The Red and the Black (28 page)

kind of mission, planted in him the most cruel of suspicions, couched, however, in the most moderate of terms.

M. Valenod, who was playing things very cautiously, had secured Elisa
a position with a highly regarded noble family in which there were
five women. Fearing, as she said, that she wouldn't find a position
during the winter, Elisa had only asked this family for about
two-thirds of what she received at the mayor's. On her own initiative
this girl had had the excellent idea of going to make her confession
to the former priest Father Chélan and at the same time to the new
one, with the aim of telling both of them all about Julien's amorous
exploits.

The day after his arrival, at six o'clock in the morning, Father Chélan summoned Julien.

'I'm not asking you any questions,' he said to him; 'I beg you, and
if need be I order you not to tell me anything; I demand that within
three days you leave for the seminary in Besançon, or for your friend
Fouqué's house, since he's still minded to offer you a magnificent
future. I have fixed everything in advance, made all the arrangements,
but you must go, and not return to Verrières before a year is up.'

Julien did not reply; he was considering whether his honour should
feel slighted at the concern shown on his behalf by Father Chélan, who
was not after all his father.

'Tomorrow at this same hour I shall have the honour of seeing you again,' he said at last to the priest.

Father Chélan, who was counting on the full force of his authority to
get the better of so young a man, spoke at great length. Adopting the
most humble stance and countenance to cushion himself, Julien did not
open his mouth.

Eventually he left and ran off to warn M
^me
de Rênal, whom he found in despair. Her husband had just spoken to
her with a certain degree of openness. The natural weakness of his
character, backed by the prospect of the Besançon legacy, had swayed
him to consider her perfectly innocent. He had just told her about the
strange state in which he had found public opinion in Verrières. The
public were wrong, they were led astray by envious tongues, but still,
what was to be done?

For a moment M
^me
de Rênal entertained the illusion that

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Julien might accept M. Valenod's offer and remain in Verrières. But she
was no longer the straightforward, shy woman she had been a year ago;
her fateful passion and her remorse had enlightened her. She soon
suffered the pain of convincing herself, as she listened to her
husband, that a separation, at least for the time being, had become
essential. Once he's away from me, Julien will revert to his ambitious
schemes that come so naturally to someone who's penniless. And look
at me, God Almighty! I'm so rich! and so pointlessly as far as my
happiness is concerned! He'll forget me. Engaging as he is, he will be
loved, and will love in return. Ah! how wretched I am... What have I
got to complain of? Heaven is just; I didn't have the virtue to put a
stop to the crime, and now heaven is depriving me of my judgement.
All I had to do was to win Elisa over with a little money--nothing
would have been easier for me. I didn't take the trouble to reflect
for a moment, the wild fantasies of love took up all my time. I'm done
for.

Julien was struck by one thing as he gave M
^me
de Rênal the terrible news of his departure: he did not meet with any
selfish objections. She was obviously making efforts not to cry.

'We must be steadfast, my dearest.'

She cut off a lock of her hair.

'I don't know what I shall do,' she said, 'but if I die, promise me
you'll never forget my children. Whether you're far away or close by,
strive to make gentlemen of them. If there's another revolution, all
the gentry will be slaughtered, their father may emigrate on account
of that peasant who was killed on a rooftop. Watch over the family...
Give me your hand. Farewell, my dear one! These are our last moments.
Once this great sacrifice is made, I hope that in public I shall have
the courage to think about my reputation.'

Julien was expecting signs of despair. The simplicity of this farewell touched him.

'No, this isn't the way I shall accept your farewells. I shall leave;
they wish me to; you do yourself. But three days after my departure I
shall come back to visit you during the night.'

M
^me
de Rênal's existence was transformed. So Julien did care for her,
since he had thought up the idea of seeing her again himself! Her
terrible sorrow was transformed into one of

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the most intense pangs of joy she had experienced in her whole life.
Everything became easy for her. The certainty of seeing her lover
again rid these last moments of all their heartrending qualities. From
that instant on, M
^me
de Rênal's conduct, like her countenance, was noble, firm and perfectly appropriate.

