The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
me what I had to do.
"Next day I asked the terrible Zingarelli for an audience. His old
valet ushered me in.
"'What do you want of me, you naughty boy?' said Zingarelli.
"'Maestro,' I said, 'I repent of all my faults. I will never go out of
the Conservatoire by passing through the iron grill. I will redouble my
diligence.'
"'If I were not frightened of spoiling the finest bass voice I have
ever heard, I would put you in prison for a fortnight on bread and
water, you rascal.'
"'Maestro,' I answered, 'I will be the model boy of the whole school,
_credete a me_, but I would ask one favour of you. If anyone comes and
asks permission for me to sing outside, refuse. As a favour, please say
that you cannot let me.'
"'And who the devil do you think is going to ask for a ne'er-do-well
like you? Do you think I should ever allow you to leave the
Conservatoire? Do you want to make fun of me? Clear out! Clear out!' he
said, trying to give me a kick, 'or look out for prison and dry bread.'"
One thing astonished Julien. The solitary weeks passed at Verrières in
de Rênal's house had been a period of happiness for him. He had only
experienced revulsions and sad thoughts at the dinners to which he had
been invited. And was he not able to read, write and reflect, without
being distracted, in this solitary house? He was not distracted every
moment from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying
the movement of a false soul in order to deceive it by intrigue and
hypocrisy.
"To think of happiness being so near to me--the expense of a life
like that is small enough. I could have my choice of either marrying
Mademoiselle Elisa or of entering into partnership with Fouqué. But it
is only the traveller who has just scaled a steep mountain and sits
down on the summit who finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be
happy if he had to rest all the time?"
Madame de Rênal's mind had now reached a state of desperation. In spite
of her resolutions, she had explained to Julien all the details of the
auction. "He will make me forget all my oaths!" she thought.
She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save that
of her husband if she had seen him in danger. She was one of those
noble, romantic souls who find a source of perpetual remorse equal to
that occasioned by the actual perpetration of a crime, in seeing the
possibility of a generous action and not doing it. None the less, there
were deadly days when she was not able to banish the imagination of
the excessive happiness which she would enjoy if she suddenly became a
widow, and were able to marry Julien.
He loved her sons much more than their father did; in spite of his
strict justice they were devoted to him. She quite realised that if
she married Julien, it would be necessary to leave that Vergy, whose
shades were so dear to her. She pictured herself living at Paris, and
continuing to give her sons an education which would make them admired
by everyone. Her children, herself, and Julien! They would be all
perfectly happy!
Strange result of marriage such as the nineteenth century has made it!
The boredom of matrimonial life makes love fade away inevitably, when
love has preceded the marriage. But none the less, said a philosopher,
married life soon reduces those people who are sufficiently rich
not to have to work, to a sense of being utterly bored by all quiet
enjoyments. And among women, it is only arid souls whom it does not
predispose to love.
The philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Madame de Rênal, but she
was not excused in Verrières, and without her suspecting it, the whole
town found its sole topic of interest in the scandal of her intrigue.
As a result of this great affair, the autumn was less boring than usual.
The autumn and part of the winter passed very quickly. It was necessary
to leave the woods of Vergy. Good Verrières society began to be
indignant at the fact that its anathemas made so little impression on
Monsieur de Rênal. Within eight days, several serious personages who
made up for their habitual gravity of demeanour by their pleasure in
fulfilling missions of this kind, gave him the most cruel suspicions,
at the same time utilising the most measured terms.
M. Valenod, who was playing a deep game, had placed Elisa in an
aristocratic family of great repute, where there were five women.
Elisa, fearing, so she said, not to find a place during the winter, had
only asked from this family about two-thirds of what she had received
in the house of the mayor. The girl hit upon the excellent idea of
going to confession at the same time to both the old curé Chélan,
and also to the new one, so as to tell both of them in detail about
Julien's amours.
The day after his arrival, the abbé Chélan summoned Julien to him at
six o'clock in the morning.
"I ask you nothing," he said. "I beg you, and if needs be I insist,
that you either leave for the Seminary of Besançon, or for your friend
Fouqué, who is always ready to provide you with a splendid future. I
have seen to everything and have arranged everything, but you must
leave, and not come back to Verrières for a year."
Julien did not answer. He was considering whether his honour ought to
regard itself offended at the trouble which Chélan, who, after all, was
not his father, had taken on his behalf.
"I shall have the honour of seeing you again to-morrow at the same
hour," he said finally to the curé.
Chélan, who reckoned on carrying so young a man by storm, talked a
great deal. Julien, cloaked in the most complete humbleness, both of
demeanour and expression, did not open his lips.
Eventually he left, and ran to warn Madame de Rênal whom he found in
despair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain amount of
frankness. The weakness of his character found support in the prospect
of the legacy, and had decided him to treat her as perfectly innocent.
