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

by Stendhal

  The night was exceedingly dark. As one o'clock approached, Julien walked into Verrières weighed down by his ladder. He climbed down as soon as he could into the bed of the stream which runs through M. de Rênal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet, in a passage between two walls. Julien easily climbed over with the ladder. How will the guard dogs greet me? he wondered. That's the big question. The dogs barked and raced towards him; but he whistled softly and they came and fawned all over him.

  Then he went up through the terraces one after the other although all the gates were locked, and it was easy for him to get himself right under the window of Mme de Rênal's bedroom which, on the garden side, is only nine or ten feet above the ground.

  There was a little heart-shaped opening in the shutters which Julien knew well. To his great sorrow, this little opening Was not lit from inside by a nightlight.

  'Oh my God!' he said to himself, 'Mme de Rênal isn't in this room tonight! Where on earth will she be sleeping? The family is in Verrières, because I met the dogs; but I may encounter M. de Rênal himself or some stranger in this room with no light, and then what a scandal!'

  The wisest thing was to retreat; but this course of action filled Julien with horror. If it's a stranger, I'll run hell for leather, leaving my ladder behind; but if it's her, what reception will I get? She has fallen into repentance and the

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  most extreme piety, without any conceivable doubt; but then, she still has some memory of me since she has just written to me. This consideration decided him.

  Trembling at heart, yet resolved to see her or perish in the attempt, he flung some pebbles against the shutter; no answer. He leaned his ladder up next to the window and knocked on the shutter himself, gently at first, then more loudly. However dark it is, someone could still fire a shot at me, thought Julien. This idea reduced the mad enterprise to a question of bravery.

  This room is unoccupied tonight, he thought, or else whoever's sleeping there must be awake by now. So there's no need to take any more precautions on that account; the only thing I must try to avoid is being heard by the people sleeping in the other rooms.

  He climbed down, positioned his ladder against one of the shutters, climbed back up again and, passing his hand through the heart-shaped opening, was very soon fortunate enough to find the wire that was fixed to the fastening which held the shutter to. He pulled on this wire; he felt with a surge of unutterable joy that the shutter was no longer fast and was yielding to his pull. I must open it little by little, and let my voice be recognized. He opened the shutter enough to pass his head inside, repeating softly as he did so: 'It's a friend.'

  He reassured himself by careful listening that nothing was disturbing the deep silence in the room. But there most certainly wasn't a nightlight in the fireplace, even half burntout; it was a very bad sign.

  Watch out for a shot! He paused to reflect; then he braved himself to knock at the window-pane with one knuckle: no answer; he knocked more loudly. Even if I have to smash the pane, I must carry this through. In the midst of his loud knocking, he thought he glimpsed in the depths of the pitch darkness something like a white shadow crossing the room. At last there was no doubting it, he saw a shadow which seemed to be advancing extremely slowly. Suddenly he saw a cheek pressed against the glass where his eye was.

  He jumped and withdrew a little. But the night was so black that even at that distance he was unable to tell whether it was Mme de Rênal. He feared a first cry of alarm; he could hear the

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  dogs prowling and half-snarling round the foot of his ladder. 'It's me,' he repeated quite loudly, 'a friend.' No answer; the white phantom had disappeared. 'I beg you to open the window for me; I must speak to you, I'm so unhappy!' And he knocked away as if he would smash the glass.

  There was a faint grating sound; the fastening on the casement window was yielding; he pushed one half in and jumped lightly into the room.

  The white phantom was receding; he took it by the arms; it was a woman. All his thoughts of courage vanished. If it's her, what's she going to say? Imagine his reaction when he realized from her little cry that it was Mme de Rênal!

  He clasped her in his arms; she was trembling, and scarcely had the strength to push him away.

  'You wretch! What are you doing?'

  Only with great difficulty could her strangled voice get there words out. Julien detected genuine indignation in it.

  'I've come to see you after fourteen months of the most cruel separation.'

