The Red and the Black (7 page)

him to remember things which had to be recounted with such subtlety,
and for some time now he had not repeated his anecdotes about the
House of Orleans except on grand occasions. Since, moreover, he was
extremely polite except when the conversation was about money, he was
rightly considered to be the most aristocratic person in Verrières.

-16-

E sarà mia colpa
Se cosi è
?
MACHIAVELLI
^*

'MY good lady
^*
really is pretty shrewd!' said the mayor of Verrières to himself at
six o'clock the following morning as he was walking down to old Mr
Sorel's mill. 'Whatever I may have said to her to maintain a fitting
show of superiority, it hadn't occurred to me that if I don't take on
the young abbé
^*
Sorel, who is said to know Latin like an angel, the master of the
workhouse, that eternal agitator, could well have the very same idea,
and snap him up first. How smugly he'd talk about his children's
tutor! . . . Now will this tutor wear a cassock once he's in my
employment?'

M. de Rênal was
pondering this question when he caught sight of a peasant in the
distance, a man nearly six foot tall, who seemed very busy at this
early hour of the morning measuring pieces of wood stacked up along
the towpath by the Doubs. He did not look at all pleased to see his
worship approaching, for his pieces of wood were blocking the path,
and had been stacked there contrary to regulations.

Old Mr Sorel--for it was the man himself--was most surprised and
still more pleased at the unusual proposition which M. de Rênal was
making to him in respect of his son Julien. This did not prevent him
from listening with that air of surly gloom and indifference which the
inhabitants of these mountains are so good at putting on to cover up
their cunning. Having been slaves at the time of Spanish rule, they
still keep this characteristic of the Egyptian fellah's countenance.

Sorel's reply at first consisted entirely of a lengthy recital of all
the formulas of respect he knew by heart. While he was reeling off
these empty words with an awkward smile which increased the shifty,
almost deceitful look he habitually wore on his face, the old
peasant's fertile mind was trying to work

-17-

out what could possibly induce such an important person to take his
good-for-nothing son into his own household. He was thoroughly
dissatisfied with Julien, and Julien was the one for whom M. de Rênal
was offering him the undreamed of wage of three hundred francs a year,
with his keep and even his clothes thrown in. This last demand, which
old Mr Sorel had had the brilliant idea of putting forward out of the
blue, had been accepted forthwith by M. de Rênal.

The mayor was struck by this request. Since Sorel isn't delighted and
overcome by my proposition, as of course he should be, it's clear, he
said to himself, that he's received offers from another quarter. And
where can they come from if not from friend Valenod? M. de Rênal tried
in vain to get Sorel to make a deal on the spot, but the old
peasant's scheming mind was dead against it. He wanted, so he said, to
consult his son, as if in the provinces a rich father consults a
penniless son except for form's sake.

A water-driven sawmill consists of a shed on the banks of a stream.
The roof is held up by a frame supported on four stout wooden posts.
Eight to ten feet off the ground, in the middle of the shed, there is a
saw which goes up and down while a very simple mechanism pushes a
piece of wood against it. A wheel powered by the stream drives this
dual mechanism: to raise and lower the saw and to push the piece of
wood gently towards it so that it gets cut into planks.

As he approached his mill, old Mr Sorel called out to Julien in his
stentorian voice. No one answered. The only people visible were his
elder sons, giant-like figures armed with heavy axes, who were
squaring off the fir logs they were going to take to the saw. They
were intent on cutting accurately along the black lines drawn on the
pieces of wood, and each blow of their axes sent huge chips flying.
They did not hear their father's voice. He made his way over to the
shed, and on entering looked in vain for Julien in the place where he
should have been--by the saw. He sighted him five or six feet higher
up, astride one of the roof timbers. Instead of giving his attention
to supervising the operation of the whole machine, Julien was reading.
Nothing was more repugnant to old Sorel. He might perhaps have
forgiven Julien his slender build, ill-

-18-

suited to heavy manual labour and so unlike that of his elder
brothers; but he could not abide this obsession with reading-he could
not read himself.

