by Stendhal
-78-
goodbye to his friend early in the morning in order to spend the day amid the crags on the high moutain peak. He found his little grotto again, but his peace of mind was gone; his friend's proposition had robbed him of it. Like Hercules he found himself with a choice--not between vice and virtue, but between the unrelieved mediocrity of guaranteed well-being, and all the heroic dreams of his youth. It shows I haven't got real determination, he said to himself; and it was this doubt which caused him the greatest anguish. I'm not made of the stuff of great men, since I'm afraid that eight years spent earning my living may drain me of the sublime energy which gets extraordinary feats accomplished.
-79-
CHAPTER 13
Openwork stockings
A novel is a mirror you turn this way and that as you go down a path. SAINT-RÉAL *
WHEN Julien caught sight of the picturesque ruins of the old church in Vergy, he realized that for the past three days he hadn't thought once about Mme de Rênal. When I left the other day, that woman reminded me of the immeasurable distance between us; she treated me like a workman's son. No doubt she wanted to show me she regretted having abandoned her hand to me the evening before. . . What a pretty hand it is, though! and what a charming, noble look in that woman's eyes!
The option of making his fortune with Fouqué gave a degree of flexibility to Julien's reasoning, which was now less often flawed by annoyance and an acute sense of his own poverty and low standing in the eyes of the world. From the heights of his metaphorical promontory he was able to pass judgement-and he so to speak looked down--on both extreme poverty and the comfortable circumstances which he still called wealth. He was a long way from taking a philosophical view of his position, but he was lucid enough to feel different after his little journey into the mountains.
He was struck by how extremely agitated Mme de Rênal looked while listening to the short account of his journey which she had begged him to give her.
Fouqué had had plans to get married, but had been unlucky in love. He had confided at length in his friend during the course of their conversations together. Having found happiness too soon, Fouqué had discovered that he was not the only one to be loved. Julien had been astonished by everything he was told; he had learned so much that was new to him. His solitary life, fed entirely by his imagination and his wariness, had distanced him from any possible source of enlightenment.
Life for Mme de Rênal during his absence had been one long
-80-
series of different ordeals, all of them unbearable; she was genuinely ill.
'Now above all,' Mme Derville said to her when she saw Julien return, 'in your state of health, you're not to go into the garden this evening; the damp air would only make you much worse.'
Mme Derville was astonished to observe that her friend, who was always being taken to task by M. de Rênal for her excessively plain way of dressing, had just acquired some openwork stockings and some charming little shoes newly arrived from Paris. Mme de Rênal's sole distraction for the past. three days had been to cut out and get Elisa to run up a summer dress in a lovely fine fabric at the height of fashion. The dress only just got finished a few minutes after Julien's return; Mme de Rênal donned it there and then. Her friend was no longer in any doubt. She's in love, poor wretch! Mme Derville said to herself, and she understood all the strange manifestations of her illness.
She observed her talking to Julien. Pallor replaced her crimson flush. Anxiety was depicted in her eyes which gazed into the young tutor's. Mme de Rênal was expecting him to explain himself at any moment, and announce that he was either leaving the household or staying. After a terrible struggle, Mme de Rênal at last plucked up courage to ask him, in a trembling voice which betrayed all her passion:
'Will you be leaving your pupils to take a position elsewhere?'
Julien was struck by Mme de Rênal's quavering voice and the look on her face. That woman's in love with me, he said to himself. But it's only a passing moment of weakness which her pride is ashamed of, and once she's no longer afraid that I'll leave, her haughtiness will be back. This vision of their respective positions came to Julien like a flash, and he answered hesitantly:
'I should find it very hard to leave such nice children--and so well born too--but it may perhaps be necessary. One does have oneself to think about too.'
As he uttered the words so well born (this was an aristocratic
-81-
expression which Julien had recently picked up), Julien was fired with a deep feeling of animosity.
In the eyes of this woman, he said to himself, I don't count as well born.
Mme de Rênal listened to him in admiration at his brilliance and his good looks, and her heart was wrung at the prospect he held out to her that he might indeed leave. All her friends from Verrières who had come to dine at Vergy during Julien's absence had seemed to be deliberately outdoing one another in complimenting her on the amazing young man whom her husband had had the good fortune to unearth. Not that they understood a thing about the children's educational progress. It was the ability to recite the Bible by heart, and in Latin what's more, that had filled the inhabitants of Verrières with an admiration that may well last a century.
Julien, who did not talk to anyone, knew none of this. If Mme de Rênal had kept any of her composure, she would have complimented him on the reputation he had earned himself, and once Julien's pride had been soothed, he would have been gentle and amiable with her--all the more so as he found her new dress delightful. Mme de Rênal, who was also pleased with her pretty dress, and Julien's comments to her on it, had wanted to take a stroll round the garden; but she soon confessed that she was quite incapable of walking. She had taken the traveller's arm, and far from renewing her strength, the feel of his arm against hers robbed her of all the strength she had.