M. de Rênal soon returned home; he was beside himself. He finally
told his wife about the anonymous letter he had received two months
previously.

'I intend to take it to
the Casino, show everyone that it comes from that despicable Valenod
whom I raised from nothing and made into one of the richest members of
the bourgeoisie in Verrières. I'll shame him with it in public, and
then I'll fight a duel with him. This is more than I can take.'

I might be a widow, God Almighty! thought M
^me
de Rênal. But at virtually the same instant she said to herself: If I
don't prevent this duel, as I undoubtedly can, I shall be my
husband's murderer.

Never had she
handled his vanity with such skill. In less than two hours she brought
him round to the view, using arguments that he himself produced, that
it was essential to show more friendliness than ever to M. Valenod,
and even to take Elisa back into the house. M
^me
de Rênal
needed courage to make up her mind to see this girl again, as she had
been the cause of all her misfortunes. But the idea came from Julien.

At last, having been put on the right track three or four times, M.
de Rênal managed, unaided, to hit upon the idea-a very onerous one
financially--that what would be most disagreeable for him would be if
Julien, in the midst of all the hubbub and tittle-tattle in Verrières,
were to remain there as tutor to M. Valenod's children. It was
obviously in Julien's interest to accept the master of the workhouse's
offer. What was vital for M. de Rênal's reputation, on the contrary,
was that Julien should leave Verrières and enter the seminary in
Besançon or Dijon. But how could he be persuaded, and then, what would
he live on?

Seeing that a financial
sacrifice was imminent, M. de Rênal was in greater despair than his
wife. For her part, after this conversation she was in the position of
a generous-hearted who, weary of life, has just taken a dose of
stramonium
: all his

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actions are now pure clockwork, as it were, and he has no further
interest in anything. Thus it was that Louis XIV found himself saying
as he lay dying:
When I was king
. An admirable phrase!

The next day, as soon as it was broad daylight, M. de Rênal received
an anonymous letter. This one was in the most insulting style. The
most vulgar terms applicable to his situation stood out on every line.
It was the work of some envious person of subordinate station. This
letter brought him back to the idea of fighting a duel with M.
Valenod. Soon his courage extended to ideas of executing it
immediately. He went out alone and called at the armourer's for some
pistols which he ordered to be loaded.

In fact, he said to himself, even supposing the strict administration
of the Emperor Napoleon were to make a comeback, I personally don't
have a jot of shady business to reproach myself with. At the very most
I turned a blind eye, but I have solid letters in my desk authorizing
me to do so.

M
^me
de Rênal
was terrified by her husband's cold anger; it revived the dire
thought of widowhood which she found so hard to banish. She closeted
herself with him. For several hours on end she talked to him in vain:
the new anonymous letter made him adamant. She finally managed to
transform a courageous determination to deliver a slap in the face to
M. Valenod into the courage to offer six hundred francs to Julien
for a year's board and lodging in a seminary. With a thousand curses
on the day he had had the ill-fated idea of taking on a tutor, M. de
Rênal forgot the anonymous letter.

He
consoled himself a little with an idea which he did not impart to his
wife: with a bit of skill, and exploiting the romantic ideas in the
young man's head, he hoped to get him to agree, for a lesser sum, to
refuse M. Valenod's offer.

M
^me
de Rênal had far greater difficulty in proving to Julien that since,
to suit her husband, he was sacrificing a position worth eight hundred
francs that was being publicly offered him by the master of the
workhouse, he need have no scruples in accepting a sum in
compensation.

'But', Julien kept on saying, 'I've never, not even for a moment, had any intention of accepting that offer. You've got

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me too accustomed to an elegant life-style; the vulgarity of those people would finish me off.'

The iron hand of cruel necessity broke Julien's will. His pride
offered him the illusion that he could accept the sum offered by the
mayor of Verrières as a mere loan, and make out a note to him
specifying repayment in five years with interest.

M
^me
de Rênal still had several thousand francs hidden in the little grotto in the mountains.

She offered them to him in fear and trembling, sensing only too clearly that she would meet with an angry refusal.

