The Red and the Black (30 page)

Considering that he was a new arrival who was too disdainful to put any questions, Julien did not fall into unduly great mistakes. One day when he was forced into a café in the Rue St. Honoré by a sudden shower, a big man in a beaver coat, surprised by his gloomy look, looked at him in return just as Mademoiselle Amanda's lover had done before at Besançon.

Julien had reproached himself too often for having endured the other insult to put up with this stare. He asked for an explanation. The man in the tail-coat immediately addressed him in the lowest and most insulting language. All the people in the café surrounded them. The passers-by stopped before the door. Julien always carried some little pistols as a matter of precaution. His hand was grasping them nervously in his pocket. Nevertheless he behaved wisely and confined himself to repeating to his man “Monsieur, your address; I despise you.”

The persistency in which he kept repeating these six words eventually impressed the crowd.

“By Jove, the other who's talking all to himself ought to give him his address,” they exclaimed. The man in the tailcoat, hearing this repeated several times, flung five or six cards in Julien's face.

Fortunately none of them hit him in the face; he had mentally resolved not to use his pistols except in the event of his being hit. The man went away, though not without turning round from time to time to shake his fist and hurl insults at him.

Julien was bathed in sweat. “So,” he said angrily to himself, “the meanest of mankind has it in his power to affect me as much as this. How am I to kill so humiliating a sensitiveness?”

Where was he to find a second? He did not have a single friend. He had several acquaintances, but they all regularly left him after six weeks of social intercourse. “I am unsociable,” he thought, and “I am now cruelly punished for it.” Finally it occurred to him to rout out an old lieutenant of the 96th, named Lieven, a poor devil with whom he often used to fence. Julien was frank with him.

“I am quite willing to be your second,” said Lieven, “but on one condition. If you fail to wound your man you will fight with me straight away.”

“Agreed,” said Julien quite delighted; and they went to find M. de Beauvoisis at the address indicated on his card at the end of the Faubourg Saint Germain.

It was seven o'clock in the morning. It was only when he was being ushered in, that Julien thought that it might well be the young relation of Madame de Rênal, who had once been employed at the Rome or Naples Embassy, and who had given the singer Geronimo a letter of introduction.

Julien gave one of the cards which had been flung at him the previous evening, together with one of his own, to a tall valet.

He and his second were kept waiting for a good three-quarters of an hour. Eventually they were ushered into an elegantly furnished apartment. They found there a tall young man who was dressed like a doll. His features presented the perfection and the lack of expression of Greek beauty. His head, which was remarkably straight, had the finest blonde hair. It was dressed with great care and not a single hair was out of place.

“It was to have his hair done like this, that is why this damned fop has kept us waiting,” thought the lieutenant of the 96th. The variegated dressing gown, the morning trousers, everything down to the embroidered slippers was correct. He was marvelously well-groomed. His blank and aristocratic physiognomy betokened rare and orthodox ideas; the ideal of a Metternichian diplomatist. Napoleon as well did not like to have in his entourage officers who thought.

Julien, to whom his lieutenant of the 96th had explained that keeping him waiting was an additional insult after having thrown his card so rudely in his face, entered brusquely M. de Beauvoisis' room. He intended to be insolent, but at the same time to exhibit good form.

Julien was so astonished by the niceness of M. de Beauvoisis' manners and by the combination of formality, self-importance, and self-satisfaction in his demeanour, by the admirable elegance of everything that surrounded him, that he abandoned immediately all idea of being insolent. It was not his man of the day before. His astonishment was so great at meeting so distinguished a person, instead of the rude creature whom he was looking for, that he could not find a single word to say. He presented one of the cards which had been thrown at him.

“That's my name,” said the young diplomat, not at all impressed by Julien's black suit at seven o'clock in the morning, “but I do not understand the honour.”

His manner of pronouncing these last words revived a little of Julien's bad temper.

“I have come to fight you, Monsieur,” and he explained in a few words the whole matter.

M. Charles de Beauvoisis, after mature reflection, was fairly satisfied with the cut of Julien's black suit.

“It comes from Staub, that's clear,” he said to himself, as he heard him speak. “That waistcoat is in good taste. Those boots are all right, but on the other hand just think of wearing a black suit in the early morning! It must be to have a better chance of not being hit,” said the Chevalier de Beauvoisis to himself.

