The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
Maugiron, but quarterly and always in advance.
It was Julien's turn now. After he had been bored for an hour and a
half by waiting for what he had to say, his answer was perfect and,
above all, as long as a bishop's charge. It suggested everything and
yet said nothing clearly. It showed at the same time respect for M.
de Rênal, veneration for the public of Verrières and gratitude to the
distinguished sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished at finding
him more Jesuitical than himself, tried in vain to obtain something
definite. Julien was delighted, seized the opportunity to practise, and
started his answer all over again in different language. Never has an
eloquent minister who wished to make the most of the end of a session
when the Chamber really seemed desirous of waking up, said less in more
words.
M. de Maugiron had scarcely left before Julien began to laugh like
a madman. In order to exploit his Jesuitical smartness, he wrote a
nine-page letter to M. de Rênal in which he gave him an account of all
that had been said to him and humbly asked his advice. "But the old
scoundrel has not told me the name of the person who is making the
offer. It is bound to be M. Valenod who, no doubt, sees in my exile at
Verrières the result of his anonymous letter."
Having sent off his despatch and feeling as satisfied as a hunter who
at six o'clock in the morning on a fine autumn day, comes out into
a plain that abounds with game, he went out to go and ask advice of
M. Chélan. But before he had arrived at the good curé's, providence,
wishing to shower favours upon him, threw in his path M. de Valenod,
to whom he owned quite freely that his heart was torn in two; a poor
lad such as he was owed an exclusive devotion to the vocation to which
it had pleased Heaven to call him. But vocation was not everything in
this base world. In order to work worthily at the vine of the Lord,
and to be not totally unworthy of so many worthy colleagues, it was
necessary to be educated; it was necessary to spend two expensive years
at the seminary of Besançon; saving consequently became an imperative
necessity, and was certainly much easier with a salary of eight hundred
francs paid quarterly than with six hundred francs which one received
monthly. On the other hand, did not Heaven, by placing him by the side
of the young de Rênals, and especially by inspiring him with a special
devotion to them, seem to indicate that it was not proper to abandon
that education for another one.
Julien reached such a degree of perfection in that particular kind of
eloquence which has succeeded the drastic quickness of the empire, that
he finished by boring himself with the sound of his own words.
On reaching home he found a valet of M. Valenod in full livery who had
been looking for him all over the town, with a card inviting him to
dinner for that same day.
Julien had never been in that man's house. Only a few days before
he had been thinking of nothing but the means of giving him a sound
thrashing without getting into trouble with the police. Although
the time of the dinner was one o'clock, Julien thought it was more
deferential to present himself at half-past twelve at the office of M.
the director of the workhouse. He found him parading his importance in
the middle of a lot of despatch boxes. His large black whiskers, his
enormous quantity of hair, his Greek bonnet placed across the top of
his head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, the big chains
of gold crossed all over his breast, and the whole stock-in-trade of
a provincial financier who considers himself prosperous, failed to
impose on Julien in the least: They only made him think the more of the
thrashing which he owed him.
He asked for the honour of being introduced to Madame Valenod. She
was dressing and was unable to receive him. By way of compensation he
had the privilege of witnessing the toilet of M. the director of the
workhouse. They subsequently went into the apartment of Madame Valenod,
who introduced her children to him with tears in her eyes. This lady
was one of the most important in Verrières, had a big face like a
man's, on which she had put rouge in honour of this great function. She
displayed all the maternal pathos of which she was capable.
Julien thought all the time of Madame de Rênal. His distrust made him
only susceptible to those associations which are called up by their
opposites, but he was then affected to the verge of breaking down.
This tendency was increased by the sight of the house of the director
of the workhouse. He was shown over it. Everything in it was new and
magnificent, and he was told the price of every article of furniture.
But Julien detected a certain element of sordidness, which smacked of
stolen money into the bargain. Everybody in it, down to the servants,
had the air of setting his face in advance against contempt.
The collector of taxes, the superintendent of indirect taxes, the
officer of gendarmerie, and two or three other public officials arrived
with their wives. They were followed by some rich Liberals. Dinner was
announced. It occurred to Julien, who was already feeling upset, that
there were some poor prisoners on the other side of the dining-room
wall, and that an illicit profit had perhaps been made over their
rations of meat in order to purchase all that garish luxury with which
they were trying to overwhelm him.
