The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
her soul in her endeavours to extract from it a little sensibility to
some new shade of sentiment or unhappiness. Entirely absorbed as she
had been before Julien's arrival with that mass of work which falls
to the lot of a good mistress of a household away from Paris, Madame
de Rênal thought of passion in the same way in which we think of a
lottery: a certain deception, a happiness sought after by fools.
The dinner bell rang. Madame de Rênal blushed violently. She heard the
voice of Julien who was bringing in the children. Having grown somewhat
adroit since her falling in love, she complained of an awful headache
in order to explain her redness.
"That's just like what all women are," answered M. de Rênal with a
coarse laugh. "Those machines have always got something or other to be
put right."
Although she was accustomed to this type of wit, Madame de Rênal was
shocked by the tone of voice. In order to distract herself, she looked
at Julien's physiognomy; he would have pleased her at this particular
moment, even if he had been the ugliest man imaginable.
M. de Rênal, who always made a point of copying the habits of the
gentry of the court, established himself at Vergy in the first fine
days of the spring; this is the village rendered celebrated by the
tragic adventure of Gabrielle. A hundred paces from the picturesque
ruin of the old Gothic church, M. de Rênal owns an old château with its
four towers and a garden designed like the one in the Tuileries with
a great many edging verges of box and avenues of chestnut trees which
are cut twice in the year. An adjacent field, crowded with apple trees,
served for a promenade. Eight or ten magnificent walnut trees were at
the end of the orchard. Their immense foliage went as high as perhaps
eighty feet.
"Each of these cursed walnut trees," M. de Rênal was in the habit of
saying, whenever his wife admired them, "costs me the harvest of at
least half an acre; corn cannot grow under their shade."
Madame de Rênal found the sight of the country novel: her admiration
reached the point of enthusiasm. The sentiment by which she was
animated gave her both ideas and resolution. M. de Rênal had returned
to the town, for mayoral business, two days after their arrival in
Vergy. But Madame de Rênal engaged workmen at her own expense. Julien
had given her the idea of a little sanded path which was to go round
the orchard and under the big walnut trees, and render it possible
for the children to take their walk in the very earliest hours of the
morning without getting their feet wet from the dew. This idea was put
into execution within twenty-four hours of its being conceived. Madame
de Rênal gaily spent the whole day with Julien in supervising the
workmen.
When the Mayor of Verrières came back from the town he was very
surprised to find the avenue completed. His arrival surprised Madame
de Rênal as well. She had forgotten his existence. For two months
he talked with irritation about the boldness involved in making so
important a repair without consulting him, but Madame de Rênal had had
it executed at her own expense, a fact which somewhat consoled him.
She spent her days in running about the orchard with her children,
and in catching butterflies. They had made big hoods of clear gauze
with which they caught the poor _lepidoptera_. This is the barbarous
name which Julien taught Madame de Rênal. For she had had M. Godart's
fine work ordered from Besançon, and Julien used to tell her about the
strange habits of the creatures.
They ruthlessly transfixed them by means of pins in a great cardboard
box which Julien had prepared.
Madame de Rênal and Julien had at last a topic of conversation; he was
no longer exposed to the awful torture that had been occasioned by
their moments of silence.
They talked incessantly and with extreme interest, though always about
very innocent matters. This gay, full, active life, pleased the fancy
of everyone, except Mademoiselle Elisa who found herself overworked.
Madame had never taken so much trouble with her dress, even at carnival
time, when there is a ball at Verrières, she would say; she changes her
gowns two or three times a day.
As it is not our intention to flatter anyone, we do not propose to
deny that Madame de Rênal, who had a superb skin, arranged her gowns
in such a way as to leave her arms and her bosom very exposed. She was
extremely well made, and this style of dress suited her delightfully.
"You have never been _so young_, Madame," her Verrières friends would
say to her, when they came to dinner at Vergy (this is one of the local
expressions).
It is a singular thing, and one which few amongst us will believe, but
Madame de Rênal had no specific object in taking so much trouble. She
found pleasure in it and spent all the time which she did not pass in
hunting butterflies with the children and Julien, in working with Elisa
at making gowns, without giving the matter a further thought. Her only
expedition to Verrières was caused by her desire to buy some new summer
gowns which had just come from Mulhouse.
She brought back to Vergy a young woman who was a relative of hers.
Since her marriage, Madame de Rênal had gradually become attached to
Madame Derville, who had once been her school mate at the _Sacré Cœur_.
Madame Derville laughed a great deal at what she called her cousin's
mad ideas: "I would never have thought of them alone," she said. When
Madame de Rênal was with her husband, she was ashamed of those sudden
ideas, which, are called sallies in Paris, and thought them quite
silly: but Madame Derville's presence gave her courage. She would start
to telling her her thoughts in a timid voice, but after the ladies
had been alone for a long time, Madame de Rênal's brain became more
animated, and a long morning spent together by the two friends passed
like a second, and left them in the best of spirits. On this particular
journey, however, the acute Madame Derville thought her cousin much
less merry, but much more happy than usual.
