The Red and the Black (8 page)

wages fixed at four hundred francs a year, but they had to be paid in advance, on the first of each month.

'Right then! I'll give him thirty-five francs,' said the mayor.

'To make a round number,' said the peasant
ingratiatingly,
'a man as rich and generous as your worship will surely go up to thirty-six francs.'
^*

'All right,' said the mayor, 'but that's the end of the matter.'

This time, anger made him sound resolute. The peasant saw that he
must stop there. It was then M. de Rênal's turn to score some points.
He was adamant that he would not hand over the first month's pay of
thirty-six francs to old Sorel, who was most anxious to receive it on
his son's behalf. It occurred to M. de Rênal that he would be obliged
to describe to his wife the role he had played in all this bargaining.

'Hand back the hundred francs I gave
you,' he said in annoyance. 'M. Durand owes me something. I shall go
with your son to have the black cloth cut.'

After this display of strength, Sorel wisely reverted to his
expressions of respect: a good quarter of an hour was taken up in
flowery phrases. Eventually, seeing that there really was nothing more
to be gained, he took his leave. He ended his last bow with these
words:

'I shall send my son up to the château.'

This was what the mayor's subordinates called his house when they wanted to please him.

Once back at his sawmill, Sorel looked in vain for his son. Wary of
what might happen, Julien had gone out in the middle of the night. He
wanted to take his books and his Legion of Honour cross to a place of
safety. He had carted everything off to the house of a friend of his, a
young timber merchant called Fouqué who lived up in the mountains
behind Verrières.

When he reappeared,
his father greeted him with: 'God only knows, you damned idler, if
you'll ever have enough decency to repay me the cost of your food
which I've been advancing you all these years! Get your rags together
and be off with you to his worship's house.'

Julien was astonished not to be beaten, and left in haste. But as soon as he was out of sight of his dreaded father, he

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slackened his pace. He thought it would be in the interests of his hypocrisy to make a Station
^*
in the church.

Does the word
hypocrisy
surprise you? Before being able to apply this terrible term to
himself, the young peasant had already advanced some way along the
path of his spiritual development.

In early childhood Julien had seen some dragoons from the sixth
regiment on their way back from Italy, tying their horses to the
barred windows of his father's house; they wore long white coats and
had helmets with long black plumes, and the sight of them made him
crazy about the army. Later, he would listen enthralled while the old
army surgeon recounted the battles of Lodi bridge, Arcola and Rivoli.
^*
He noticed how the old man's eyes lit up as he glanced at his Legion of Honour cross.

But when Julien was fourteen, they began to build a church in
Verrières that may well be called magnificent for such a small town.
Julien was particularly struck by the sight of four marble pillars;
they became famous in the region for the deadly hatred they aroused
between the justice of the peace and the young curate sent from
Besançon, who was reputed to be a spy from the Congregation.
^*
The justice of the peace was on the point of losing his job, at least
that is what was generally believed. Hadn't he dared to fall out with
a priest who nearly every fortnight went to Besançon where, rumour
had it, he saw Monsignor the bishop?

At this point the justice of the peace, who had a large number of
children, passed several sentences which appeared unjust; they were
all directed against those inhabitants who read
Le Constitutionnel
.
^*
It was a victory for the orthodox party. The sums involved were
admittedly only of the order of four or five francs; but one of these
small fines had to be paid by a nailmaker who was Julien's godfather.
In his fury this man exclaimed: 'What a change! To think that for over
twenty years the justice of the peace was considered such an upright
citizen!' Julien's friend the army surgeon was dead by then.

Quite suddenly Julien stopped talking about Napoleon. He announced
that he was intending to become a priest, and he was constantly to be
seen at his father's sawmill engaged in

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learning off by heart a Latin Bible which the priest had lent him.
The kindly old man was astonished at his progress and spent long
evenings teaching him theology. Julien never uttered anything but
pious sentiments in his presence. Who could have guessed that this
face, as pale and gentle as a girl's, hid the unshakable determination
to risk a thousand deaths rather than fail to make his fortune!