'Do you wish', Julien said to her, 'to turn the memory of our love into something abominable?'

Finally Julien left Verrières. M. de Rênal was extremely happy, for
when the fateful moment came to accept money from him, the sacrifice
proved too great for Julien. He refused point-blank. M. de Rênal flung
his arms round his neck with tears in his eyes. Julien had asked him
for a character reference, and in his enthusiasm he could not find
terms sufficiently glowing to extol his conduct. Our hero had five
louis in savings, and was counting on asking Fouqué for a similar sum.

He was deeply moved. But a league
away from Verrières, where he was leaving behind so much love, his
only thoughts now were for the pleasure of seeing a capital, a big
martial city like Besançon.

During this brief three-day absence, M
^me
de Rênal was deceived by one of love's most cruel tricks. Her life
was bearable, for between her and ultimate unhappiness there was
this last meeting she was to have with Julien. She counted the hours
and the minutes separating her from it. At last, during the night
after the third day, she heard the agreed signal from afar. After
braving countless dangers, Julien appeared before her.

From that moment on she had but a single thought: I'm seeing him for
the very last time. Far from responding to her lover's excitement, she
was like a corpse virtually devoid of life. If she forced herself to
tell him she loved him, it came out so unnaturally as almost to prove
the contrary. Nothing could

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take her mind off the cruel idea of eternal separation. Suspicious
Julien believed for a moment that he was already forgotten. His hurt
words to this effect were only greeted with large tears running down
her cheeks in silence, and almost convulsive squeezes of the hand.

'But great heavens! how do you expect me to believe you?' Julien
replied to the cold protestations of his mistress; 'You'd show
infinitely more signs of genuine friendship to M
^me
Derville, to a mere acquaintance.'

M
^me
de Rênal was petrified and did not know what to answer:

'It isn't possible to be more unhappy... I hope I'm going to die... I feel my heart growing chill...'

These were the longest answers he could get out of her.

When dawn made departure necessary, M
^me
de Rênal's tears stopped completely. She saw him fix a knotted rope
to the window without uttering a word, without returning his kisses.
It was in vain that Julien said to her:

'We've now reached the situation you so ardently wished for. From now
on you'll live without remorse. Whenever your children are the least
bit ailing you won't any longer imagine them in their graves.'

'I'm vexed that you can't kiss Stanislas,' she said to him coldly.

Julien ended up being profoundly struck by the absence of any warmth
in the embraces of this living corpse; he was unable to think of
anything else for several leagues. His heart was wrung, and before he
crossed over the mountain, as long as he could still see the church
steeple in Verrières, many were the times he looked back.

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So much noise, so many busy people! So many ideas for the future in
the head of a twenty-year-old! What distractions for love!

BARNAVE

AT last, on a distant mountainside, he caught sight of the black
walls of the citadel of Besançon. How different it would be for me, he
said with a sigh, if I was coming to this noble martial city to be a
sub-lieutenant in one of the regiments in charge of defending it!

Besançon is not only one of the prettiest towns in France, it abounds
in generous-hearted and intelligent people. But Julien was only a
little peasant, and had no means of approaching any men of
distinction.

He had obtained a plain
suit from Fouqué, and he was wearing this outfit when he crossed the
drawbridge. With his head full of the history of the siege of 1674,
^*
he was keen to see the ramparts and the citadel before shutting
himself away in the seminary. On two or three occasions he was on the
point of being arrested by the sentries; he was going into places to
which the military authorities refuse the public access, in order to
be able to sell twelve or fifteen francs' worth of hay every year.

The height of the walls, the depth of the moats, the fearsome look of
the cannon had kept him occupied for several hours, when he passed in
front of the big café on the boulevard. He stood stock still in
admiration; in spite of reading the word
café
written in large
letters above the two huge doors, he still couldn't believe his eyes.
He struggled to overcome his nervousness; he plucked up the courage to
go in, and found himself in a room thirty or forty paces long, with a
ceiling at least twenty foot high. That day everything was magical for
him.

Two games of billiards were under way. The waiters were

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