The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century

by Stendhal

  This sudden resolve left Mme de Rênal deep in thought. She was a tall, well-built woman who had been the local beauty, as they say in the mountains round here. She had an artless air about her, and a youthful way of walking. To the eyes of a Parisian, this natural charm, full of lively innocence, would even have been enough to conjure up thoughts of sweet pleasure. Had she known she had this kind of success, Mme de Rênal would have felt deeply ashamed of it. Her heart was

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  quite untouched by coquetry or affectation. M. Valenod, the wealthy master of the workhouse, was believed to have tried to win her favours, but with no success. This had cast a dazzling light on her virtue since this M. Valenod, a tall, powerfully built young man with a ruddy complexion and big black sidewhiskers, was one of those vulgar, brazen, loud individuals who are called handsome fellows in the provinces.

  Mme de Rênal, who was extremely shy and seemed highly impressionable, * was especially disturbed by M. Valenod's constant movements and his loud voice. What the people of Verrières call the pleasures of the flesh were something totally alien to her, and this had given her the reputation of being very proud of her origins. Nothing could have been further from her thoughts, but she had been delighted to find the townsfolk visiting her less often. I shall not conceal the fact that she was considered silly by their ladies, because she never tried to manipulate her husband, and let slip the most marvellous opportunities of getting him to buy hats for her in Paris or Besançon. As long as she was left to wander alone in her beautiful garden she never uttered a word of complaint.

  She was a naïve creature who had never ventured so much as to judge her husband and admit to herself that she found him boring. She imagined without putting it into words that no husband and wife enjoyed a more tender relationship. She was particularly fond of M. de Rênal when he talked to her about his plans for their children, one of whom he destined for the army, the next for the magistracy and the third for the Church. In short, she found M. p far less boring than all the other men of her acquaintance.

  This conjugal opinion was well founded. The mayor of Verrières had a reputation for wit and above all for good taste, which he owed to the half-dozen jokes he had inherited from an uncle. Old Captain de Rênal had served in the Duke of Orleans' * infantry regiment before the Revolution, and when he went to Paris he was admitted to the duke's salons. There he had set eyes on Mme de Montesson, * the famous Mme de Genlis, and M. Ducrest, the creator of the Palais-Royal. These characters made all too frequent appearances in Mme de Rênal's anecdotes. But gradually it had become an effort for

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  him to remember things which had to be recounted with such subtlety, and for some time now he had not repeated his anecdotes about the House of Orleans except on grand occasions. Since, moreover, he was extremely polite except when the conversation was about money, he was rightly considered to be the most aristocratic person in Verrières.

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  CHAPTER 4

  Father and son

  E sarà mia colpa

  Se cosi è?

  MACHIAVELLI *

  'MY good lady * really is pretty shrewd!' said the mayor of Verrières to himself at six o'clock the following morning as he was walking down to old Mr Sorel's mill. 'Whatever I may have said to her to maintain a fitting show of superiority, it hadn't occurred to me that if I don't take on the young abbé * Sorel, who is said to know Latin like an angel, the master of the workhouse, that eternal agitator, could well have the very same idea, and snap him up first. How smugly he'd talk about his children's tutor! . . . Now will this tutor wear a cassock once he's in my employment?'

  M. de Rênal was pondering this question when he caught sight of a peasant in the distance, a man nearly six foot tall, who seemed very busy at this early hour of the morning measuring pieces of wood stacked up along the towpath by the Doubs. He did not look at all pleased to see his worship approaching, for his pieces of wood were blocking the path, and had been stacked there contrary to regulations.

  Old Mr Sorel--for it was the man himself--was most surprised and still more pleased at the unusual proposition which M. de Rênal was making to him in respect of his son Julien. This did not prevent him from listening with that air of surly gloom and indifference which the inhabitants of these mountains are so good at putting on to cover up their cunning. Having been slaves at the time of Spanish rule, they still keep this characteristic of the Egyptian fellah's countenance.

  Sorel's reply at first consisted entirely of a lengthy recital of all the formulas of respect he knew by heart. While he was reeling off these empty words with an awkward smile which increased the shifty, almost deceitful look he habitually wore on his face, the old peasant's fertile mind was trying to work

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  out what could possibly induce such an important person to take his good-for-nothing son into his own household. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with Julien, and Julien was the one for whom M. de Rênal was offering him the undreamed of wage of three hundred francs a year, with his keep and even his clothes thrown in. This last demand, which old Mr Sorel had had the brilliant idea of putting forward out of the blue, had been accepted forthwith by M. de Rênal.

  The mayor was struck by this request. Since Sorel isn't delighted and overcome by my proposition, as of course he should be, it's clear, he said to himself, that he's received offers from another quarter. And where can they come from if not from friend Valenod? M. de Rênal tried in vain to get Sorel to make a deal on the spot, but the old peasant's scheming mind was dead against it. He wanted, so he said, to consult his son, as if in the provinces a rich father consults a penniless son except for form's sake.