For Julien, making his fortune meant first and foremost getting out
of Verrières; he loathed his native town. Everything he saw there
froze his imagination.

From early
childhood, there had been occasions when he was carried away by his
own fantasies. At such times he imagined with rapture that one day he
would be introduced to the pretty women of Paris, and would succeed in
drawing himself to their attention by some glorious deed. Why
shouldn't he be adored by one of them, just as Bonaparte, still
penniless, had been adored by the dazzling Mme de Beauharnais?
^*
For years now, Julien had never let an hour of his life pass without
telling himself that Bonaparte, an obscure lieutenant without
fortune, had made himself master of the globe with his sword. This
thought consoled him for his sufferings, which he believed to be
great, and increased any pleasure which came his way.

The building of the church and the sentences passed by the justice of
the peace were a sudden flash of illumination for him. He was struck
by an idea which drove him almost crazy for several weeks, and finally
took hold of him with the overwhelming force characteristic of the
very first idea a passionate individual believes he has thought of
himself.

When Bonaparte first made a
name for himself, France was afraid of being invaded; military prowess
was necessary and in fashion. Nowadays you find priests of forty
earning a hundred thousand francs, in other words three times as much
as the famous generals in Napoleon's army. They need people to back
them up. Look at that justice of the peace, such a levelheaded and
honest man up till now, dishonouring himself at his age for fear of
displeasing a young curate of thirty! The answer is to be a priest.

Once, in the midst of his new-found piety, when Julien had

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been studying theology for two years, he was betrayed by a sudden
eruption of the inner fire which was consuming him. It happened at a
dinner given by Father Chélan for a gathering of priests, at which the
kindly host had presented Julien as a prodigy of learning: he went
and praised Napoleon with great vehemence. Afterwards, he strapped his
right arm to his chest, pretending he had dislocated it while moving a
fir trunk, and kept it in this uncomfortable position for two months.
After this corporal punishment he forgave himself. This was the
young man of nineteen, looking puny for his age, indeed unlikely to be
taken for more than seventeen at the very most, who with a small
bundle clasped under his arm was preparing to enter the magnificent
church in Verrières.

He found it dark
and deserted. All the windows of the building had been draped with
crimson material for a feastday, and as a result the sun's rays
streaming in produced a dazzling light-effect of the most
awe-inspiring and religious kind. Julien shuddered. Alone in the
church, he took a seat in the finest-looking pew. It bore the arms of
M. de Rênal.

On the hassock Julien
noticed a piece of paper with printing on it, spread out there as if
meant to be read. He looked at it closely and saw:

Details of the execution and last moments of Louis Jenrel, executed at Besançon on the . . .

The paper was torn. On the back, the first few words of a line could be read. They ran:
The first step.

Who can have put that paper there? Julien wondered. Poor wretch, he
added with a sigh, his named ends like mine . . . and he crumpled up
the piece of paper.

On his way out,
Julien thought he saw blood beside the stoup of holy water; some of it
had been spilled, and the light coming through the red drapings over
the windows made it look like blood.

After a while Julien felt ashamed of his secret terror.

Could I be a coward! he said to himself.
'To arms!'

This expression, which recurred so often in the old surgeon's
accounts of battles, had heroic symbolism for Julien. He stood up and
walked quickly in the direction of M. de Rênal's house.

In spite of this fine resolve, as soon as he caught sight of it

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twenty yards in front of him he was seized with overwhelming shyness.
The iron gate was open; it looked magnificent to him, and he had to
go inside.

Julien was not the only person to feel deep agitation at his arrival in the house. M
^me
de Rênal with her excessive shyness was put out at the thought of
this stranger who, by the very nature of his duties, was constantly
going to come between herself and her children. She was accustomed to
having her sons sleeping in her bedroom. That morning a good many
tears had been shed when she had seen their little beds moved into the
quarters set aside for the tutor. She asked her husband in vain to
have her youngest child Stanislas-Xavier's bed brought back into her
room.

