The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
which she read in that look which had been so gracious the previous
evening. Her eldest son ran up from the bottom of the garden, and said
as he kissed her,
"We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey."
At these words, Madame de Rênal felt seized by a deadly coldness. She
was unhappy by reason of her virtue, and even more unhappy by reason of
her weakness.
This new event engrossed her imagination, and she was transported far
beyond the good resolutions which she owed to the awful night she had
just passed. It was not now a question of resisting that charming
lover, but of losing him for ever.
It was necessary to appear at breakfast. To complete her anguish, M. de
Rênal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien's departure. The
mayor of Verrières had noticed something unusual in the firm tone in
which he had asked for a holiday.
"That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else's offer up his
sleeve, but that somebody else, even though it's M. Valenod, is bound
to be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs, which the
annual salary now tots up to. He must have asked yesterday at Verrières
for a period of three days to think it over, and our little gentleman
runs off to the mountains this morning so as not to be obliged to give
me an answer. Think of having to reckon with a wretched workman who
puts on airs, but that's what we've come to."
"If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien,
thinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?" said Madame de
Rênal to herself. "Yes, that is all decided." In order to be able at
any rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering Madame Derville's
questions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to bed.
"That's what women are," repeated M. de Rênal, "there is always
something out of order in those complicated machines," and he went off
jeering.
While Madame de Rênal was a prey to all the poignancy of the terrible
passion in which chance had involved her, Julien went merrily on his
way, surrounded by the most beautiful views that mountain scenery
can offer. He had to cross the great chain north of Vergy. The path
which he followed rose gradually among the big beech woods, and ran
into infinite spirals on the slope of the high mountain which forms
the northern boundary of the Doubs valley. Soon the traveller's view,
as he passed over the lower slopes bounding the course of the Doubs
towards the south, extends as far as the fertile plains of Burgundy and
Beaujolais. However insensible was the soul of this ambitious youth to
this kind of beauty, he could not help stopping from time to time to
look at a spectacle at once so vast and so impressive.
Finally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which
he had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at
the solitary valley where lived his friend Fouqué, the young wood
merchant. Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any other
human being. Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks which
crowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off anyone coming
near him. He discovered a little grotto in the middle of the almost
vertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it, and was soon
ensconced in this retreat. "Here," he said, "with eyes brilliant with
joy, men cannot hurt me." It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure
of writing down those thoughts of his which were so dangerous to him
everywhere else. A square stone served him for a desk; his pen flew. He
saw nothing of what was around him. He noticed at last that the sun was
setting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.
"Why shouldn't I pass the night here?" he said to himself. "I have
bread, and I am free." He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of
that great word. The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in his
not being free, even at Fouqué's. Leaning his head on his two hands,
Julien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever been in his
life, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his freedom. Without
realising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight become successively
extinguished. Surrounded by this immense obscurity, his soul wandered
into the contemplation of what he imagined that he would one day meet
in Paris. First it was a woman, much more beautiful and possessed of a
much more refined temperament than anything he could have found in the
provinces. He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from
her for some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to
deserve to be loved still more.
A young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of Paris
society, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if we
assume him possessed of Julien's imagination, have been brought back
to himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great deeds would have
disappeared from out his ken together with hope of achieving them and
have been succeeded by the platitude. "If one leave one's mistress
one runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or three times a day."
But the young peasant saw nothing but the lack of opportunity between
himself and the most heroic feats.
But a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two
leagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which Fouqué
lived. Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and
carefully burnt all that he had written. He quite astonished his friend
when he knocked at his door at one o'clock in the morning. He found
Fouqué engaged in making up his accounts. He was a young man of high
stature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a never-ending
nose, and a large fund of good nature concealed beneath this repulsive
appearance.
"Have you quarelled with M. de Rênal then that you turn up unexpectedly
like this?" Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the events of the
previous day.