  A water-driven sawmill consists of a shed on the banks of a stream. The roof is held up by a frame supported on four stout wooden posts. Eight to ten feet off the ground, in the middle of the shed, there is a saw which goes up and down while a very simple mechanism pushes a piece of wood against it. A wheel powered by the stream drives this dual mechanism: to raise and lower the saw and to push the piece of wood gently towards it so that it gets cut into planks.

  As he approached his mill, old Mr Sorel called out to Julien in his stentorian voice. No one answered. The only people visible were his elder sons, giant-like figures armed with heavy axes, who were squaring off the fir logs they were going to take to the saw. They were intent on cutting accurately along the black lines drawn on the pieces of wood, and each blow of their axes sent huge chips flying. They did not hear their father's voice. He made his way over to the shed, and on entering looked in vain for Julien in the place where he should have been--by the saw. He sighted him five or six feet higher up, astride one of the roof timbers. Instead of giving his attention to supervising the operation of the whole machine, Julien was reading. Nothing was more repugnant to old Sorel. He might perhaps have forgiven Julien his slender build, ill-

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  suited to heavy manual labour and so unlike that of his elder brothers; but he could not abide this obsession with reading-he could not read himself.

  He called Julien two or three times to no avail. It was not so much the noise of the saw as his absorption in his book that prevented the young man from hearing his father's thundering voice. At length, in spite of his age, the latter jumped nimbly onto the tree-trunk which was being sawn up, and from there to the cross-beam supporting the roof. A violent blow sent the book flying out of Julien's hands into the stream; a second blow delivered just as violently sideways across the top of his head made Julien lose his balance. He was just about to fall down twelve feet or more right into the moving levers of the machine and be broken to bits, but his father caught him with his left hand as he fell.

  'You lazybones, you! won't you ever stop reading your blasted books while you're on duty by the saw, eh? You can read 'em in the evening when you go off wasting your time at the priest's, if I may make a suggestion.' Julien was stunned by the force of the blow and covered in blood, but he started down towards his officia
l post next to the saw. There were tears in his eyes, not so much on account of the physical pain as for the loss of his beloved book.

  'Down with you, you brute, I want to talk to you.' The noise of the machine again prevented Julien from hearing this command. His father, who had got down and did not want to go to the trouble of climbing back onto the machine, fetched a long pole used for knocking down walnuts and banged him on the shoulder with it. Julien was scarcely on the ground before old Sorel pushed him roughly along in front of him in the direction of the house. God knows what he's going to do to me, the young man said to himself. As he passed, he looked sadly into the stream where his book had fallen: it was the one he treasured more than all the rest, the St Helena Chronicle. *

  His checks were flushed and he kept his eyes on the ground. He was a small, frail-looking young man of eighteen or nineteen, with irregular but delicate features, and a roman nose. His large dark eyes which in moments of calm suggested a reflective streak and a fiery temperament, shone at that

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  instant with an expression of the most ferocious hatred. He had a low forehead framed by dark chestnut hair, and when he was angry, this gave him a fierce expression. Among the countless varieties of human face, it would be difficult to imagine a more strikingly individual one. His slim and shapely figure suggested nimbleness rather than strength. Right from early childhood his deeply pensive air and his pallor had convinced his father that he would not survive, or that if he did he would be a burden on his family. The butt of everyone's scorn at home, he hated his brothers and his father. He was always beaten in the games played on Sundays in the town square.

  It was less than a year since his pretty face had begun to win him allies among the girls. Despised by everyone for his frailty, Julien had adored the old army surgeon who one day dared to speak to the mayor about the plane trees.

  The surgeon would sometimes pay old Mr Sorel a day's wages for his son, and would teach him Latin and history, that is, all the history he knew: the Italian campaigns of 1796. On his death he had bequeathed him his Legion of Honour cross, the arrears on his half pay, and thirty or forty books, the most precious of which had just landed in the public stream that had been diverted at his worship's expense.

  As soon as he stepped inside the house, Julien was pulled to a halt by the heavy hand of his father on his shoulder. He trembled in the expectation of a beating.

  'Answer me without lying,' bellowed the harsh voice of the old peasant in his ear, while his hand turned him round like a child's hand turning a tin soldier. Julien's big black eyes, welling with tears, were met by the malicious little grey eyes of the old carpenter who looked as if he wanted to read into the depths of his soul.

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  CHAPTER 5

  Striking a bargain

  Cunctando restituit rem

  ENNIUS *

  'ANSWER me without lying if you're capable of it, you revolting bookworm! How do you know Mme de Rênal? When have you spoken to her?'

  'I've never spoken to her,' replied Julien, 'I've only ever seen the lady at church.'

  'Then you must have looked at her, eh? you cheeky devil!'

  'Never! You know I only have eyes for God in church,' Julien added with a hypocritical look on his face, specially designed, as he thought, to ward off further blows.

  'There's something going on here, all the same,' retorted the 'wily peasant, and he fell silent for a moment. 'But I won't get anything out of you, you blasted hypocrite. As a matter of fact, I'm going to be rid of you, and my saw will do all the better for it. You've won over Father Chélan or his likes, and they've found you a fine situation. Go and pack your bundle, and I'll take you off to M. de Rênal's, where you're going to be tutor to the children.'