Feminine delicacy was carried to excess in M
^me
de Rênal. She conjured up the most disagreeable image of a boorish,
ill- w kempt individual, empowered to scold her children solely
because he knew Latin, a barbarous language on account of which her
sons would be beaten.

-28-

Non so più cosa son, Cosa facio
.

MOZART (
Figaro
)
^*

WITH the lively and graceful demeanour which came naturally to her when she was not in company, M
^me
de Rênal was coming out into the garden through the French window of
the drawing-room when she noticed the figure of a young peasant
standing by the front door. He was scarcely more than a boy, and his
pale face showed signs of recent tears. He was wearing a spotless
white shirt and carrying a very clean jacket of thick mauve wool under
his arm.

The peasant boy had so fair a complexion and such gentle eyes that M
^me
de Rênal's romantically inclined nature led her to imagine at first
that he might be a girl in disguise, coming to ask some favour of the
mayor. She felt a surge of pity for the poor soul standing there at
the front door and obviously not daring to raise a hand to the bell.
She went over to him, distracted for a moment from the deep distress
which the prospect of a tutor in the house was causing her. Julien was
facing the door and did not see her coming. He started when a
gentle voice said right in his ear: 'What have you come for, dear?'

Julien turned round in a flash, and, struck by the gracious look in M
^me
de Rênal's eyes, forgot some of his shyness. Soon, astonished at her
beauty, he forgot everything, even what he was there for. M
^me
de Rênal had repeated her question.

'I've come to be tutor here, madam,' he told her at last, thoroughly
ashamed of the tears he was doing his best to wipe away.

M
^me
de Rênal was struck speechless. They were standing very close
together, looking at each other. Julien had never been spoken to
gently by a person so well dressed--particularly a woman with such a
dazzling complexion. M
^me
de Rênal gazed

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at the big teardrops poised on the young peasant's cheeks, which had
now turned from pale to deep crimson. She soon began to laugh with the
uncontrollable mirth of a girl; she was laughing at herself, unable
to take in the full extent of her good fortune. Was it possible? was
this the tutor she had imagined as an unkempt, shabby priest who would
come to scold and cane her children?

'Can it be, sir,' she said to him at last, 'that you know Latin?'

The term sir so astonished Julien that he took a moment to reflect.

'Yes, madam,' he said shyly.

M
^me
de Rênal was so happy that she plucked up the courage to say to
Julien: 'You won't scold the poor children too much, will you?'

'Me, scold them?' said Julien in surprise. 'Why should I?'

'You will be sure, sir, won't you,' she added after a short pause, in
a voice which grew more and more emotional by the moment, 'to be kind
to them. Do you promise me you will?'

To hear himself addressed again as sir in all seriousness, and by so
well dressed a lady, was far beyond anything Julien had anticipated.
Whenever he had built castles in the air in his youth, he had always
told himself that no real lady would ever deign to speak to him until
he had a fine uniform. M
^me
de Rênal, for her part, was
completely beguiled by Julien's exquisite complexion, his large dark
eyes and his lovely hair, which was curlier than usual because he had
just cooled himself off by dipping his head in the trough under the
public drinking fountain. To her great delight, she detected the shy
look of a young girl in this fateful tutor whose sternness and
rebarbative appearance she had so dreaded on her children's account.
For a temperament as quiet as M
^me
de Rênal's, the mismatch
between her fears and what she now saw was a major upheaval. She
eventually recovered from her surprise, and was astonished to find
herself on her own doorstep with this young man almost in his
shirtsleeves, and standing so close to him too.

'Shall we go in, sir?' she said to him in some embarrassment.

In all her life Mme de Rênal had not been so deeply moved

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