It was dark. No sooner had the party sat down than Julien asserted his established privilege and dared to put his lips to his pretty neighbour's arm and take her hand. He was thinking of how forward Fouqué had been with his mistresses, not of Mme de Rênal; the term well born still rankled in his heart. He felt his hand being squeezed, but it gave him no pleasure. Far from deriving any pride, or at least some gratitude from the feelings which Mme de Rênal betrayed that evening by quite unmistakable signs, he remained virtually unmoved by her beauty, her elegance and her unspoilt charm. Purity of mind and the absence of any hostile emotion are no doubt respons-
-82-
ible for prolonging youth. The face is where the first signs of ageing appear with the majority of pretty women.
Julien was sulky all evening. Until then, he had only felt anger at fate and at society, but since Fouqué had offered him an unworthy means of becoming comfortably off, he felt resentment against himself. Lost in his own thoughts, although he did from time to time say a few words to the ladies, Julien eventually let go of Mme de Rênal's hand without even noticing. The poor woman was utterly shattered by this gesture: she read it as a symbol of her fate.
Had she been sure of Julien's affection, her virtue might perhaps have found the strength to resist him. Fearful of losing him for ever, she was led astray by her passion to the point of taking hold of Julien's hand which he had distractedly left resting on the back of a chair. Her gesture brought the ambitious young man to himself: he would have liked it to be witnessed by all those snobbish noblemen who gave him such patronizing smiles at table when he was down at the far end with the children. This woman can't despise me any more: in which case I must respond to her beauty; I owe it to myself to become her lover. Such an idea would never have occurred to him before his friend so innocently confided in him.
The sudden resolve he had just made provided him with a welcome distraction. He said to himself: I must have one of these two women. He realized he would have much preferred to make advances to Mme Derville; not because she had more charm, but because she had only ever seen him as a tutor respected for his learning, and not as a ca
rpenter's lad with a woollen jacket folded under his arm, as he had first appeared to Mme de Rênal.
It was precisely as a young workman blushing to the roots of his hair as he stood at the front door of her house not daring to knock, that Mme de Rênal pictured him at his most charming.
Continuing to review his situation, Julien realized that it was out of the question to think of conquering Mme Derville, who was probably aware of Mme de Rênal's fondness for him. Forced to return to her, he asked himself: What do I know of this woman's character? Merely this: before I went away, when I took hold of her hand she withdrew it; today, I withdraw my
-83-
hand and she grasps it and squeezes it. It's a fine opportunity to pay her back for all the times she's disdained me. Heaven knows how many lovers she's had! Maybe she's only settled for me because it's so easy for us to see each other.
This, alas, is the unfortunate consequence of too much civilization! At twenty, the heart of a young man who has had some education is utterly remote from the carefree abandon without which love is often only the most tedious of duties.
I owe it to myself all the more to succeed with this woman, continued Julien's petty vanity, since if ever I make my fortune, and the humble job of tutor is held against me, I shall be able to insinuate that love cast me in that role.
Once more Julien moved his hand away from Mme de Rênal's, and then he took hold of it again in a tight grasp. As they were going back into the drawing-room towards midnight, Mme de Rênal said to him under her breath:
'Will you be leaving us? Will you be going?'
Julien replied with a sigh:
'I must indeed leave, because I love you passionately, and it's a sin. . . such a sin for a young priest!'
Mme de Rênal leaned on his arm, with such abandon that she felt the warmth of Julien's cheek against hers.
These two individuals each spent a very different kind of night. Mme de Rênal's mind was uplifted by feelings of the purest ecstasy. A flirtatious young girl who falls in love early grows used to the turmoil of love; when she reaches the age of true passion, the charm of novelty has worn off. As Mme de Rênal had never read any novels, all the facets of her happiness were new to her. No sorry truths were there to chill her, not even the spectre of the future. She saw herself as happy in ten years' time as she was at that moment. Even the thought of her virtue, and the fidelity she had sworn to M. de Rênal, which had caused her such agitation a few days previously, came to her now in vain and was banished like an unwelcome guest. I shall never yield anything to Julien, said Mme de Rênal to herself. We'll go on living just as we've lived for the past month. He'll be a good friend.
-84-
CHAPTER 14
A pair of English scissors
A girl of sixteen had a complexion like a rose, and she put on rouge. POLIDORI *
As for Julien, Fouqué's offer really had taken all his pleasure away: he was incapable of settling on any course of action. Alas! Perhaps I lack character; I'd have been no good as one of Napoleon's soldiers. At any rate, he added, my little intrigue with the lady of the house will keep my mind occupied for a while.
Fortunately for him, even in this minor incident, his offhand words were a poor reflection of what was going on inside him. He was afraid of Mme de Rênal because she had such a pretty dress. In his eyes this dress was the vanguard of Paris. His self-esteem was reluctant to leave anything to chance or to the inspiration of the moment. On the basis of what Fouqué had confided in him, and the little he had read about love in his Bible, he drew up a highly detailed plan of campaign for himself. And since without admitting it he was extremely agitated, he wrote this plan down.
The next morning, Mme de Rênal found herself alone with him for a moment in the drawing-room.
