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

by Stendhal

  The master himself, on meeting M. de Rênal in company, gave him the cold shoulder. This behaviour was not unpremeditated; few things are done heedlessly in the provinces: feelings are so rare there that they are exploited to the full.

  M. Valenod was what is known, a hundred leagues from Paris, as a swaggerer--that is: a vulgar fellow of brazen and coarse disposition. His triumphant existence since 1815 had reinforced his promising tendencies. He reigned, so to speak, in Verrières under the orders of M. de Rênal; but he was much more active, did not blush at anything, meddled in everything, was constantly on the go, writing, speaking, forgetting humiliations, having nothing personal at stake; so much so that in the end his influence had come to outweigh his master's in the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. M. Valenod had more or less said to the local grocers: give me the two most foolish from among you; to the legal profession: show me the two most ignorant; to the medical practitioners: * name me the two greatest charlatans. When he had done gathering together the most brazen representatives of every trade, he had said to them: let's reign together.

  These people's ways wounded M. de Rênal's susceptibilities. Valenod's vulgarity was not offended by anything, not even by the flat contradictions that little Father Maslon did not spare him in public.

  However, in the midst of all this prosperity, M. Valenod needed to indulge in minor acts of effrontery to protect his self-image from the blatant truths which, as he was well aware, everyone was entitled to bring to his attention. His activity had been stepped up since the state of alarm he was left in by the visit of M. Appert; he had made three journeys to Besançon; he wrote several letters for each post; he despatched others using the services of strangers who called at his house at nightfall. He had perhaps been wrong to have old Father Chélan removed from office, since this vindictive act had caused him to be regarded by a number of pious ladies of good

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  birth as a profoundly wicked man. Besides, doing this favour had put him completely under the thumb of the vicar-general, M. de Frilair, and he received strange instructions from him. This was the state of his politicking when he succumbed to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter. To cap his embarrassment, his wife announced to him that she wanted to have Julien in her household; her vanity had taken a fancy to the idea.

  In this situation M. Valenod foresaw a decisive confrontation with his former associate M. de Rênal. The latter would address harsh words to him, which he didn't mind that much; but he might write to Besançon and even to Paris. A cousin of some minister or other might suddenly descend on Verrières and take over the workhouse. M. Valenod considered aligning himself with the liberals: that was why a number of them were invited to the dinner at which Julien had performed. He would have got powerful support against the mayor, but elections might come along, and it was patently obvious that the workhouse and a vote the wrong way were incompatible. An account of this politicking, astutely surmised by Mme de Rênal, had been given to Julien while he offered her his arm to walk from one shop to another, and had gradually taken them as far as the Avenue de la Fidélité, where they spent several hours almost as undisturbed as at Vergy.

  During this time M. Valenod was attempting to avert a decisive confrontation with his former protector by adopting an audacious stance towards him himself. That day the strategy worked, but it increased the mayor's ill-temper.

  Never had vanity in conflict with petty love of money in all its harshest and meanest aspects put a man in a more wretched state than that afflicting M. de Rênal when he went into the cabaret. Never, on the other hand, had his children been more full of joy and good cheer. This contrast put the finishing touches to his pique.

  'I'm not welcome in my family, so I see!' he said as he came in, trying to make his tone of voice sound forceful.

  By way of reply, his wife took him on one side and urged on him the need to get Julien out of the way. The hours of happiness she had just enjoyed had given her the necessary

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  poise and firmness to carry out the plan of action she had been meditating for the past fortnight. What really succeeded in upsetting the poor mayor of Verrières through and through was that he knew jokes were being made openly in town about his attachment to his cash. M. Valenod was as generous as a thief, while he himself had behaved more prudently than outstandingly in the last five or six collections in aid of the Brotherhood of St Joseph, * the Congregation of the Virgin, the Congregation of the Holy Sacrament etc., etc., etc.

  Among the gentry of Verrières and its neighbourhood, cunningly listed on the collecting brothers' register in order of the magnitude of their donations, M. de Rênal's name had been observed more than once down on the bottom line. It was to no avail that he said he earned nothing himself. This is no joking matter for the clergy.

