The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
himself a coward to have resorted to them. "What a fool I am," he
exclaimed, towards the end of the horrible day that he had spent
entirely in walking up and down his narrow turret. "It's only, if I
had been going to die like anybody else, that the sight of that poor
old man would have had any right to have thrown me into this awful fit
of sadness: but a rapid death in the flower of my age simply puts me
beyond the reach of such awful senility."
In spite of all his argumentation, Julien felt as touched as any
weak-minded person would have been, and consequently felt unhappy
as the result of the visit. He no longer had any element of rugged
greatness, or any Roman virtue. Death appeared to him at a great height
and seemed a less easy proposition.
"This is what I shall take for my thermometer," he said to himself.
"To-night I am ten degrees below the courage requisite for
guillotine-point level. I had that courage this morning. Anyway, what
does it matter so long as it comes back to me at the necessary moment?"
This thermometer idea amused him and finally managed to distract him.
When he woke up the next day he was ashamed of the previous day. "My
happiness and peace of mind are at stake." He almost made up his mind
to write to the Procureur-General to request that no one should be
admitted to see him. "And how about Fouqué," he thought? "If he takes
it upon himself to come to Besançon, his grief will be immense."
It had perhaps been two months since he had given Fouqué a thought.
"I was a great fool at Strasbourg. My thoughts did not go beyond my
coat-collar. He was much engrossed by the memory of Fouqué, which
left him more and more touched. He walked nervously about. Here I
am, clearly twenty degrees below death point.... If this weakness
increases, it will be better for me to kill myself. What joy for the
abbé Maslon, and the Valenods, if I die like an usher."
Fouqué arrived. The good, simple man, was distracted by grief. His one
idea, so far as he had any at all, was to sell all he possessed in
order to bribe the gaoler and secure Julien's escape. He talked to him
at length of M. de Lavalette's escape.
"You pain me," Julien said to him. "M. de Lavalette was innocent--I
am guilty. Though you did not mean to, you made me think of the
difference...."
"But is it true? What? were you going to sell all you possessed?" said
Julien, suddenly becoming mistrustful and observant.
Fouqué was delighted at seeing his friend answer his obsessing idea,
and detailed at length, and within a hundred francs, what he would get
for each of his properties.
"What a sublime effort for a small country land-owner," thought Julien.
"He is ready to sacrifice for me the fruits of all the economies, and
all the little semi-swindling tricks which I used to be ashamed of when
I saw him practice them."
"None of the handsome young people whom I saw in the Hôtel de la Mole,
and who read René, would have any of his ridiculous weaknesses: but,
except those who are very young and who have also inherited riches
and are ignorant of the value of money, which of all those handsome
Parisians would be capable of such a sacrifice?"
All Fouqué's mistakes in French and all his common gestures seemed to
disappear. He threw himself into his arms. Never have the provinces
in comparison with Paris received so fine a tribute. Fouqué was so
delighted with the momentary enthusiasm which he read in his friend's
eyes that he took it for consent to the flight.
This view of the sublime recalled to Julien all the strength that the
apparition of M. Chélan had made him lose. He was still very young;
but in my view he was a fine specimen. Instead of his character passing
from tenderness to cunning, as is the case with the majority of men,
age would have given him that kindness of heart which is easily melted
... but what avail these vain prophecies.
The interrogations became more frequent in spite of all the efforts
of Julien, who always endeavoured by his answers to shorten the whole
matter.
"I killed, or at any rate, I wished to occasion death, and I did so
with premeditation," he would repeat every day. But the judge was
a pedant above everything. Julien's confessions had no effect in
curtailing the interrogations. The judge's conceit was wounded. Julien
did not know that they had wanted to transfer him into an awful cell,
and that it was only, thanks to Fouqué's efforts, that he was allowed
to keep his pretty room at the top of a hundred and eighty steps.
M. the abbé de Frilair was one of the important customers who entrusted
Fouqué with the purveying of their firewood. The good tradesmen managed
to reach the all powerful grand vicar. M. de Frilair informed him,
to his unspeakable delight, that he was so touched by Julien's good
qualities, and by the services which he had formerly rendered to the
seminary, that he intended to recommend him to the judges. Fouqué
thought he saw a hope of saving his friend, and as he went out, bowing
down to the ground, requested M. the grand vicar, to distribute a sum
of ten louis in masses to entreat the acquittal of the accused.
Fouqué was making a strange mistake. M. de Frilair was very far from
being a Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the good peasant
understand that he would do better to keep his money. Seeing that it
was impossible to be clear without being indiscreet, he advised him to
give that sum as alms for the use of the poor prisoners, who, in point
of fact, were destitute of everything.
"This Julien is a singular person, his action is unintelligible,"
thought M. de Frilair, "and I ought to find nothing unintelligible.
Perhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him.... In any case,
I shall get to the bottom of the matter, and shall perhaps find an
opportunity of putting fear into the heart of that madame de Rênal
who has no respect for us, and at the bottom detests me.... Perhaps
I might be able to utilise all this as a means of a brilliant
reconciliation with M. de la Mole, who has a weakness for the little
seminarist."
The settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks previously,
and the abbé Pirard had left Besançon after having duly mentioned
Julien's mysterious birth, on the very day when the unhappy man tried
to assassinate madame de Rênal in the church of Verrières.
There was only one disagreeable event between himself and his death
which Julien anticipated. He consulted Fouqué concerning his idea
of writing to M. the Procureur-General asking to be exempt from all
visits. This horror at the sight of a father, above all at a moment
like this, deeply shocked the honest middle-class heart of the wood
merchant.
He thought he understood why so many people had a passionate hatred for
his friend. He concealed his feelings out of respect for misfortune.
"In any case," he answered coldly, "such an order for privacy would not
be applied to your father."
CHAPTER LXVIII
A POWERFUL MAN
But her proceedings are so mysterious and her figure is
so elegant! Who can she be?--_Schiller_.
The doors of the turret opened very early on the following day.
"Oh! good God," he thought, "here's my father! What an unpleasant
scene!"
At the same time a woman dressed like a peasant rushed into his arms.
He had difficulty in recognising her. It was mademoiselle de la Mole.
"You wicked man! Your letter only told me where you were. As for what
you call your crime, but which is really nothing more or less than a
noble vengeance, which shews me all the loftiness of the heart which
beats within your bosom, I only got to know of it at Verrières."
In spite of all his prejudices against mademoiselle de la Mole,
prejudices moreover which he had not owned to himself quite frankly,
Julien found her extremely pretty. It was impossible not to recognise
both in what she had done and what she had said, a noble disinterested
feeling far above the level of anything that a petty vulgar soul would
have dared to do? He thought that he still loved a queen, and after a
few moments said to her with a remarkable nobility both of thought and
of elocution,
"I sketched out the future very clearly. After my death I intended to
remarry you to M. de Croisenois, who will officially of course then
marry a widow. The noble but slightly romantic soul of this charming
widow, who will have been brought back to the cult of vulgar prudence
by an astonishing and singular event which played in her life a part
as great as it was tragic, will deign to appreciate the very real
merit of the young marquis. You will resign yourself to be happy with
ordinary worldly happiness, prestige, riches, high rank. But, dear
Mathilde, if your arrival at Besançon is suspected, it will be a mortal
blow for M. de la Mole, and that is what I shall never forgive myself.
I have already caused him so much sorrow. The academician will say that
he has nursed a serpent in his bosom.
"I must confess that I little expected so much cold reason and so much
solicitude for the future," said mademoiselle de la Mole, slightly
annoyed. "My maid who is almost as prudent as you are, took a passport
for herself, and I posted here under the name of madam Michelet."
"And did madame Michelet find it so easy to get to see me?"
"Ah! you are still the same superior man whom I chose to favour. I
started by offering a hundred francs to one of the judge's secretaries,
who alleged at first that my admission into this turret was impossible.
But once he had got the money the worthy man kept me waiting, raised
objections, and I thought that he meant to rob me--" She stopped.
"Well?" said Julien.
"Do not be angry, my little Julien," she said, kissing him. "I was
obliged to tell my name to the secretary, who took me for a young
working girl from Paris in love with handsome Julien. As a matter of
fact those are his actual expressions. I swore to him, my dear, that I
was your wife, and I shall have a permit to see you every day."
"Nothing could be madder," thought Julien, "but I could not help it.
After all, M. de la Mole is so great a nobleman that public opinion
will manage to find an excuse for the young colonel who will marry
such a charming widow. My death will atone for everything;" and he
abandoned himself with delight to Mathilde's love. It was madness, it
was greatness of soul, it was the most remarkable thing possible. She
seriously suggested that she should kill herself with him.
After these first transports, when she had had her fill of the
happiness of seeing Julien, a keen curiosity suddenly invaded her soul.
She began to scrutinize her lover, and found him considerably above
the plane which she had anticipated. Boniface de La Mole seemed to be
brought to life again, but on a more heroic scale.
Mathilde saw the first advocates of the locality, and offended them by
offering gold too crudely, but they finished by accepting.
She promptly came to the conclusion that so far as dubious and far
reaching intrigues were concerned, everything depended at Besançon on
M. the abbé de Frilair.
She found at first overwhelming difficulties in obtaining an interview
with the all-powerful leader of the congregation under the obscure name
of madame Michelet. But the rumour of the beauty of a young dressmaker,
who was madly in love, and had come from Paris to Besançon to console
the young abbé Julien Sorel, spread over the town.
Mathilde walked about the Besançon streets alone: she hoped not to be
recognised. In any case, she thought it would be of some use to her
cause if she produced a great impression on the people. She thought, in
her madness, of making them rebel in order to save Julien as he walked
to his death. Mademoiselle de la Mole thought she was dressed simply