He had just confessed to her the strange state in which he had found
public opinion in Verrières. The public was wrong; it had been misled
by jealous tongues. But, after all, what was one to do?
Madame de Rênal was, for the moment, under the illusion that Julien
would accept the offer of Valenod and stay at Verrières. But she was no
longer the simple, timid woman that she had been the preceding year.
Her fatal passion and remorse had enlightened her. She soon realised
the painful truth (while at the same time she listened to her husband),
that at any rate a temporary separation had become essential.
When he is far from me, Julien will revert to those ambitious projects
which are so natural when one has no money. And I, Great God! I am so
rich, and my riches are so useless for my happiness. He will forget
me. Loveable as he is, he will be loved, and he will love. You unhappy
woman. What can I complain of? Heaven is just. I was not virtuous
enough to leave off the crime. Fate robs me of my judgment. I could
easily have bribed Elisa if I had wanted to; nothing was easier. I did
not take the trouble to reflect for a moment. The mad imagination of
love absorbed all my time. I am ruined.
When Julien apprised Madame de Rênal of the terrible news of his
departure, he was struck with one thing. He did not find her put
forward any selfish objections. She was evidently making efforts not to
cry.
"We have need of firmness, my dear." She cut off a strand of her hair.
"I do no know what I shall do," she said to him, "but promise me if I
die, never to forget my children. Whether you are far or near, try to
make them into honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles
will have their throats cut. Their father will probably emigrate,
because of that peasant on the roof who got killed. Watch over my
family. Give me your hand. Adieu, my dear. These are our last moments.
Having made this great sacrifice, I hope I shall have the courage to
consider my reputation in public."
Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell
touched him.
"No, I am not going to receive your farewell like this. I will leave
you now, as you yourself wish it. But three days after my departure I
will come back to see you at night."
Madame de Rênal's life was changed. So Julien really loved her, since
of his own accord he had thought of seeing her again. Her awful grief
became changed into one of the keenest transports of joy which she had
felt in her whole life. Everything became easy for her. The certainty
of seeing her lover deprived these last moments of their poignancy.
From that moment, both Madame de Rênal's demeanour and the expression
of her face were noble, firm, and perfectly dignified.
M. de Rênal soon came back. He was beside himself. He eventually
mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two
months before.
"I will take it to the Casino, and shew everybody that it has been sent
by that brute Valenod, whom I took out of the gutter and made into one
of the richest tradesmen in Verrières. I will disgrace him publicly,
and then I will fight him. This is too much."
"Great Heavens! I may become a widow," thought Madame de Rênal, and
almost at the same time she said to herself,
"If I do not, as I certainly can, prevent this duel, I shall be the
murderess of my own husband."
She had never expended so much skill in honoring his vanity. Within
two hours she made him see, and always by virtue of reasons which he
discovered himself, that it was necessary to show more friendship than
ever to M. Valenod, and even to take Elisa back into the household.
Madame de Rênal had need of courage to bring herself to see again the
girl who was the cause of her unhappiness. But this idea was one of
Julien's. Finally, having been put on the track three or four times,
M. de Rênal arrived spontaneously at the conclusion, disagreeable
though it was from the financial standpoint, that the most painful
thing that could happen to him would be that Julien, in the middle of
the effervescence of popular gossip throughout Verrières, should stay
in the town as the tutor of Valenod's children. It was obviously to
Julien's interest to accept the offer of the director of the workhouse.
Conversely, it was essential for M. de Rênal's prestige that Julien
should leave Verrières to enter the seminary of Besançon or that of
Dijon. But how to make him decide on that course? And then how is he
going to live?
M. de Rênal, seeing a monetary sacrifice looming in the distance,
was in deeper despair than his wife. As for her, she felt after this
interview in the position of a man of spirit who, tired of life, has
taken a dose of stramonium. He only acts mechanically so to speak, and
takes no longer any interest in anything. In this way, Louis XIV. came
to say on his death-bed, "When I was king." An admirable epigram.
Next morning, M. de Rênal received quite early an anonymous letter.
It was written in a most insulting style, and the coarsest words
applicable to his position occurred on every line. It was the work of
some jealous subordinate. This letter made him think again of fighting
a duel with Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as the idea of
immediate action. He left the house alone, went to the armourer's and
got some pistols which he loaded.
"Yes, indeed," he said to himself, "even though the strict
administration of the Emperor Napoleon were to become fashionable
again, I should not have one sou's worth of jobbery to reproach myself
with; at the outside, I have shut my eyes, and I have some good letters
in my desk which authorise me to do so."
Madame de Rênal was terrified by her husband's cold anger. It recalled
to her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had so much trouble in
repelling. She closeted herself with him. For several hours she talked