mole was unable to get Julien to agree to anything, she called in his counsel. Fortunately he had been an army captain during the Italian campaign of 1796, when he had fought alongside Manuel. *

  For form's sake he argued against the condemned man's resolve. Julien, wanting to treat him with respect, spelled out all his reasons to him.

  'Upon my word, a man is entitled to think as you do,' said M. Félix Vaneau to him in the end (that was the barrister's name). 'But you have three full days to appeal, and it is my duty to come back every day. If a volcano opened up under

  -508-

  the prison in the next two months, you would be saved. You may die of illness,' he said, looking at Julien.

  Julien shook him by the hand. 'Thank you kindly, you're a good fellow. I shall think about all this.'

  And when Mathilde at last left with the barrister, he felt much more warmly disposed towards the barrister than to her.

  -509-

  CHAPTER 43

  AN hour later, he was woken from a deep sleep by the sensation of tears running over his hand.

  Ah! it's Mathilde again, he thought, only half-awake. She's come, as theory prescribes, to attack my resolve with tender sentiments. Weary at the prospect of this new scene in the pathetic mode, he did not open his eyes. Belphégor's lines * as he flees his wife flashed into his mind.

  He heard a strange sigh; he opened his eyes: it was Mme de Rênal.

  'Darling! I'm seeing you again before I die, is it an illusion?' he exclaimed, throwing himself at her feet.

  'But forgive me, madam, I'm nothing but a murderer in your eyes,' he said the very next moment, coming to his senses.

  'Sir . . . I have come to beseech you to appeal, I know that you are unwilling to. . .' Her sobs were choking her; she was unable to speak.

  'Deign to forgive me.'

  'If you want me to forgive you, my love,' she said, rising and flinging herself into his arms, 'appeal at once against your sentence.'

  Julien was smothering her in kisses. 'Will you come and see me every day during those two months?'

  'I swear to you I will. Every day, unless my husband forbids it.'

  'I'll sign!' Julien exclaimed. 'Oh heavens! you forgive me! Is it possible!'

  He clasped her in his arms; he was out of his mind. She gave a little cry.

  'It's nothing,' she said, 'you hurt me.'

  'Your shoulder!' Julien exclaimed, bursting into tears. He moved back a little, and covered her hand with burning kisses. 'Who could have foretold this the last time I saw you, in your room in Verrières?'

  'Who could have foretold then that I would send M. de la Mole that vile letter?'

  -510-

  'I want you to know that I've always loved you, that you are the only one I've loved.'

  'Can that really be!' exclaimed Mme de Rênal, delighted in her turn. She leaned against Julien who was at her knees, and for a long time they wept in silence.

  At no time in his life had Julien experienced a moment like this.

  Much later, when they were able to speak:

  'What about that young woman Mme Michelet,' said Mme de Rênal, 'or rather that Mlle de La Mole, for in all honesty I'm beginning to believe this strange romance!'

  'It's only true on the face of it,' Julien replied. 'She's my wife, but she isn't my beloved.'

  By means of countless interruptions on both sides, they managed with great difficulty to tell each other what they did not know. The letter sent to M de la Mole had been written by the young priest who was Mme de Rênal's confessor, and then copied out by her.

  'What a dreadful thing I was forced to do by religion!' she said. 'And what's more, I toned down the most appalling passages in the letter. . .'

  Julien's demonstrations of ecstasy and his evident happiness proved to her how completely he forgave her. Never before had he been so wild with love.

  'And yet I think of myself as pious,' she said to him as the conversation continued. 'I believe sincerely in God; I believe equally, and I even have proof of it, that the sin I'm committing is appalling, and as soon as I see you, even after you've fired two shots at me. . .' At this point, despite her resistance, Julien smothered her with kisses.

  'Don't do that,' she went on, 'I want to discuss everything with you for fear of forgetting it. . . As soon as I see you, all my obligations disappear, and I become nothing but love for you, or rather the word love is too weak. I feel for you what I should feel exclusively for God: a mixture of respect, love and obedience. In all honesty I don't know what you inspire in me. If you told me to stab the gaoler, the crime would be committed before I had time to think. Explain that to me lucidly before I leave you: I want to see clearly into my heart;

  -511-

  or in two months' time we must part. . . Talking of which, are we to part?' she asked him, smiling.

  'I shall retract my word,' Julien exclaimed rising to his feet; 'I shall not appeal against the death sentence, if by poison, knife, pistol, charcoal * or any other means whatsoever you try to end or interfere with your life.'

  A sudden change came over Mme de Rênal's face; the most intense tenderness faded into deep musing.

  'What if we were to die right away?' she said to him at length.

  'Who knows what awaits us in the next world?' Julien replied. 'Perhaps torments, perhaps nothing at all. Can't we spend two months together in a delightful way? Two months is a good many days. I shall never have been so happy!'

  'You'll never have been so happy!' 'Never,' Julien repeated in delight, 'and I'm speaking to you just as I speak to myself. God keep me from exaggerating.'

  'Speaking to me like that is as good as an order,' she said with a timid and melancholy smile.

  'Well then! you are to swear, by the love you feel for me, not to make any attempt on your life by
direct or indirect means. . . Consider', he went on, 'that you have to live for my son, whom Mathilde will abandon to servants as soon as she becomes Marquise de Croisenois.'

  'I swear,' she replied coldly, 'but I want to take your appeal away with me, written and signed by your own hand. I shall go in person to the public prosecutor.'

  'Be careful, you'll compromise yourself.' 'Now that I've taken the step of coming to see you in your prison, I shall for ever after be the heroine of idle tales in Besanqon, and the whole of the Franche-Comté,' she said with a deeply sorrowful look. 'The bounds of strict propriety have been overstepped. . . I'm a woman who's lost her honour; it's true that I did it for you. . .'

  Her voice was so sad that Julien kissed her with a happiness that was quite new to him. This was no longer the intoxication of love, it was extreme gratitude. He had just perceived, for the very first time, the full extent of the sacrifice she had made for him.

  -512-

  Some charitable soul informed M. de Rênal, no doubt, of the lengthy visits his wife was making to Julien's prison; for when three days were up he sent his carriage for her, with the express order to return forthwith to Verrières.

  This cruel separation had been a bad start to Julien's day. He was informed two or three hours later that a certain priest given to intrigue, who had none the less failed to make any headway among the Jesuits in Besançon, had posted himself that morning outside the prison gate, in the street. It was raining hard, and out there this man had set himself up to play the martyr. Julien was out of sorts; this bit of stupidity touched him deeply.

  He had already refused a visit from his priest in the morning, but the man had taken it into his head to receive Julien's confession and then win notoriety among the young women in Besançon with all the secrets he would claim to have been told.