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  CHAPTER 23 The woes of a civil servant *

  Il piacere di alur la testa tutto l'anno è ben pagato da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.

  CASTI *

  BUT let us leave this petty man to his petty fears; why did he take a man with a generous heart into his house when what he needed was the soul of a valet? Why isn't he any good at choosing his servants? The normal course of events in the nineteenth century is that when a powerful member of the nobility encounters a man of generosity, he kills him, exiles him, imprisons him, or humiliates him so much that the other man is foolish enough to die of grief. By chance in this instance, the man of generosity is not yet the one to suffer. The great misfortune afflicting small towns in France and elected governments like the one in New York, is that they cannot forget that there exist individuals like M. de Rênal. In the midst of a town of twenty thousand inhabitants these men shape public opinion, and public opinion is dreadful in a country that has its Charter. * A man endowed with a noble and generous spirit, someone who might even have been your friend, but lives a hundred leagues away, will judge you by public opinion in your town, and this is shaped by the fools who by sheer chance were born noble, rich and moderate. Woe betide you if you stand out from the herd!

  Immediately after dinner the family left for Vergy; but two days later Julien found them all back again in Verrières.

  An hour had not gone by before he discovered to his great surprise that Mme de Rênal was keeping a secret from him. She broke off her conversations with her husband as soon as he appeared, and seemed almost to wish him to go away. Julien did not wait to be asked twice. He became cold and reserved; Mme de Rênal noticed and did not seek any explanation for it. Is she going to find a successor to me? Julien wondered. And so intimate with me only the day before yesterday! But they

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  say that's how these great ladies go about things. Just like kings: never more attentive than to the minister who will find his fall from favour announced in a letter awaiting him back at his house.

  Julien noticed that in these conversations which ceased abruptly when he approached, there was often talk of a large house belonging to the commune * of Verrières; it was old, but spacious and convenient, and it was sited opposite the church in the busiest part of town. What can there be in common between this house and a new lover! Julien said to himself. In his distress he repeated to himself the pretty couplet by François I which felt new to him because it was not a month since Mme de Rênal had taught it to him. How many vows, how many caresses had given the lie at the time to each of these lines!

  Woman is a fickle thing,

  Mad the man who trusts her. *

  M. de Rênal left by post horses for Besançon. He decided on this journey in the space of two hours, and appeared to be in considerable torment. On his return, he flung down on the table a fat package wrapped in grey paper.

  'Here's this silly business,' he said to his wife.

  An hour later, Julien saw the bilisticker making off with the fat package; he hastened off after him. I'll find out the secret at the first street corner.

  He waited impatiently behind the billst
icker as he daubed the back of the notice with his big brush. It was hardly in position before the curious Julien read a detailed announcement concerning the letting by auction of the large old house which had so often been mentioned by name in M. de Rênal's conversations with his wife. The assignment of the lease was announced for two o'clock on the following day, in the municipal hall, when the third candle burned out. Julien was very disappointed; he found the deadline really rather close: how would there be time for all rival bidders to be informed? But in any case this notice, which was dated two weeks previously, and which he read from start to finish in three different spots, told him nothing at all.

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  He went to look round the house that was to be let. The porter, not seeing him approach, was saying mysteriously to a neighbour:

  'Hmm! Waste of time! Father Maslon promised him he can have it for three hundred francs; and as the mayor dug his heels in, he was summoned to the bishop's palace by the vicargeneral M. de Frilair.'

  Julien's arrival appeared to disturb the two friends greatly, for they did not add another word.

  Julien did not miss the assigning of the lease. There was a great crowd in a poorly lit hall; but they were all eyeing one another up and down in an odd way. All eyes were turned towards a table where Julien saw three short candle-ends burning on a tin plate. The auctioneer was shouting: Three hundred francs, gentlemen!