Julien, on his side, had since coming to the country lived like an
absolute child, and been as happy as his pupils in running after
the butterflies. After so long a period of constraint and wary
diplomacy, he was at last alone and far from human observation; he
was instinctively free from any apprehension on the score of Madame
de Rênal, and abandoned himself to the sheer pleasure of being alive,
which is so keen at so young an age, especially among the most
beautiful mountains in the world.
Ever since Madame Derville's arrival, Julien thought that she was his
friend; he took the first opportunity of showing her the view from the
end of the new avenue, under the walnut tree; as a matter of fact it is
equal, if not superior, to the most wonderful views that Switzerland
and the Italian lakes can offer. If you ascend the steep slope which
commences some paces from there, you soon arrive at great precipices
fringed by oak forests, which almost jut on to the river. It was to the
peaked summits of these rocks that Julien, who was now happy, free, and
king of the household into the bargain, would take the two friends, and
enjoy their admiration these sublime views.
"To me it's like Mozart's music," Madame Derville would say.
The country around Verrières had been spoilt for Julien by the jealousy
of his brothers and the presence of a tyranous and angry father. He
was free from these bitter memories at Vergy; for the first time in
his life, he failed to see an enemy. When, as frequently happened, M.
de Rênal was in town, he ventured to read; soon, instead of reading at
night time, a procedure, moreover, which involved carefully hiding his
lamp at the bottom of a flower-pot turned upside down, he was able to
indulge in sleep; in the day, however, in the intervals between the
children's lessons, he would come among these rocks with that book
which was the one guide of his conduct and object of his enthusiasm. He
found in it simultaneously happiness, ecstasy and consolation for his
moments of discouragement.
Certain remarks of Napoleon about women, several discussions about the
merits of the novels which were fashionable in his reign, furnished him
now for the first time with some ideas which any other young man of his
age would have had for a long time.
The dog days arrived. They started the habit of spending the evenings
under an immense pine tree some yards from the house. The darkness was
profound. One evening, Julien was speaking and gesticulating, enjoying
to the full the pleasure of being at his best when talking to young
women; in one of his gestures, he touched the hand of Madame de Rênal
which was leaning on the back of one of those chairs of painted wood,
which are so frequently to be seen in gardens.
The hand was quickly removed, but Julien thought it a point of duty
to secure that that hand should not be removed when he touched it.
The idea of a duty to be performed and the consciousness of his
stultification, or rather of his social inferiority, if he should fail
in achieving it, immediately banished all pleasure from his heart.
CHAPTER IX
AN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY
M. Guérin's Dido, a charming sketch!--_Strombeck_.
His expression was singular when he saw Madame de Rênal the next
day; he watched her like an enemy with whom he would have to fight a
duel. These looks, which were so different from those of the previous
evening, made Madame de Rênal lose her head; she had been kind to him
and he appeared angry. She could not take her eyes off his.
Madame Derville's presence allowed Julien to devote less time to
conversation, and more time to thinking about what he had in his mind.
His one object all this day was to fortify himself by reading the
inspired book that gave strength to his soul.
He considerably curtailed the children's lessons, and when Madame de
Rênal's presence had effectually brought him back to the pursuit of his
ambition, he decided that she absolutely must allow her hand to rest in
his that evening.
The setting of the sun which brought the crucial moment nearer and
nearer made Julien's heart beat in a strange way. Night came. He
noticed with a joy, which took an immense weight off his heart, that
it was going to be very dark. The sky, which was laden with big clouds
that had been brought along by a sultry wind, seemed to herald a storm.
The two friends went for their walk very late. All they did that night
struck Julien as strange. They were enjoying that hour which seems to
give certain refined souls an increased pleasure in loving.
At last they sat down, Madame de Rênal beside Julien, and Madame
Derville near her friend. Engrossed as he was by the attempt which
he was going to make, Julien could think of nothing to say. The
conversation languished.
"Shall I be as nervous and miserable over my first duel?" said Julien
to himself; for he was too suspicious both of himself and of others,
not to realise his own mental state.
In his mortal anguish, he would have preferred any danger whatsoever.
How many times did he not wish some matter to crop up which would
necessitate Madame de Rênal going into the house and leaving the
garden! The violent strain on Julien's nerves was too great for his
voice not to be considerably changed; soon Madame de Rênal's voice
became nervous as well, but Julien did not notice it. The awful battle
raging between duty and timidity was too painful, for him to be in a
position to observe anything outside himself. A quarter to ten had
just struck on the château clock without his having ventured anything.
Julien was indignant at his own cowardice, and said to himself, "at
the exact moment when ten o'clock strikes, I will perform what I have