The Red and the Black (36 page)

the strange news arrived from Paris that Father Pirard had been
appointed to the magnificent living at N-----, four leagues from the
capital. The good prelate offered him his sincere congratulations. He
detected in this whole affair a
wellplayed trick
which put him in
excellent humour and gave him the highest opinion of the priest's
talents. He gave him a magnificent certificate in Latin, and reduced
the Abbé de Frilair to silence when he took the liberty of
remonstrating with him.

In the
evening, Monsignor went to impart his admiration to the Marquise de
Rubempré's salon. It was tremendous news for Besançon high society;
everyone was lost in conjecture about this extraordinary favour. They
pictured Father Pirard as a bishop already. Those with most
discernment thought M. de La Mole had become a minister, and they took
the liberty that day of smiling at the imperious airs which the
Abbé de Frilair gave himself in society.

On the following morning Father Pirard was almost followed about the
streets, and shopkeepers came to their doorsteps when he went to
canvass the magistrates instructed with the marquis's case. For the
first time ever he was given a civil reception. Outraged by everything
he saw, the stern Jansenist worked a long stint with the barristers
he had chosen for the Marquis de La Mole, and he then left for Paris.
He was selfindulgent enough to tell two or three college friends who
accompanied him to the barouche and much admired its coatof-arms that,
having administered the seminary for fifteen years, he was leaving
Besançon with five hundred and twenty francs in savings. These friends
embraced him with tears, and said amongst themselves: 'Dear Father
Pirard might have spared himself this lie, it makes him look just too
ridiculous.'

Blinded by the love of
money; the common herd was not capable of understanding that Father
Pirard's sincerity was the source of the energy he had needed to
battle on alone for six years against Marie Alacoque,
^*
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Jesuits and his bishop.

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There is only one form of nobility: the title of
duke; marquis
is ridiculous, the word
duke
makes people look round.

EDINBURGH REVIEW

THE Marquis de La Mole welcomed Father Pirard without any of the
mannerisms of a great lord--so polite and yet so insulting to anyone
who sees them for what they are. It would have been a waste of time,
and the marquis was sufficiently engrossed in important affairs to
have no time to lose.

For the past
six months he had been involved in an intrigue to get the king and the
nation to accept the choice of a particular Cabinet,
^*
which would, as a sign of gratitude, make him a duke.

The marquis had been asking his lawyer in Besançon in vain over the
years for a clear and succinct statement about his lawsuits in the
Franche-Comté. How could the famous barrister have explained them to him
when he didn't understand them himself?

The little square of paper handed to him by the priest explained everything.

'My dear Father Pirard,' said the marquis when he had despatched in
less than five minutes all the customary expressions of politeness and
concern about personal matters, 'my dear Father Pirard, in the midst
of all my supposed wealth, I have no time to pay serious attention to
two small concerns that are actually pretty important; my family and
my affairs. I take care of the fortune of my noble house on a broad
front, and I am in a position to advance it considerably; I take care
of my pleasures, and that's what comes before all else, at least in my
eyes,' he added, on surprising a look of astonishment in those of
Father Pirard. Although himself familiar with the ways of the world,
the priest was filled with wonder at hearing an old man speak so
frankly of his pleasures.

'You can of course get people to work for you in Paris,'

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continued the great lord, 'but you find them tucked away up on the
fifth floor, and as soon as I approach a man, he sets himself up with a
flat on the second floor and his wife sets herself up with a day to
be "at home"; as a result, no more work, no more effort except what
goes into being or seeming to be a man of high society. That's all
they think about as soon as they get enough to eat.

'When it comes to my lawsuits specifically, and what's more--to each
case taken separately--I have lawyers killing themselves; why, one of
them died on me from a bad chest only the day before yesterday. But
when it comes to my affairs in general, would you believe it, sir? for
three years now I've given up all hope of finding a man who, while
writing on my behalf, will deign to give any serious thought to what
he's doing. But anyway, all this is merely by way of a preface.

'I respect you, and I would even make so bold as to add, although
this is the first time I've set eyes on you, that I like you. Are you
willing to be my secretary, with a salary of eight thousand francs a
year, or even twice that much? I should still be the gainer out of it,
take my word for it; and I'll make it my business to reserve your
fine living for you, for the day when we no longer suit each other.'