  'What'll I get for it?'

  'Your board and lodging, your clothing and three hundred francs in wages.'

  'I don't want to be a servant.'

  'No one's talking about being a servant, you dolt! Would I want my son to be a servant?'

  'But then who am I going to have my meals with?'

  This question threw old Sorel. He realized that if he said any more he might put his foot in it. He lost his temper with Julien, swearing profusely at him and accusing him of being greedy, and went off to consult his other sons.

  Julien saw them soon afterwards, leaning on their axes, deep in council. He watched them for a long time, but was unable to guess what they were saying, so he went and stationed

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  himself on the far side of the saw to avoid being caught spying. He wanted to think about this unexpected news which was changing his destiny, but he felt incapable of acting prudently. His imagination was completely taken up with picturing what he would see in M. de Rênal's fine house.

  I must give up the whole idea, he said to himself, rather than sink to eating with the servants. My father will try to make me, but I'd rather die. I've got fifteen francs and eight sous in my savings; I'll run away tonight and get to Besançon in two days by cutting across country on paths where I'm in no danger of meeting an officer of the law. There, I'll enlist in the army and, if need be, cross into Switzerland. But that means goodbye to any chance of bettering myself, goodbye to all my ambition, and goodbye to the priesthood--that fine profession which opens all doors.

  This horror of eating with the servants was not natural to Julien; he would have done far more distasteful things as a means to fortune. He got this repugnance from Rousseau's * Confessions, the one book his imagination drew on to help him picture the world. The collected bulletins of Napoleon's great army and the St Helena Chronicle completed his Koran. He would have given his life for these three works. He never put his faith in any other. In accordance with one of the old army surgeon's sayings, he regarded all the other books in the world as a pack of lies, written by rogues to better themselves.

  Along with his fiery temperament, Julien had one of those amazing memories which so often go with silliness. To win over old Father Chélan, on whom it was plain to him that his own future lot depended, he had learnt off by heart the whole of the New Testament in Latin. He also knew J. de Maistre's book On the Pope, * and believed as little in the one as in the other.

  As if by mutual agreement, Sorel and his son avoided speaking to each other for the rest of the day. At dusk Julien went off to have his theology lesson from the priest, but did not consider it wise to say anything to him about the strange proposal his father had received. It may be a trap, he said to himself, I must pretend to have forgotten all about it.

  Early next morning M. de Rênal summoned old Sorel, who

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  kept him waiting well over an hour before he finally turned up, making innumerable excuses the moment he was inside the door, with a little bow between each one. By dint of enumerating all kinds of objections, Sorel gathered that his son would eat with the master and mistress of the house, and on days when they had company, alone in a separate room with the children. Becoming ever more inclined to raise difficulties the more genuinely keen he detected his worship to be, and being in any case full of mistrust and amazement, Sorel asked to see the bedroom where his son would sleep. It was a large, very decently furnished room, but the three children's beds were already in the process of being moved into it.

  This circumstance was a revelation to the old peasant. He at once asked confidently to see the suit of clothes his son was to be given. M. de Rênal opened his desk and took out a hundred francs.

  'With this money your son will go to M. Durand the draper and have a full black suit made to order.'

  'And even if I took him out of your service,' said the peasant, suddenly forgetting to speak with respect, 'he'd keep this black suit?'

  'I dare say.'

  'Well then!' said Sorel in drawling tones, 'there only remains one thing for us to agree on--the money you'll give him.'

  'What!' exclaimed M. de Rênal indignantly. 'We agreed on that yesterday: I'm giving him three hundred francs. I think that's a lot
, maybe too much.'

  'That was your offer, I don't deny it,' said old Sorel, speaking even more slowly; and, with a stroke of genius which will only surprise those unfamiliar with peasants from the Franche-Comté, he added, looking straight at M. de Rênal, 'We've had a better offer.'

  A look of consternation came over the mayor when he heard this. But he pulled himself together, and after a masterly dialogue lasting over two hours, in which no word was said at random, the peasant's shrewdness got the better of the rich man's, the latter not having to rely on shrewdness for his livelihood. All the detailed arrangements which were to govern Julien's new existence were hammered out: not only were his

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  wages fixed at four hundred francs a year, but they had to be paid in advance, on the first of each month.

  'Right then! I'll give him thirty-five francs,' said the mayor.

  'To make a round number,' said the peasant ingratiatingly, 'a man as rich and generous as your worship will surely go up to thirty-six francs.' *

  'All right,' said the mayor, 'but that's the end of the matter.'

  This time, anger made him sound resolute. The peasant saw that he must stop there. It was then M. de Rênal's turn to score some points. He was adamant that he would not hand over the first month's pay of thirty-six francs to old Sorel, who was most anxious to receive it on his son's behalf. It occurred to M. de Rênal that he would be obliged to describe to his wife the role he had played in all this bargaining.

  'Hand back the hundred francs I gave you,' he said in annoyance. 'M. Durand owes me something. I shall go with your son to have the black cloth cut.'