"Stay with me," said Fouqué to him. "I see that you know M. de Rênal,
M. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the curé Chélan. You have
understood the subtleties of the character of those people. So there
you are then, quite qualified to attend auctions. You know arithmetic
better than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot in my
business. The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the fear
of taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from undertaking
excellent business. It's scarcely a month since I put Michaud de
Saint-Amand, whom I haven't seen for six years, and whom I ran across
at the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six thousand francs. Why
shouldn't it have been you who made those six thousand francs, or at
any rate three thousand. For if I had had you with me that day, I would
have raised the bidding for that lot of timber and everybody else would
soon have run away. Be my partner."
This offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams. Fouqué
showed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the supper--which the
two friends prepared themselves like the Homeric heroes (for Fouqué
lived alone) and proved to him all the advantages offered by his timber
business. Fouqué had the highest opinion of the gifts and character of
Julien.
When, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood, he
said to himself: "It is true I can make some thousands of francs here
and then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or of a
priest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France. The little
hoard that I shall have amassed will remove all petty difficulties. In
the solitude of this mountain I shall have dissipated to some extent my
awful ignorance of so many of the things which make up the life of all
those men of fashion. But Fouqué has given up all thoughts of marriage,
and at the same time keeps telling me that solitude makes him unhappy.
It is clear that if he takes a partner who has no capital to put into
his business, he does so in the hopes of getting a companion who will
never leave him."
"Shall I deceive my friend," exclaimed Julien petulantly. This being
who found hypocrisy and complete callousness his ordinary means of
self-preservation could not, on this occasion, endure the idea of the
slightest lack of delicate feeling towards a man whom he loved.
But suddenly Julien was happy. He had a reason for a refusal. What!
Shall I be coward enough to waste seven or eight years. I shall get to
twenty-eight in that way! But at that age Bonaparte had achieved his
greatest feats. When I shall have made in obscurity a little money by
frequenting timber sales, and earning the good graces of some rascally
under-strappers who will guarantee that I shall still have the sacred
fire with which one makes a name for oneself?
The following morning, Julien with considerable sangfroid, said in
answer to the good Fouqué, who regarded the matter of the partnership
as settled, that his vocation for the holy ministry of the altars would
not permit him to accept it. Fouqué did not return to the subject.
"But just think," he repeated to him, "I'll make you my partner, or if
you prefer it, I'll give you four thousand francs a year, and you want
to return to that M. de Rênal of yours, who despises you like the mud
on his shoes. When you have got two hundred louis in front of you, what
is to prevent you from entering the seminary? I'll go further: I will
undertake to procure for you the best living in the district, for,"
added Fouqué, lowering his voice, I supply firewood to M. le ----, M.
le ----, M. ----. I provide them with first quality oak, but they only
pay me for plain wood, but never was money better invested.
Nothing could conquer Julien's vocation. Fouqué finished by thinking
him a little mad. The third day, in the early morning, Julien left his
friend, and passed the day amongst the rocks of the great mountain. He
found his little cave again, but he had no longer peace of mind. His
friend's offers had robbed him of it. He found himself, not between
vice and virtue, like Hercules, but between mediocrity coupled with
an assured prosperity, and all the heroic dreams of his youth. "So I
have not got real determination after all," he said to himself, and it
was his doubt on this score which pained him the most. "I am not of
the stuff of which great men are made, because I fear that eight years
spent in earning a livelihood will deprive me of that sublime energy
which inspires the accomplishment of extraordinary feats."
CHAPTER XIII
THE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS
A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk
along the high road.--_Saint-Réal_.
When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy,
he noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Rênal
since the day before yesterday. The other day, when I took my leave,
that woman made me realise the infinite distance which separated us;
she treated me like a labourer's son. No doubt she wished to signify
her repentance for having allowed me to hold her hand the evening
before.
... It is, however very pretty, is that hand. What a charm, what a
nobility is there in that woman's expression!
The possibility of making a fortune with Fouqué gave a certain facility
to Julien's logic. It was not spoilt quite so frequently by the
irritation and the keen consciousness of his poverty and low estate in
the eyes of the world. Placed as it were on a high promontory, he was
able to exercise his judgment, and had a commanding view, so to speak,
of both extreme poverty and that competence which he still called
wealth. He was far from judging his position really philosophically,
but he had enough penetration to feel different after this little
journey into the mountain.
He was struck with the extreme uneasiness with which Madame de Rênal