The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
of Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince
Korasoff. They waited for an hour. The way in which Julien conducted
himself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted
as a precedent among the young secretaries of the London Embassy. His
demeanour was unimpeachable.
In spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the
celebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had
since Locke. He found him finishing his seventh year in prison. The
aristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien. Moreover Vane
is disgraced, calumniated, etc.
Julien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy
prevented him from being bored. "There's the only merry man I've seen
in England," thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison.
"The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God," Vane had
said to him.
We suppress the rest of the system as being cynical.
"What amusing notion do you bring me from England?" said M. la Mole to
him on his return. He was silent. "What notion do you bring me, amusing
or otherwise?" repeated the marquis sharply.
"In the first place," said Julien, "The sanest Englishman is mad one
hour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local
God.
"In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five per cent.
of their value when they disembark in England.
"In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so
admirable, so touching, as the English landscapes."
"Now it is my turn," said the marquis.
"In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian
Ambassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty
in France who passionately desire war? Do you think that is nice for
the kings?"
"One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats," said
Julien. "They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one
confines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a
fool. If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and
at a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary
of the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been
unbecoming."
"Not bad," said the marquis laughing. "Anyway I will wager Monsieur
Deep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England."
"Pardon me," answered Julien. "I went there to dine once a week with
the king's ambassador, who is the most polite of men."
"You went to fetch this cross you see here," said the marquis to him.
"I do not want to make you leave off your black suit, and I have got
accustomed to the more amusing tone I have assumed with the man who
wears the blue suit. So understand this until further orders. When I
see this cross, you will be my friend, the Duke of Chaulne's younger
son, who has been employed in the diplomatic service the last six
months without having any idea of it. Observe," added the marquis
very seriously, cutting short all manifestations of thanks, "that I
do not want you to forget your place. That is always a mistake and a
misfortune both for patron and for dependent. When my lawsuits bore
you, or when you no longer suit me, I will ask a good living like that
of our good friend the abbé Pirard's for you, and nothing more," added
the marquis dryly. This put Julien's pride at its ease. He talked much
more. He did not so frequently think himself insulted and aimed at by
those phrases which are susceptible of some interpretation which is
scarcely polite, and which anybody may give utterance to in the course
of an animated conversation.
This cross earned him a singular visit. It was that of the baron de
Valenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his barony, and
arrive at an understanding with him. He was going to be nominated mayor
of Verrières, and to supersede M. de Rênal.
Julien did not fail to smile to himself when M. Valenod gave him to
understand that they had just found out that M. de Rênal was a Jacobin.
The fact was that the new baron was the ministerial candidate at the
election for which they were all getting ready, and that it was M. de
Rênal who was the Liberal candidate at the great electoral college of
the department, which was, in fact, very ultra.
It was in vain that Julien tried to learn something about madame de
Rênal. The baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was
impenetrable. He concluded by canvassing Julien for his father's vote
at the election which was going to take place. Julien promised to write.
"You ought, monsieur le Chevalier, to present me to M. the marquis de
la Mole."
"I ought, as a matter of fact," thought Julien. "But a rascal like
that!"
"As a matter of fact," he answered, "I am too small a personage in the
Hôtel de la Mole to take it upon myself to introduce anyone." Julien
told the marquis everything. In the evening he described Valenod's
pretensions, as well as his deeds and feats since 1814.
"Not only will you present the new baron to me," replied de la Mole,
very seriously, "but I will invite him to dinner for the day after
to-morrow. He will be one of our new prefects."
"If that is the case, I ask for my father the post of director of the
workhouse," answered Julien, coldly.
"With pleasure," answered the marquis gaily. "It shall be granted. I
was expecting a lecture. You are getting on."
M. de Valenod informed Julien that the manager of the lottery office at
Verrières had just died. Julien thought it humorous to give that place
to M. de Cholin, the old dotard whose petition he had once picked up in
de la Mole's room. The marquis laughed heartily at the petition, which
Julien recited as he made him sign the letter which requested that
appointment of the minister of finance.
M. de Cholin had scarcely been nominated, when Julien learnt that that
post had been asked by the department for the celebrated geometrician,
monsieur Gros. That generous man had an income of only 1400 francs, and
every year had lent 600 to the late manager who had just died, to help
him bring up his family.
Julien was astonished at what he had done.
"That's nothing," he said to himself. "It will be necessary to commit
several other injustices if I mean to get on, and also to conceal them
beneath pretty, sentimental speeches. Poor monsieur Gros! It is he who
deserves the cross. It is I who have it, and I ought to conform to the
spirit of the Government which gives it me."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHAT IS THE DECORATION WHICH CONFERS DISTINCTION?