He called Julien
two or three times to no avail. It was not so much the noise of the
saw as his absorption in his book that prevented the young man from
hearing his father's thundering voice. At length, in spite of his age,
the latter jumped nimbly onto the tree-trunk which was being sawn up,
and from there to the cross-beam supporting the roof. A violent blow
sent the book flying out of Julien's hands into the stream; a second
blow delivered just as violently sideways across the top of his head
made Julien lose his balance. He was just about to fall down twelve
feet or more right into the moving levers of the machine and be broken
to bits, but his father caught him with his left hand as he fell.

'You lazybones, you! won't you ever stop reading your blasted books
while you're on duty by the saw, eh? You can read 'em in the evening
when you go off wasting your time at the priest's, if I may make a
suggestion.' Julien was stunned by the force of the blow and covered
in blood, but he started down towards his official post next to the
saw. There were tears in his eyes, not so much on account of the
physical pain as for the loss of his beloved book.

'Down with you, you brute, I want to talk to you.' The noise of the
machine again prevented Julien from hearing this command. His father,
who had got down and did not want to go to the trouble of climbing
back onto the machine, fetched a long pole used for knocking down
walnuts and banged him on the shoulder with it. Julien was scarcely on
the ground before old Sorel pushed him roughly along in front of him
in the direction of the house. God knows what he's going to do to
me, the young man said to himself. As he passed, he looked sadly into
the stream where his book had fallen: it was the one he treasured more
than all the rest, the
St Helena Chronicle
.
^*

His checks were flushed and he kept his eyes on the ground. He was a
small, frail-looking young man of eighteen or nineteen, with irregular
but delicate features, and a roman nose. His large dark eyes which in
moments of calm suggested a reflective streak and a fiery
temperament, shone at that

-19-

instant with an expression of the most ferocious hatred. He had a low
forehead framed by dark chestnut hair, and when he was angry, this
gave him a fierce expression. Among the countless varieties of human
face, it would be difficult to imagine a more strikingly individual
one. His slim and shapely figure suggested nimbleness rather than
strength. Right from early childhood his deeply pensive air and his
pallor had convinced his father that he would not survive, or that if
he did he would be a burden on his family. The butt of everyone's
scorn at home, he hated his brothers and his father. He was always
beaten in the games played on Sundays in the town square.

It was less than a year since his pretty face had begun to win him
allies among the girls. Despised by everyone for his frailty, Julien
had adored the old army surgeon who one day dared to speak to the
mayor about the plane trees.

The
surgeon would sometimes pay old Mr Sorel a day's wages for his son,
and would teach him Latin and history, that is, all the history he
knew: the Italian campaigns of 1796. On his death he had bequeathed
him his Legion of Honour cross, the arrears on his half pay, and
thirty or forty books, the most precious of which had just landed in
the
public stream
that had been diverted at his worship's expense.

As soon as he stepped inside the house, Julien was pulled to a halt
by the heavy hand of his father on his shoulder. He trembled in the
expectation of a beating.

'Answer me
without lying,' bellowed the harsh voice of the old peasant in his
ear, while his hand turned him round like a child's hand turning a tin
soldier. Julien's big black eyes, welling with tears, were met by the
malicious little grey eyes of the old carpenter who looked as if he
wanted to read into the depths of his soul.

-20-

Cunctando restituit rem

ENNIUS
^*

'ANSWER me without lying if you're capable of it, you revolting bookworm! How do you know M
^me
de Rênal? When have you spoken to her?'

'I've never spoken to her,' replied Julien, 'I've only ever seen the lady at church.'

'Then you must have looked at her, eh? you cheeky devil!'

'Never! You know I only have eyes for God in church,' Julien added
with a hypocritical look on his face, specially designed, as he
thought, to ward off further blows.

'There's something going on here, all the same,' retorted the 'wily
peasant, and he fell silent for a moment. 'But I won't get anything
out of you, you blasted hypocrite. As a matter of fact, I'm going to
be rid of you, and my saw will do all the better for it. You've won
over Father Chélan or his likes, and they've found you a fine
situation. Go and pack your bundle, and I'll take you off to M. de
Rênal's, where you're going to be tutor to the children.'

'What'll I get for it?'

'Your board and lodging, your clothing and three hundred francs in wages.'

'I don't want to be a servant.'