After he had given himself this explanation he became again perfectly polite to Julien, and almost treated him as an equal. The conversation was fairly lengthy, for the matter was a delicate one, but eventually Julien could not refuse to acknowledge the actual facts. The perfectly mannered young man before him did not bear any resemblance to the vulgar fellow who had insulted him the previous day.

Julien felt an invincible repugnance towards him. He noted the self-sufficiency of the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, for that was the name by which he had referred to himself, shocked as he was when Julien called him simply “Monsieur.”

He admired his gravity which, though tinged with a certain modest fatuity, he never abandoned for a single moment. He was astonished at his singular manner of moving his tongue as he pronounced his words, but after all, this did not present the slightest excuse for picking a quarrel.

The young diplomatist very graciously offered to fight, but the ex-lieutenant of the 96th, who had been sitting down for an hour with his legs wide apart, his hands on his thighs, and his elbows stuck out, decided that his friend, Monsieur de Sorel, was not the kind to go and pick a quarrel with a man because someone else had stolen that man's visiting cards.

Julien went out in a very bad temper. The Chevalier de Beauvoisis' carriage was waiting for him in the courtyard before the steps. By chance Julien raised his eyes and recognised in the coachman his man of the day before.

Seeing him, catching hold of him by his big jacket, tumbling him down from his seat, and horse-whipping him thoroughly took scarcely a moment.

Two lackeys tried to defend their comrade. Julien received some blows from their fists. At the same moment, he cocked one of his little pistols and fired on them. They took to flight. All this took about a minute.

The Chevalier de Beauvoisis descended the staircase with the most pleasing gravity, repeating with his lordly pronunciation, “What is this? What is this?” He was manifestly very curious, but his diplomatic importance would not allow him to evince any greater interest.

When he knew what it was all about, a certain haughtiness tried to assert itself in that expression of slightly playful nonchalance which should never leave a diplomatist's face.

The lieutenant of the 96th began to realise that M. de Beauvoisis was anxious to fight. He was also diplomatic enough to wish to reserve for his friend the advantage of taking the initiative.

“This time,” he exclaimed, “there is ground for a duel.”

“I think there's enough,” answered the diplomat.

“Turn that rascal out,” he said to his lackeys. “Let someone else get up.”

The door of the carriage was open. The chevalier insisted on doing the honours to Julien and his friend. They sent for a friend of M. de Beauvoisis, who chose them a quiet place. The conversation on their way went, as a matter of fact, very well indeed. The only extraordinary feature was the diplomatist in a dressing-gown.

“These gentlemen, although very noble, are by no means as boring,” thought Julien, “as the people who come and dine at M. de la Mole's, and I can see why,” he added a moment afterwards. “They allow themselves to be indecent.” They talked about the dancers that the public had distinguished with its favour at the ballet presented the night before. The two gentlemen alluded to some spicy anecdotes of which Julien and his second, the lieutenant of the 96th, were absolutely ignorant.

Julien was not stupid enough to pretend to know them. He confessed his ignorance with a good grace. This frankness pleased the chevalier's friend. He told him these stories with the greatest detail and extremely well.

One thing astonished Julien inordinately. The carriage was pulled up for a moment by an altar which was being built in the middle of the street for the procession of Corpus Christi Day. The two gentlemen indulged in the luxury of several jests. According to them, the curé was the son of an archbishop. Such a joke would never have been heard in the house of M. de la Mole, who was trying to be made a duke. The duel was over in a minute. Julien got a ball in his arm. They bandaged it with handkerchiefs which they wetted with brandy, and the Chevalier de Beauvoisis requested Julien with great politeness to allow him to take him home in the same carriage that had brought him. When Julien gave the name of M. de la Mole's hôtel, the young diplomat and his friend exchanged looks. Julien's fiacre was here, but they found these gentlemen's conversation more entertaining than that of the good lieutenant of the 96th.

“By Jove, so a duel is only that,” thought Julien. “What luck I found that coachman again. How unhappy I should have been if I had had to put up with that insult as well.” The amusing conversation had scarcely been interrupted. Julien realised that the affectation of diplomatists is good for something.