  'Get out! Leave me this instant. All! Father Chélan, why did you prevent me from writing to him? I should have forestalled this outrage.' She pushed him away with quite extraordinary force. 'I repent my crime; heaven has deigned to enlighten me,' she repeated in a broken voice. 'Get out! Be off with you!'

  'After fourteen months of unhappiness, I shall certainly not leave you without talking to you. I want to know everything you've done. Ah! I've loved you enough to deserve a frank account . . . I want to know everything.'

  In spite of herself, Mme de Rênal found her heart swayed by this tone of authority.

  Julien, who was holding her in a passionate embrace and resisting her attempts to break free, stopped clasping her in his arms. This movement reassured Mme de Rênal somewhat.

  'I'm going to pull in the ladder', he said, 'so it doesn't compromise us if some servant or other is roused by the noise and goes on a tour of inspection.'

  'No! Get out! On the contrary, you get out of here!' came the genuinely furious reply. 'What do I care about other people? It's God who sees the frightful scene you're making,

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  and he'll punish me for it. You're taking cowardly advantage of the feelings I once had for you, but don't have any more. Do you understand, Mr Julien?'

  He was brining in the ladder very slowly so as not to make any noise.

  'Is your husband in town, my love?' he said to her tenderly, not in order to defy her, but carried away by old habits.

  'Don't speak to me like that, I implore you, or I'll call my husband. I'm guilty enough as it is for not having sent you away, whatever the consequences. I pity you,' she said to him, trying to wound his pride, which she knew to be so touchy.

  This refusal to use terms of affection, this brusque way of breaking so tender a bond, which he was still taking for granted, brought Julien's love to a pitch of fervour.

  'What! is it possible that you don't love me any more!' he said to her with one of those cries from the heart that are so difficult to listen to unmoved.

  She did not answer; as for him, he wept bitterly.

  In all honesty he did not have any strength left to speak.

  'So I'm completely abandoned by the only being who has ever loved me! What's the point of going on living now?' All his courage had ebbed away as soon as he did not have to fear the danger of confronting a man; everything had vanished from his heart except love.

  He wept for a long time in silence. He took her hand, she tried to withdraw it; yet after one or two almost convulsive attempts, she abandoned it to him. It was pitch dark; they both found themselves sitting on Mme de Rênal's bed.

  What a change from how things were fourteen months ago! thought Julien; and his tears welled up all the more. So absence is quite sure to destroy all human feelings!

  At last, embarrassed at his silence, Julien said in a voice choked with tears: 'Be so good as to tell me what has been happening to you.'

  'No doubt', replied Mme de Rênal in a hard voice which sounded somehow curt and reproachful towards Julien, 'my misdemeanours were known throughout the town at the point when you left. There had been so much recklessness in your

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  actions! Some while later--I was in despair at the time--our esteemed Father Chélan came to see me. He tried for ages in vain to get me to confess. One day, he had the idea of taking me to the church in Dijon where I made my first communion. There, he was bold enough to broach the subject himself . . .' Mme d
e Rênal broke off in tears. 'What a moment of shame! I confessed everything. That kindly man was good enough not to crush me under the weight of his indignation: he shared my affliction. At that time I was writing letters to you every day which I didn't dare send; I used to hide them away carefully, and when I was too unhappy I shut myself up in my room and reread my letters.

  'Finally Father Chélan got me to agree to give them to him . . . Some of the more guardedly written ones had been sent off to you; you didn't answer.'

  'I swear to you, my love, that I never received a single letter from you at the seminary.'

  'Good God! who can have intercepted them?'

  'Just think what my sorrow was like: up until the day I saw you in the cathedral I didn't know if you were still alive.'

  'God granted me the grace to understand how deeply I was sinning against him, against my children, against my husband,' Mme de Rênal went on. 'He has never loved me the way I used to believe that you loved me . . .'