  'Three hundred francs! That's a bit steep!' said a man under his breath to his neighbour. Julien was standing between them. 'It's worth more than eight hundred; I intend to up that bid.'

  'Might as well save your breath! What good'll it do you making enemies of Father Maslon, M. Valenod, the bishop, his dreadful vicar-general de Frilair, and the rest of the clique.'

  'Three hundred and twenty francs!' called out the other.

  'Stupid dolt!' retorted his neighbour. 'And look, if that isn't one of the mayor's spies!' he added, pointing to Julien.

  Julien wheeled round to punish this remark; but the two Franche-Comté locals were no longer paying any attention to him. Their composure restored his own. At that moment the last candle went out, and the auctioneer's drawling voice assigned the house for nine years to M. de Saint-Giraud, head clerk at the prefecture in -----, for the sum of three hundred and thirty francs.

  As soon as they mayor had left the hall, the comments began.

  'That's thirty francs Grogeot's rashness has earned the commune,' said someone.

  'But M. de Saint-Giraud', said someone else, 'will get his revenge on Grogeot; he'll not enjoy that.'

  'What a disgrace!' said a fat man on Julien's left, '--a house

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  I'd have given eight hundred francs for, I would--for my factory, and I'd have done a good deal.'

  'Come off it!' replied a young manufacturer of liberal persuasion, 'doesn't M. de Saint-Giraud belong to the Congregation? * Haven't his four children got scholarships? Poor man! The commune of Verrières has to pay him a supplementary income of five hundred francs, that's all.'

  'And to think that the mayor wasn't able to prevent it!' remarked a third man. 'Because he's an Ultra, he is, bully for him! But he doesn't steal.'

  'Doesn't steal?' rejoined someone else. 'No, but that gullible stooge does, whenever Simon Says. It all goes into a great big common kitty, and everything gets shared out at the end of the year. But there's little Sorel over there; let's be off.'

  Julien went home in a very bad temper; he found Mme de Rênal extremely depressed.

  'Have you come from the auction?' she asked him.

  'Yes, madam, and I had the honour of being taken for his worship's spy.'

  'If he had listened to me, he would have gone off on a journey somewhere.'

  At that moment M. de Rênal appeared; he was exceedingly glum. No one spoke a word over dinner. M. de Rênal instructed Julien to follow the children to Vergy; the journey was depressing. Mme de Rênal tried to console her husband:

  'You should be used to it, my dear.'

  That evening, they were sitting in silence round the family hearth; the sound of the beech-logs burning was the only distraction. It was one of those moments of gloom that occur in the most united families. One of the children shouted excitedly:

  'A ring at the door! A ring at the door!'

  'Confound it! If that's M. de Saint-Giraud coming to set me off again under the pretence of thanking me,' exclaimed the mayor, 'I'll give him a piece of my mind; it's more than I can take. I suppose Valenod's the one he has to thank for it, and I'm the one to be compromised. What can I say if those cursed Jacobin papers go and get hold of the story, and turn me into a Mr Five-and-Ninety?' *

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  A very handsome man with big black sidewhiskers was following the servant into the room at that very moment.

  'Your worship, I am il Signor Geronimo. * Here is a letter for you which the Chevalier de Beauvaisis, the attacht at the embassy in Naples, handed me when I left; that was only nine days ago,' added Signor Geronimo cheerfully, looking at Mme de Rênal. 'Signor de Beauvaisis, your cousin and my good friend, madam, tells me you know Italian.'

  The Neapolitan's good humour transformed this gloomy evening into a very cheerful one. Mme de Rênal insisted on giving him supper. She had the whole house in a bustle; she wanted at all costs to take Julien's mind off the label spy that had rung in his ears twice on that day. Signor Geronimo was a famous singer, a man of good breeding and yet full of gaiety-qualities rarely found together any more in France. After supper he sang a little duettino with Mme de Rênal. He told some delightful stories. At one in the morning the children protested loudly when Julien suggested it was their bedtime.

  'Just this one story,' said the eldest.