'No one's talking about being a servant, you dolt! Would I want my son to be a servant?'

'But then who am I going to have my meals with?'

This question threw old Sorel. He realized that if he said any more
he might put his foot in it. He lost his temper with Julien, swearing
profusely at him and accusing him of being greedy, and went off to
consult his other sons.

Julien saw
them soon afterwards, leaning on their axes, deep in council. He
watched them for a long time, but was unable to guess what they were
saying, so he went and stationed

-21-

himself on the far side of the saw to avoid being caught spying. He
wanted to think about this unexpected news which was changing his
destiny, but he felt incapable of acting prudently. His imagination
was completely taken up with picturing what he would see in M. de
Rênal's fine house.

I must give up
the whole idea, he said to himself, rather than sink to eating with
the servants. My father will try to make me, but I'd rather die. I've
got fifteen francs and eight sous in my savings; I'll run away tonight
and get to Besançon in two days by cutting across country on paths
where I'm in no danger of meeting an officer of the law. There, I'll
enlist in the army and, if need be, cross into Switzerland. But that
means goodbye to any chance of bettering myself, goodbye to all my
ambition, and goodbye to the priesthood--that fine profession which
opens all doors.

This horror of
eating with the servants was not natural to Julien; he would have done
far more distasteful things as a means to fortune. He got this
repugnance from Rousseau's
^*
Confessions
,
the one book his imagination drew on to help him picture the world.
The collected bulletins of Napoleon's great army and the
St Helena Chronicle
completed his Koran. He would have given his life for these three
works. He never put his faith in any other. In accordance with one of
the old army surgeon's sayings, he regarded all the other books in the
world as a pack of lies, written by rogues to better themselves.

Along with his fiery temperament, Julien had one of those amazing
memories which so often go with silliness. To win over old Father
Chélan, on whom it was plain to him that his own future lot depended,
he had learnt off by heart the whole of the New Testament in Latin. He
also knew J. de Maistre's book
On the Pope
,
^*
and believed as little in the one as in the other.

As if by mutual agreement, Sorel and his son avoided speaking to each
other for the rest of the day. At dusk Julien went off to have his
theology lesson from the priest, but did not consider it wise to say
anything to him about the strange proposal his father had received. It
may be a trap, he said to himself, I must pretend to have forgotten
all about it.

Early next morning M. de Rênal summoned old Sorel, who

-22-

kept him waiting well over an hour before he finally turned up,
making innumerable excuses the moment he was inside the door, with a
little bow between each one. By dint of enumerating all kinds of
objections, Sorel gathered that his son would eat with the master and
mistress of the house, and on days when they had company, alone in a
separate room with the children. Becoming ever more inclined to raise
difficulties the more genuinely keen he detected his worship to be,
and being in any case full of mistrust and amazement, Sorel asked to
see the bedroom where his son would sleep. It was a large, very
decently furnished room, but the three children's beds were already in
the process of being moved into it.

This circumstance was a revelation to the old peasant. He at once
asked confidently to see the suit of clothes his son was to be given.
M. de Rênal opened his desk and took out a hundred francs.

'With this money your son will go to M. Durand the draper and have a full black suit made to order.'

'And even if I took him out of your service,' said the peasant,
suddenly forgetting to speak with respect, 'he'd keep this black
suit?'

'I dare say.'

'Well then!' said Sorel in drawling tones, 'there only remains one thing for us to agree on--the money you'll give him.'

'What!' exclaimed M. de Rênal indignantly. 'We agreed on that
yesterday: I'm giving him three hundred francs. I think that's a lot,
maybe too much.'

'That was your
offer, I don't deny it,' said old Sorel, speaking even more slowly;
and, with a stroke of genius which will only surprise those unfamiliar
with peasants from the Franche-Comté, he added, looking straight at
M. de Rênal,
'We've had a better offer.'

A look of consternation came over the mayor when he heard this. But
he pulled himself together, and after a masterly dialogue lasting over
two hours, in which no word was said at random, the peasant's
shrewdness got the better of the rich man's, the latter not having to
rely on shrewdness for his livelihood. All the detailed arrangements
which were to govern Julien's new existence were hammered out: not
only were his

-23-