“So ennui,” he said to himself, “is not a necessary incident of conversation among well-born people. These gentlemen make fun of the Corpus Christi procession and dare to tell extremely obscene anecdotes, and what is more, with picturesque details. The only thing they really lack is the ability to discuss politics logically, and that lack is more than compensated by their graceful tone, and the perfect aptness of their expressions.” Julien experienced a lively inclination for them. “How happy I should be to see them often.”

They had scarcely taken leave of each other before the Chevalier de Beauvoisis had enquiries made. They were not brilliant.

He was very curious to know his man. Could he decently pay a call on him? The little information he had succeeded in obtaining from him was not of an encouraging character.

“Oh, this is awful,” he said to his second. “I can't possibly own up to having fought a duel with a mere secretary of M. de la Mole, simply because my coachman stole my visiting cards.”

“There is no doubt that all this may make you look ridiculous.”

That very evening the Chevalier de Beauvoisis and his friend said everywhere that this M. Sorel who was, moreover, quite a charming young man, was a natural son of an intimate friend of the Marquis de la Mole. This statement was readily accepted. Once it was established, the young diplomatist and friend deigned to call several times on Julien during the fortnight. Julien owned to them that he had only been to the Opera once in his life. “That is awful,” said one, “that is the only place one does go to. Your first visit must be when they are playing the ‘Comte Ory.'”

The Chevalier de Beauvoisis introduced him at the opera to the famous singer Geronimo, who was then enjoying an immense success.

Julien almost paid court to the chevalier. His mixture of self-respect, mysterious self-importance, and fatuous youthfulness fascinated him. The chevalier, for example, would stammer a little, simply because he had the honour of seeing frequently a very noble lord who had this defect. Julien had never before found combined in one and the same person the drollery which amuses, and those perfect manners which should be the object of a poor provincial's imitation.

He was seen at the opera with the Chevalier de Beauvoisis. This association got him talked about.

“Well,” said M. de la Mole to him one day, “so here you are, the natural son of a rich gentleman of Franche-Comtè, an intimate friend of mine.”

The marquis cut Julien short as he started to protest that he had not in any way contributed to obtaining any credence for this rumour.

“M. de Beauvoisis did not fancy having fought a duel with the son of a carpenter.”

“I know it, I know it,” said M. de la Mole. “It is my business now to give some consistency to this story which rather suits me. But I have one favour to ask of you, which will only cost you a bare half-hour of your time. Go and watch, every opera day at half-past eleven, all the people in society coming out in the vestibule. I see you still have certain provincial mannerisms. You must rid yourself of them. Besides it would do no harm to know, at any rate by sight, some of the great personages to whom I may one day send you on a commission. Call in at the box office to get identified. Admission has been secured for you.”

The reader is perhaps surprised by this free and almost friendly tone. We had forgotten to say that the marquis had been confined to his house for six weeks by the gout.

Mademoiselle de la Mole and her mother were at Hyères near the marquise's mother. The Comte Norbert only saw his father at stray moments. They got on very well, but had nothing to say to each other. M. de la Mole, reduced to Julien's society, was astonished to find that he possessed ideas. He made him read the papers to him. Soon the young secretary was competent to pick out the interesting passages. There was a new paper which the marquis abhorred. He had sworn never to read it, and spoke about it every day. Julien laughed. In his irritation against the present time, the marquis made him read Livy aloud. The improvised translation of the Latin text amused him. The marquis said one day in that tone of excessive politeness which frequently tried Julien's patience,

“Allow me to present you with a blue suit, my dear Sorel. When you find it convenient to wear it and to come and see me, I shall look upon you as the younger brother of the Comte de Chaulnes, that is to say, the son of my friend the old Duke.”

Julien did not quite gather what it was all about, but he tried a visit in the blue suit that very evening. The marquis treated him like an equal. Julien had a spirit capable of appreciating true politeness, but he had no idea of nuances. Before this freak of the marquis's he would have sworn that it was impossible for him to have been treated with more consideration. “What an admirable talent,” said Julien to himself. When he got up to go, the marquis apologised for not being able to accompany him by reason of his gout.

Julien was preoccupied by this strange idea. “Perhaps he is making fun of me,” he thought. He went to ask advice of the Abbé Pirard, who being less polite than the marquis, made no other answer except to whistle and change the subject.