The priest refused; but towards the end of the conversation, the
genuine plight in which he saw the marquis suggested an idea to him.

'I've left behind in the depths of my seminary a poor young man who,
if I'm not mistaken, is going to come in for some nasty persecution
there. If he were just a simple monk, he would already be
in pace
^*
.

'Up until now, all that this young man has been acquainted with is
Latin and the Holy Scriptures; but it's not impossible that one day he
may manifest great talents either for preaching or for the care of
souls. I do not know what he will do, but he has the sacred fire
within him, and he's capable of going far. I was counting on handing
him over to our bishop, if ever one had come our way who had something
of your attitude towards men and their affairs.'

'What are your young man's origins?' asked the marquis.

'He is said to be the son of carpenter from the mountains

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round our way, but I'm more inclined to believe that he's the
illegitimate son of some wealthy man. I observed that he received an
anonymous or pseudonymous letter with a note of hand worth five
hundred francs.'

'Ah! you mean Julien Sorel,' said the marquis.

'How do you come to know his name?' asked the priest in astonishment; and as he blushed at his question,

'That I shan't tell you,' replied the marquis.

'Well now!' went on the priest, 'you could try making him your
secretary, he has energy and understanding; in short, it's worth a
try.'

'Why not?' said the marquis;
'But would he be the sort to let the chief of police or anyone else
slip him a bribe to spy on my household? That's my only reservation.'

Favourably reassured by Father Pirard, the marquis took a thousand-franc note:

'Send this to Julien Sorel for his journey; arrange for him to be brought to me.'

'It's obvious', said Father Pirard, 'that you live in Paris. You are
unfamiliar with the tyranny which oppresses us poor provincials,
especially priests who are no friends of the Jesuits. They won't let
Julien Sorel leave, they'll manage to cover themselves with the
cleverest of excuses, they'll say in their reply to me that he's ill,
that the post must have lost the letters, etc., etc.'

'I shall convey a letter from the minister to the bishop one day soon,' said the marquis.

'There's a precaution I was forgetting,' said the priest: 'although
of very lowly birth, this young man has a noble heart; he'll be of no
use if his pride is ruffled; you would turn him into an idiot.'

'I like the sound of that,' said the marquis. 'I'll make him my son's companion, will that do?'

Some time after this, Julien received a letter in an unknown hand
bearing a Chélons postmark; in it he found a warrant payable through a
merchant in Besançon, and instructions to go to Paris without delay.
The letter was signed with an invented name, but on opening it Julien
had started: a leaf had

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fallen to the ground at his feet; this was the sign he had agreed on with Father Pirard.

Less than an hour later, Julien was summoned to the bishop's palace,
where he was received with thoroughly paternal kindness. While quoting
Horace, Monsignor complimented him very skilfully on the lofty destiny
awaiting him in Paris, in such a way as to invite an explanation from
him by way of thanks. Julien was unable to say anything, primarily
because he knew nothing, and Monsignor conceived a great esteem for
him. One of the minor palace priests wrote to the mayor who hastened
to come in person with a signed passport which had the bearer's name
left blank.

That evening before
midnight Julien was at his friend Fouqué's house; the latter's
prudence was more surprised than enchanted by the future that seemed
to await his friend.

'What you'll end
up with', said this liberal voter, 'is a governmental post that'll
force you into some action which will be decried in the newspapers.
Your shame will be the way I get news of you. Remember that even
financially speaking, it's better to earn a hundred louis in a good
timber-yard belonging to you than to receive four thousand francs from
any government, even King Solomon's.'

Julien did not see anything in all this beyond the pettymindedness
characteristic of the rural middle class. He was at last about to
appear on the stage of great events. Delight at going to Paris, which
he imagined stocked with clever people-adroit schemers and hypocrites,
but as civil as the Bishop of Besançon and the Bishop of
Agde--eclipsed everything else for him. He made out to his friend that
Father Pirard's letter deprived him of his free will.