"Perhaps they are hungry at this very minute," he said to himself. He
felt a choking in his throat. He found it impossible to eat and almost
impossible to speak. Matters became much worse a quarter of an hour
afterwards; they heard in the distance some refrains of a popular song
that was, it must be confessed, a little vulgar, which was being sung
by one of the inmates. M. Valenod gave a look to one of his liveried
servants who disappeared and soon there was no more singing to be
heard. At that moment a valet offered Julien some Rhine wine in a green
glass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this
wine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green
glass and said to M. Valenod,
"They are not singing that wretched song any more."
"Zounds, I should think not," answered the triumphant governor. "I have
made the rascals keep quiet."
These words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new
position, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all
his hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down
his cheek.
He tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely
impossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. "Preventing singing he said
to himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it."
Fortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of
taxes had struck up a royalist song. "So this," reflected Julien's
conscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus,
"is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will
only enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You
will, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you
gorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from
singing; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out
of his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more
wretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your
way through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the
pain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way."
I own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this
soliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the
accomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the
whole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have
on their conscience the most trivial scratch.
Julien was sharply brought back to his rôle. He had not been invited to
dine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing.
A retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the
Academy of Besançon and of that of Uzès, spoke to him from the other
end of the table and asked him if what was said everywhere about his
astonishing progress in the study of the New Testament was really true.
A profound silence was suddenly inaugurated. A New Testament in Latin
was found as though by magic in the possession of the learned member
of the two Academies. After Julien had answered, part of a sentence
in Latin was read at random. Julien then recited. His memory proved
faithful and the prodigy was admired with all the boisterous energy of
the end of dinner. Julien looked at the flushed faces of the ladies. A
good many were not so plain. He recognised the wife of the collector,
who was a fine singer.
"I am ashamed, as a matter of fact, to talk Latin so long before these
ladies," he said, turning his eyes on her. "If M. Rubigneau," that was
the name of the member of the two Academies, "will be kind enough to
read a Latin sentence at random instead of answering by following the
Latin text, I will try to translate it impromptu." This second test
completed his glory.
Several Liberals were there, who, though rich, were none the less the
happy fathers of children capable of obtaining scholarships, and had
consequently been suddenly converted at the last mission. In spite of
this diplomatic step, M. de Rênal had never been willing to receive
them in his house. These worthy people, who only knew Julien by name
and from having seen him on horseback on the day of the king of ----'s
entry, were his most noisy admirers. "When will those fools get tired
of listening to this Biblical language, which they don't understand in
the least," he thought. But, on the contrary, that language amused them
by its strangeness and made them smile. But Julien got tired.
As six o'clock struck he got up gravely and talked about a chapter in
Ligorio's New Theology which he had to learn by heart to recite on the
following day to M. Chélan, "for," he added pleasantly, "my business is
to get lessons said by heart to me, and to say them by heart myself."
There was much laughter and admiration; such is the kind of wit which
is customary in Verrières. Julien had already got up and in spite of
etiquette everybody got up as well, so great is the dominion exercised
by genius. Madame Valenod kept him for another quarter of an hour. He
really must hear her children recite their catechisms. They made the
most absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He was careful not to
point them out. "What ignorance of the first principles of religion,"
he thought. Finally he bowed and thought he could get away; but they
insisted on his trying a fable of La Fontaine.
"That author is quite immoral," said Julien to Madame Valenod. A
certain fable on Messire Jean Chouart dares to pour ridicule on
all that we hold most venerable. He is shrewdly blamed by the best
commentators. Before Julien left he received four or five invitations
to dinner. "This young man is an honour to the department," cried all
the guests in chorus. They even went so far as to talk of a pension
voted out of the municipal funds to put him in the position of
continuing his studies at Paris.
While this rash idea was resounding through the dining-room Julien
had swiftly reached the front door. "You scum, you scum," he cried,
three or four times in succession in a low voice as he indulged in the
pleasure of breathing in the fresh air.
He felt quite an aristocrat at this moment, though he was the very
man who had been shocked for so long a period by the haughty smile of
disdainful superiority which he detected behind all the courtesies
addressed to him at M. de Rênal's. He could not help realising the
extreme difference. Why let us even forget the fact of its being money