Julien presented himself to the marquis the next morning in his black suit, with his letter case and his letters for signature. He was received in the old way, but when he wore the blue suit that evening, the marquis's tone was quite different, and absolutely as polite as on the previous day.

“As you are not exactly bored,” said the marquis to him, “by these visits which you are kind enough to pay to a poor old man, you must tell him about all the little incidents of your life, but you must be frank and think of nothing except narrating them clearly and in an amusing way. For one must amuse oneself,” continued the marquis. “That's the only reality in life. I can't have my life saved in a battle every day, or get a present of a million francs every day, but if I had Rivarol here by my sofa, he would rid me every day of an hour of suffering and boredom. I saw a lot of him at Hamburg during the emigration.”

And the marquis told Julien the stories of Rivarol and the inhabitants of Hamburg who needed the combined efforts of four individuals to understand an epigram. M. de la Mole, being reduced to the society of this little Abbé, tried to teach him. He put Julien's pride on its mettle. As he was asked to speak the truth, Julien resolved to tell everything, but to suppress two things, his fanatical admiration for the name which irritated the marquis, and that complete scepticism, which was not particularly appropriate to a prospective curé. His little affair with the Chevalier de Beauvoisis came in very handy. The marquis laughed till the tears came into his eyes at the scene in the café in the Rue St. Honoré with the coachman who had loaded him with sordid insults. The occasion was marked by a complete frankness between the marquis and the protegé.

M. de la Mole became interested in this singular character. At the beginning he had encouraged Julien's droll blunders in order to enjoy laughing at them. Soon he found it more interesting to correct very gently this young man's false outlook on life.

“All other provincials who come to Paris admire everything,” thought the marquis. “This one hates everything. They have too much affectation; he has not affectation enough; and fools take him for a fool.”

The attack of gout was protracted by the great winter cold and lasted some months.

“One gets quite attached to a fine spaniel,” thought the marquis. “Why should I be so ashamed of being attached to this little Abbé? He is original. I treat him as a son. Well, where's the bother? The whim, if it lasts, will cost me a diamond and five hundred louis in my will.” Once the marquis had realised his protege's strength of character, he entrusted him with some new business every day.

Julien noticed with alarm that this great lord would often give him inconsistent orders with regard to the same matter.

That might compromise him seriously. Julien now made a point whenever he worked with him, of bringing a register with him in which he wrote his instructions, which the marquis initialed. Julien had now a clerk who would transcribe the instructions relating to each matter in a separate book. This book also contained a copy of all the letters.

This idea seemed at first absolutely boring and ridiculous, but in two months the marquis appreciated its advantages. Julien suggested to him that he should take a clerk out of a banker's, who was to keep proper book-keeping accounts of all the receipts and of all the expenses of the estates which Julien had been charged to administer.

These measures so enlightened the marquis as to his own affairs that he could indulge the pleasure of undertaking two or three speculations without the help of his nominee who always robbed him.

“Take three thousand francs for yourself,” he said one day to his young steward.

“Monsieur, I should lay myself open to calumny.”

“What do you want then?” retorted the marquis irritably.

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to make out a statement of account and enter it in your own hand in the book. That order will give me a sum of 3,000 francs. Besides it's M. the Abbé Pirard who had the idea of all this exactness in accounts.” The maquis wrote out his instructions in the register with the bored air of the Marquis de Moncade listening to the accounts of his steward M. Poisson.

Business was never talked when Julien appeared in the evening in his blue suit. The kindness of the marquis was so flattering to the self-respect of our hero, which was always morbidly sensitive, that in spite of himself, he soon came to feel a kind of attachment for this nice old man. It is not that Julien was a man of sensibility as the phrase is understood at Paris, but he was not a monster, and no one since the death of the old major had talked to him with so much kindness. He observed that the marquis showed a politeness and consideration for his own personal feelings, which he had never found in the old surgeon. He now realised that the surgeon was much prouder of his cross than was the marquis of his blue ribbon. The marquis's father had been a great lord.

One day, at the end of a morning audience for the transaction of business, when the black suit was worn, Julien happened to amuse the marquis, who kept him for a couple of hours, and insisted on giving him some banknotes which his nominee had just brought from the house.