'Is Julien your only name?' she asked him.
This flattering enquiry left our hero at a loss for an answer. It was a detail that had not been anticipated in his plan. Had it not been for this silly idea of making a plan, Julien's sharp wits would have served him well, and the effect of surprise would only have increased the sharpness of his perceptions.
He reacted ineptly, and his ineptness took on exaggerated proportions in his mind. Mme de Rênal was quick to forgive him for it. She read it as evidence of charming candour. And the very thing she found lacking in this man held to be so brilliant was precisely a look of candour.
'Your young tutor fills me with deep mistrust,' Mme Derville
-85-
would say to her from time to time. 'He looks to me as if he's always thinking, and never acts uncalculatingly. He's devious.'
Julien remained profoundly humiliated by the misfortune of having failed to find a reply to Mme de Rênal.
A man of my sort owes it to himself to recover from this setback; and taking advantage of the moment when they were moving from one room to the next, he decided it was his duty to give Mme de Rênal a kiss.
Nothing could have been less well prepared, or given less pleasure to either of them; nothing could have been more unwise. They only just escaped being seen. Mme de Rênal thought he had gone mad. She was terrified and above all shocked. This piece of foolishness reminded her of M. Valenod.
What would happen to me, she asked herself, if I were alone with him? All her virtue returned to her when love was thus eclipsed. She made sure that one of her children was always by her side.
It was a boring day for Julien: he spent the whole of it ineptly putting his plan of seduction into effect. He did not once look at Mme de Rênal without his glance having some reason behind it; yet he was not so silly that he failed to see he was not succeeding in being agreeable, let alone seductive.
Mme de Rênal could not get over her astonishment at finding him so inept and at the same time so bold. It's the timidity of love in a man of intellect! she said to herself at last with unutterable joy. Could it possibly be that he has never been loved by my rival!
After lunch Mme de Rênal returned to the drawing-room to receive a visit from M. Charcot de Maugiron, the sub-prefect of Bray. She was working at a little tapestry frame that stood high off the floor. Mme Derville was at her side. In this position, in full daylight, our hero saw fit to move his boot forward and press it against Mme de Rênal's pretty foot with its openwork stocking and pretty little shoe from Paris which clearly attracted the eye of the gallant sub-prefect.
Mme de Rênal took extreme fright. She dropped her scissors, her ball of wool, and her needles, and Julien's gesture could pass off as an inept attempt to prevent the scissors he had seen
-86-
starting to slide from actually falling to the ground. Fortunately, this little pair of English steel scissors broke, and Mme de Rênal gave full vent to her regrets that Julien had not been closer to her side.
'You noticed them falling before I did, you could have stopped them; but instead, all you achieved in your eagerness was to give me a hefty kick.'
All this deceived the sub-prefect, but not Mme Derville. This handsome fellow has some pretty foolish manners! she thought. The etiquette of a provincial capital does not forgive transgressions of this sort. Mme de Rênal found an opportunity to say to Julien:
'Be careful, I order you to.'
Julien realized how inept he had been, and it put him in a bad temper. He debated at length with himself whether he ought to take offence at the expression I order you to. He was silly enough to think: she could say to me I order you to if it were something to do with the children's upbringing, but in responding to my love, she puts us on an equal footing. You can't love without equality...; and his mind wandered off completely into platitudes about equality. He angrily repeated to himself a line of Corneille * that Mme Derville had taught him a few days previously:
... ... ... Love Creates equalities, it does not seek them out.
Since Julien obstinately persisted in playing Don Juan despite never having had a single mistress in his life, he was unutterably foolish all day. He only had one sound idea.
Fed up with himself and with Mme de Rênal, he was contemplating with dread the approach of evening, when he would be seated in the garden by her side in the dark. He told M. de Rênal he was going to Verrières to see the priest; he left after dinner and did not return until well into the night.
In Verrières Julien found Father Chélan in the midst of moving house: he had finally been stripped of his office, and was being replaced by M. Maslon the curate. Julien lent a hand to the kindly old priest, and was inspired to write to Fouqué to say that the irresistible calling which he felt for the
-87-
sacred ministry had prevented him at first from accepting his kind offer, but that he had just seen such a flagrant example of injustice that it might perhaps be more advantageous to his salvation not to enter holy orders.
Julien congratulated himself on his cunning in turning the sacking of the priest of Verrières to his own advantage to leave the door ajar for himself to return to the world of trade if, in the battle raging in his mind, dreary caution got the better of heroism.
-88-
CHAPTER 15
The crowing of the cock
Amour en latin faict amor;
Or done provient d'amour la mort,
Et, par avant, soulcy qui mord,
Deuil, plours, pièdges, forfaits, remords.
LOVE'S BLAZON *
HAD Julien had any of the shrewdness he so gratuitously imagined himself to possess, he would have been able to congratulate himself the next day on the effect produced by his trip to Verrières. His absence had wiped out the memory of his inept antics. That day too he was rather sullen. Towards evening, a ludicrous idea occurred to him, and he imparted it to Mme de Rênal with singular intrepidness.