At about noon on the next day he arrived in Verrières, the happiest of men; he was counting on seeing M
^me
de Rênal again. He went first of all to call on his first patron, the kindly Father Chélan. He met with a stern reception.

'Do you feel under any obligation to me?' asked Father Chélan without
replying to his greeting. 'You're going to have lunch with me,
meanwhile someone will go and hire another horse for you, and you will
leave Verrières
without seeing anybody here
.'

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'To hear is to obey,' replied Julien with his best seminary face; and
the remainder of the time was spent on theology and fine Latin
scholarship.

He mounted his horse,
rode a league, after which, on spying a wood and no one to see him
enter, he plunged into it. At sundown he sent the horse away. Later,
he went into a peasant's dwelling, and the man agreed to sell him a
ladder and to follow him with it as far as the Avenue de la Fidélité
in Verrières.

'It's a poor draft
evader I've been following . . . or a smuggler,' said the peasant as
he took leave of him, 'but what of it! my ladder's fetched a good
price, and it's not as though I hadn't had a few ups and downs in my
life too.'

The night was exceedingly
dark. As one o'clock approached, Julien walked into Verrières weighed
down by his ladder. He climbed down as soon as he could into the bed
of the stream which runs through M. de Rênal's magnificent gardens at a
depth of ten feet, in a passage between two walls. Julien easily
climbed over with the ladder. How will the guard dogs greet me? he
wondered. That's the big question. The dogs barked and raced towards
him; but he whistled softly and they came and fawned all over him.

Then he went up through the terraces one after the other although all
the gates were locked, and it was easy for him to get himself right
under the window of M
^me
de Rênal's bedroom which, on the garden side, is only nine or ten feet above the ground.

There was a little heart-shaped opening in the shutters which Julien
knew well. To his great sorrow, this little opening Was not lit from
inside by a nightlight.

'Oh my God!' he said to himself, 'M
^me
de Rênal isn't in this room tonight! Where on earth will she be
sleeping? The family is in Verrières, because I met the dogs; but I
may encounter M. de Rênal himself or some stranger in this room with
no light, and then what a scandal!'

The wisest thing was to retreat; but this course of action filled
Julien with horror. If it's a stranger, I'll run hell for leather,
leaving my ladder behind; but if it's her, what reception will I get?
She has fallen into repentance and the

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most extreme piety, without any conceivable doubt; but then, she
still has some memory of me since she has just written to me. This
consideration decided him.

Trembling
at heart, yet resolved to see her or perish in the attempt, he flung
some pebbles against the shutter; no answer. He leaned his ladder up
next to the window and knocked on the shutter himself, gently at
first, then more loudly. However dark it is, someone could still fire a
shot at me, thought Julien. This idea reduced the mad enterprise to a
question of bravery.

This room is
unoccupied tonight, he thought, or else whoever's sleeping there must
be awake by now. So there's no need to take any more precautions on
that account; the only thing I must try to avoid is being heard by the
people sleeping in the other rooms.

He climbed down, positioned his ladder against one of the shutters,
climbed back up again and, passing his hand through the heart-shaped
opening, was very soon fortunate enough to find the wire that was
fixed to the fastening which held the shutter to. He pulled on this
wire; he felt with a surge of unutterable joy that the shutter was no
longer fast and was yielding to his pull. I must open it little by
little, and let my voice be recognized. He opened the shutter enough
to pass his head inside, repeating softly as he did so: '
It's a friend
.'

He reassured himself by careful listening that nothing was disturbing
the deep silence in the room. But there most certainly wasn't a
nightlight in the fireplace, even half burntout; it was a very bad sign.

Watch out for a shot! He paused to
reflect; then he braved himself to knock at the window-pane with one
knuckle: no answer; he knocked more loudly. Even if I have to smash
the pane, I must carry this through. In the midst of his loud
knocking, he thought he glimpsed in the depths of the pitch darkness
something like a white shadow crossing the room. At last there was no
doubting it, he saw a shadow which seemed to be advancing extremely
slowly. Suddenly he saw a cheek pressed against the glass where his
eye was.

He jumped and withdrew a
little. But the night was so black that even at that distance he was
unable to tell whether it was M
^me
de Rênal. He feared a first cry of alarm; he could hear the

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