“I hope M. le Marquis, that I am not deviating from the profound respect which I owe you, if I beg you to allow me to say a word.”

“Speak, my friend.”

“M. le Marquis will deign to allow me to refuse this gift. It is not meant for the man in the black suit, and it would completely spoil those manners which you have kindly put up with in the man in the blue suit.” He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his employer.

This incident amused the marquis. He told it in the evening to the Abbé Pirard.

“I must confess one thing to you, my dear Abbé. I know Julien's birth, and I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret.”

His conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will ennoble him myself.

Some time afterwards the marquis was able to go out.

“Go and pass a couple of months at London,” he said to Julien. “Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have received, together with my notes. You will write out the answers and send them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer. I have ascertained that the delay will be no more than five days.”

As he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the triviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent.

We will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with which he touched English soil. His mad passion for Bonaparte is already known. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great noble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being recompensed by six years of office.

At London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity. He had struck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him.

“Your future is assured, my dear Sorel,” they said to him. “You naturally have that cold demeanour, a thousand leagues away from the sensation one has at the moment, that we have been making such efforts to acquire.”

“You have not understood your century,” said the Prince Korasoff to him. “Always do the opposite of what is expected of you. On my honour there you have the sole religion of the period. Don't be foolish or affected, for then follies and affectations will be expected of you, and the maxim will not longer prove true.”

Julien covered himself with glory one day in the Salon of the Duke of Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince Korasoff. They waited for an hour. The way in which Julien conducted himself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted as a precedent among the young secretaries of the London embassy. His demeanour was unimpeachable.

In spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had since Locke. He found him finishing his seventh year in prison. The aristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien. Moreover Vane is disgraced, calumniated, etc.

Julien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy prevented him from being bored. “There's the only merry man I've seen in England,” thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison.

“The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God,” Vane had said to him.

We suppress the rest of the system as being cynical.

“What amusing notion do you bring me from England?” said M. la Mole to him on his return. He was silent. “What notion do you bring me, amusing or otherwise?” repeated the marquis sharply.

“In the first place,” said Julien, “the sanest Englishman is mad one hour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local God.

“In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five percent of their value when they disembark in England.

“In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so admirable, so touching, as the English landscapes.”

“Now it is my turn,” said the marquis.

“In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian Ambassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty in France who passionately desire war? Do you think that is nice for the kings?”

“One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats,” said Julien. “They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one confines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a fool. If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and at a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary of the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been unbecoming.”

“Not bad,” said the marquis laughing. “Anyway I will wager Monsieur Deep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England.”

“Pardon me,” answered Julien. “I went there to dine once a week with the King's ambassador, who is the most polite of men.”

“You went to fetch this cross you see here,” said the marquis to him. “I do not want to make you leave off your black suit, and I have got accustomed to the more amusing tone I have assumed with the man who wears the blue suit. So understand this until further orders. When I see this cross, you will be my friend, the Duke of Chaulne's younger son, who has been employed in the diplomatic service the last six months without having any idea of it. Observe,” added the marquis very seriously, cutting short all manifestations of thanks, “that I do not want you to forget your place. That is always a mistake and a misfortune both for patron and for dependent. When my lawsuits bore you, or when you no longer suit me, I will ask a good living like that of our good friend the Abbé Pirard's for you, and nothing more,” added the marquis dryly. This put Julien's pride at its ease. He talked much more. He did not so frequently think himself insulted and aimed at by those phrases which are susceptible of some interpretation which is scarcely polite, and which anybody may give utterance to in the course of an animated conversation.

This cross earned him a singular visit. It was that of the Baron de Valenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his barony, and arrive at an understanding with him. He was going to be nominated mayor of Verrières, and to supersede M. de Rênal.

Julien did not fail to smile to himself when M. Valenod gave him to understand that they had just found out that M. de Rênal was a Jacobin. The fact was that the new baron was the ministerial candidate at the election for which they were all getting ready, and that it was M. de Rênal who was the Liberal candidate at the great electoral college of the department, which was, in fact, very ultra.

It was in vain that Julien tried to learn something about Madame de Rênal. The baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was impenetrable. He concluded by canvassing Julien for his father's vote at the election which was going to take place. Julien promised to write.