  Julien flung himself into her arms, quite genuinely with nothing in mind, just beside himself with love. But Mme de Rênal pushed him away and went on with some determination:

  'My esteemed friend Father Chélan gave me to understand that in marrying M. de Rênal, I had pledged him all my affections, even feelings I was ignorant of and had never experienced before our ill-omened affair . . . Since the great sacrifice of handing over those letters which were so dear to me, my life has flowed on if not happily, then at least reasonably peacefully. Don't throw it into turmoil; be a friend to me . . . my best friend.' Julien smothered her hands in kisses; she could feel that he was still in tears. 'Don't cry, I feel so sorry for you . . . It's your turn to tell me what you've been doing.' Julien was unable to speak. 'I want to know what sort of life you lead at the seminary,' she repeated, 'and then you'll have to go.'

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  Without thinking about what he was saying, Julien spoke about all the intrigues and countless manifestations of jealousy he had encountered at first, and then of the more peaceful life he had led since being appointed an instructor.

  'It was at that point', he added, 'that after a long period of silence doubtless intended to impart to me what I can see only too clearly now, that you no longer loved me or cared in the least about me . . .'. Mme de Rênal squeezed his hands. '--it was at that point that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs.' 'I never did any such thing,' said Mme de Rênal.

  'It was a letter postmarked Paris and signed Paul Sorel, to allay any suspicions.'

  A short discussion arose on the possible source of this letter. Their psychological stance changed. Without realizing it, Mme de Rênal and Julien had abandoned their tone of formality; they had reverted to one of tender friendship. It was so dark they could not see each other, but there was something in their voices which gave everything away. Julien slipped his arm round her waist; it was a very risky gesture to make. She tried to shift his arm, but he rather cleverly caught her attention at that very moment with an interesting element in his story. The arm was somehow forgotten and remained where it was.

  After a good many conjectures about the source of the letter with five hundred francs in it, Julien had taken up his story again; he was more in control of himself now that he was talking about his past life, which interested him very little in comparison with what was happening to him at that moment. His attention focused entirely on the way in which his visit was going to end. 'You'll have to leave,' a brisk voice still kept on telling him at intervals.

  What a disgrace for me if I'm shown out! I'll feel so mortified it'll poison my whole life, he said to himself, she'll never write to me. God knows when I'll ever come back to this part of the world! From that moment on, everything blissful in Julien's situation rapidly faded from his heart. Sitting beside a woman he adored, virtually clasping her in his arms, in the very room where he had been so happy, in the midst of total darkness, perceiving very clearly that for some time now she had been crying, feeling from the heaving of her breast that she was

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  indeed sobbing, he had the misfortune to become a cold schemer, almost as calculating and cold as when, in the recreation ground of the seminary, he found himself the victim of some nasty joke from a fellow seminarist who was tougher than he was. Julien spun out his story, and told of the unhappy life he had led since leaving Verrières. So, said Mme de Rênal to herself--after a year's absence, when he was almost entirely deprived of anything tangible to foster memories, while here I was forgetting him, he only had thoughts for the happy days he had spent at Vergy. Her sobs grew more violent. Julien saw how well his story had worked. He realized he had to try his last resort: he moved abruptly to the letter he had just received from Paris.

  'I've taken my leave of Monsignor the bishop.'

  'What! you're not going back to Besançon! Are you leaving us for ever?'

  'Yes,' said Julien resolutely; 'Yes, I'm leaving a place where I'm forgotten even by the one I've loved most dearly in my life, and I'm leaving it never to set eyes on it again, I'm going to Paris . . .'

  'You're going to Paris, my love!' came Mme de Rênal's more than audible cry.

  Her voice was almost choked with tears and revealed her overwhelming emotion. Julien needed this encouragement: he was about to try a move which might settle everything against him; and before this outburst, since he couldn't see a thing, he was totally unaware of the effect he was succeeding in producing. He hesitated no longer; fear of regretting his conduct later gave him perfect serf-control; he added coldly as he got up:

  'Yes, madam, I am leaving you for ever, I wish you happiness; farewell.'