  'It's my own story, Signorino,' replied Signor Geronimo. 'Eight years ago, I was a young pupil like you at the Naples Conservatoire--I mean I was your age; but I didn't have the honour of being the son of the illustrious mayor of the pretty town of Verrières.'

  These words made M. de Rênal sigh; he looked at his wife.

  'Signor Zingarelli,' * went on the young singer, overdoing his accent a little as it made the children splutter with laughter, 'Signor Zingarelli was an exceedingly strict master. People do not like him at the Conservatoire; but he expects them to behave all the time as if they did like him. I used to go out as often as I could; I went to the little San-Carlino theatre, where I heard music fit for the gods: but, great heavens, how was I to scrape together the eight sous it cost to get into the stalls? A huge sum,' he said looking at the children, and they burst out laughing. 'Signor Giovannone, * the director of the San-Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen: "This child's a real treasure," he said.

  "Would you like me to sign you on, dear boy?" he came over to ask me.

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  "And how much will you give me?"

  "Forty ducats a month." Gentlemen, that's a hundred and sixty francs. I thought I saw the heavens opening up before me.

  "But what can be done," I asked Giovannone, "to ensure that the strict Signor Zingarelli lets me out?"

  "Lascia fare a me."'

  'Leave it to me!' exclaimed the eldest child.

  'Exactly, my little lord. Signor Giovannone says to me: "Caro, first of all let's make a little undertaking." I sign, and he gives me three ducats. I'd never seen so much money. Then he tells me what I have to do.

  'The next day I ask to see the terrible Signor Zingarelli. His old valet shows me in.

  "What do you want from me, wretched boy?" asks Zingarelli.

  "Maestro," I said, "I repent for all my misdeeds; I'll never escape from the Conservatoire again by climbing over the iron gate. I'll work twice as hard."

  "If I wasn't afraid of spoiling the loveliest bass voice I've ever heard, I'd put you in prison on bread and water for a fortnight, you rascal!"

  "Maestro," I went on, "I'll be a model for the whole school, credete a me. * But I ask one favour of you, if anyone comes asking for me to sing elsewhere, refuse to let me g
o. I beg you, say you can't."

  "And who the devil do you think will come asking for a rotten number like you? Will I ever give permission for you to leave the Conservatoire? Are you trying to poke fun at me? Be off with you! Be off with you!" he shouted, trying to kick me up the b... "Or watch out for dry bread in prison."

  'An hour later, Signor Giovannone calls on the director:

  "I've come to ask you to make my fortune," he says, "let me have Geronimo. If he sings in my theatre, I'll be able to marry off my daughter this winter."

  "What do you want with this unruly fellow?" asks Zingareili. "I'm against it; you shan't have him; and anyway, even if I were to agree to it, he'll never be willing to leave the Conservatoire; he's just sworn to me he won't."

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  "If it's only a matter of his wishes," says Giovannone gravely, pulling my undertaking from his pocket, "carta canta! * Here's his signature."

  'At once Zingarelli tugs at the bell-pull in fury:

  "Expel Geronimo from the Conservatoire," he shouted, seething with rage. I was duly expelled, laughing my head off. That same evening I sang the aria del Moltiplico. Punchinello wants to get married and is counting out on his fingers the things he will need in his household, and he keeps getting muddled over his sums."'

  'Oh! I beg you, sir, do sing us this aria,' said Mme de Rênal.

  Geronimo sang and everyone laughed themselves to tears. Signor Geronimo did not go to bed until two in the morning, leaving the family enchanted by his good manners, his obliging nature and his jollity.

  The next day M. and Mme de Rênal handed him the letters he needed at the French Court.

  So, it's deceit everywhere, thought Julien. There's il Signor Geronimo going to London with a salary of sixty thousand francs. If it hadn't been for the know-how of the director of the San-Carlino, his divine voice might not have been discovered and admired until ten years later... Goodness me, I'd rather be a Geronimo than a Rênal. He isn't so highly honoured in society, but he doesn't have the distress of making assignments like the one today, and his life is full of gaiety.