"Thy water refreshes me not," said the transformed genie.
"'Tis nevertheless the freshest well in all Diar-Békir"--_Pellico_.
One day Julien had just returned from the charming estate of Villequier
on the banks of the Seine, which was the especial subject of M. de la
Mole's interest because it was the only one of all his properties which
had belonged to the celebrated Boniface de la Mole.
He found the marquise and her daughter, who had just come back from
Hyères, in the hotel. Julien was a dandy now, and understood the art of
Paris life. He manifested a perfect coldness towards mademoiselle de la
Mole. He seemed to have retained no recollection of the day when she
had asked him so gaily for details of his fall from his horse.
Mademoiselle de la Mole thought that he had grown taller and paler.
There was no longer anything of the provincial in his figure or his
appearance. It was not so with his conversation. Too much of the
serious and too much of the positive element were still noticeable. In
spite of these sober qualities, his conversation, thanks to his pride,
was destitute of any trace of the subordinate. One simply felt that
there were still too many things which he took seriously. But one saw
that he was the kind of man to stick to his guns.
"He lacks lightness of touch, but not brains," said mademoiselle de la
Mole to her father, as she rallied him on the cross that he had given
Julien. "My brother has been asking you for it for sixteen months, and
he is a La Mole."
"Yes, but Julien has surprises, and that's what the de la Mole, whom
you were referring to, has never been guilty of."
M. the duc de Retz was announced.
Mathilde felt herself seized by an irresistible attack of yawning. She
knew so well the old gildings and the old habitués of her father's
salon. She conjured up an absolutely boring picture of the life which
she was going to take up at Paris, and yet, when at Hyères, she had
regretted Paris.
"And yet I am nineteen," she thought. "That's the age of happiness, say
all those gilt-edged ninnies."
She looked at eight or ten new volumes of poetry which had accumulated
on the table in the salon during her journey in Provence. She had the
misfortune to have more brains than M.M. de Croisnois, de Caylus, de
Luz, and her other friends. She anticipated all that they were going to
tell her about the fine sky of Provence, poetry, the South, etc., etc.
These fine eyes, which were the home of the deepest ennui, and worse
still, of the despair of ever finding pleasure, lingered on Julien. At
any rate, he was not exactly like the others.
"Monsieur Sorel," she said, in that short, sharp voice, destitute of
all femininity, which is so frequent among young women of the upper
class.
"Monsieur Sorel, are you coming to-night to M. de Retz's ball?"
"Mademoiselle, I have not had the honour of being presented to M. the
duke." (One would have said that these words and that title seared the
mouth of the proud provincial).
"He asked my brother to take you there, and if you go, you could
tell me some details about the Villequier estate. We are thinking of
going there in the spring, and I would like to know if the château is
habitable, and if the neighbouring places are as pretty as they say.
There are so many unmerited reputations."
Julien did not answer.
"Come to the ball with my brother," she added, very dryly. Julien bowed
respectfully.
"So I owe my due to the members of the family, even in the middle of a
ball. Am I not paid to be their business man?" His bad temper added,
"God knows, moreover, if what I tell the daughter will not put out the
plans of the father, brother, and mother. It is just like the court of
a sovereign prince. You have to be absolutely negative, and yet give no
one any right to complain."
"How that big girl displeases me!" he thought, as he watched the walk
of Mademoiselle de la Mole, whom her mother had called to present to
several women friends of hers. She exaggerates all the fashions. Her
dress almost falls down to her shoulders, she is even paler than before
she went away. How nondescript her hair has grown as the result of
being blonde! You would say that the light passed through it.
What a haughty way of bowing and of looking at you! What queenly
gestures! Mademoiselle de la Mole had just called her brother at the
moment when he was leaving the salon.
The comte de Norbert approached Julien.
"My dear Sorel," he said to him. "Where would you like me to pick you
up to-night for Monsieur's ball. He expressly asked me to bring you."
"I know well whom I have to thank for so much kindness," answered
Julien bowing to the ground.
His bad temper, being unable to find anything to lay hold of in the
polite and almost sympathetic tone in which Norbert had spoken to
him, set itself to work on the answer he had made to that courteous
invitation. He detected in it a trace of subservience.
When he arrived at the ball in the evening, he was struck with the
magnificence of the Hôtel de Retz. The courtyard at the entrance was
covered with an immense tent of crimson with golden stars. Nothing
could have been more elegant. Beyond the tent, the court had been