  He walked a few steps towards the window; he was already in the process of opening it. Mme de Rênal sprang after him and flung herself into his arms.

  And so it was that after three hours of dialogue Julien obtained what he had so passionately desired for the first two. Had it come a little sooner, this return to tender feeling, this total eclipse of Mme de Rênal's remorse, would have given truly divine happiness; being thus obtained by skill, they afforded

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  no more than mere pleasure. In spite of his mistress's entreaties, Julien insisted on lighting the nightlight.

  'Do you want me to be without any memory of having seen you?' he said to her. 'Shall the love that I don't doubt is shining in those enchanting eyes of yours then be lost on me? Shall the whiteness of this pretty hand then be invisible to me? Just think, I'm leaving you for a very long time maybe!'

  Mme de Rênal was unable to refuse anything when faced with this thought which reduced her to tears. But dawn was beginning to sketch in the sharp outlines of the fir trees on the mountain slope to the east of Verrières. Instead of leaving, Julien, intoxicated with the sweetness of love, asked Mme de Rênal if he might spend the whole day hidden in her room and only set off the following night.

  'Why not?' she replied. 'This fatal relapse takes away all my self-respect and brings about my eternal misfortune.' And she clasped him to her heart. 'My husband is a changed man, he has his suspicions; he thinks I've been taking him in over this whole business, and he's behaving with great resentment towards me. If he hears the slightest noise, that's the end of me, he'll turn me out of the house like the wretch I am.'

  'Ah! that's one of Father Chélan's expressions,' said Julien. 'You wouldn't have spoken to me like that before my cruel departure for the seminary; you loved me then!'

  Julien was rewarded for the detachment with which he had uttered these words: he saw his beloved quick to forget the danger she was in from the presence of her husband and become mindful of the far greater danger of seeing Julien doubt her love. The daylight was fast growing brighter and the room was clearly lit; Julien rediscovered all the sweet satisfactions of pride when he was able to see so charming a woman in his arms again, and almost at his feet--the only one he had ever loved, and one who, only a few hours previously, had been totally overwhelmed by the fear of a terrible God and by devotion to her dutie
s. Resolutions fortified by a year of constancy had not been able to withstand his courage.

  Soon they heard stirrings in the house; something she had not thought of brought a sudden worry to Mme de Rênal.

  'That beastly Elisa is going to come into the room, what's to

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  be done with this enormous ladder?' she asked her lover; 'where are we to hide it? I'm going to take it up to the attic,' she exclaimed all of a sudden somewhat playfully.

  'But you have to go through the manservant's room,' Julien in astonishment.

  'I'll leave the ladder in the corridor, I'll call the servant and send him off on an errand.'

  'Make sure you think up something to say in case the servant notices the ladder in the corridor as he goes past.'

  'Yes, my angel,' said Mme de Rênal, giving him a kiss. 'And you make sure you hide under the bed pretty quick if Elisa comes in here while I'm gone.'

  Julien was astonished at this sudden gaiety. So, he thought, when some material danger is at hand, far from worrying her, it restores her gaiety because she forgets her remorse! What a truly superior woman! All! there's a heart where it's glorious to reign! Julien was delighted.

  Mme de Rênal took hold of the ladder; it was clearly too heavy for her. Julien was making his way over to help her, admiring her elegant figure which proclaimed the very opposite of strength, when suddenly, without any assistance, she seized the ladder and removed it as she might have done a chair. She carried it rapidly to the corridor on the third floor, where she laid it on its side along the wall. She called the servant, and to give him time to get dressed, she went up to the dovecot. Five minutes later when she returned to the corridor she found no ladder there. What had happened to it? If Julien had been outside the house, this danger would scarcely have bothered her. But as things stood, what if her husband were to see the ladder! It could be dreadful. Mme de Rênal ran all over the place. At length she discovered the ladder under the eaves where the servant had taken and even hidden it. This circumstance was most odd; it would have alarmed her before.