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

by Stendhal

  Ah! if I'd been like that, she wouldn't have preferred Croisenois to me! The more his reason was shocked at the prince's ridiculous ways, the more he despised himself for not admiring them, and considered himself unfortunate in not having them. Self-loathing cannot be carried to greater extremes.

  Finding him decidedly miserable, the prince said, when they got back to Strasburg: 'Come now! old fellow, have you lost all your money, or might you be in love with some little actress?'

  Russians copy French customs, but always fifty years behind the times. They've now reached the century of Louis XV.

  This joking about love brought tears to Julien's eyes: Why shouldn't I consult an amiable man like this? he asked himself all of a sudden.

  'Well yes, actually, old fellow,' he said to the prince, 'here I am in Strasburg, as you see, very much in love, and even jilted. A delightful woman who lives in a nearby town called it off after three days of passion, and the reversal is killing me.'

  He gave the prince a full account of Mathilde's behaviour and character, disguising the identities of the people involved.

  'Don't go on to the end,' said Korasov: 'to give you confidence in your doctor, I shall finish off the confession. This young woman's husband is exceedingly wealthy, or rather she belongs to the highest-ranking nobility in the region. She must have something to be so proud about.'

  Julien nodded, he was in no state to say any more.

  'Very good,' said the prince, 'here are three rather bitter pills for you to swallow forthwith:

  '1. Call daily on Madame..., what's her name?'

  'Mme de Dubois.'

  'What a name!' said the prince, bursting out laughing; 'I'm

  -408-

  so sorry, to you it's sublime. You must see Mme de Dubois every day; whatever you do, don't look cold and ill-humoured in her presence; remember the great principle of your century: be the opposite of what people expect. Behave exactly as you did a week before being honoured with her favours.'

  'Ah! I didn't have anything to worry about then,' Julien exclaimed in despair, 'I thought I was taking pity on her...'

  'Moths get burnt on candles,' the prince went on, 'it's a saying as old as the hills.

  '1. You will see her every day;

  '2. You will pay court to a woman of her acquaintance, but without putting on any outward signs of passion, d'you understand? I won't conceal from you that your role is a difficult one; you're acting a part, and if there's any suspicion of this, all is lost for you.'

  'She's so intelligent, and I'm not! All is lost for me,' said Julien sadly.

  'No, it's just that you're more in love than I thought. Mme de Dubois is deeply wrapped up in herself, like all women to whom heaven has given either too much nobility or too much money. She looks at herself instead of looking at you, and so she doesn't know you. During the two or three fits of passion for you that she induced in herself, by a great effort of the imagination, she was seeing in you the hero she had dreamed of, not what you really are...

  'But the devil take it! this is elementary stuff, my dear Sorel, are you a total schoolboy...?

  "Pon my word! let's go into this shop; look at that charming black collar: anyone would think it was designed by John Anderson of Burlington Street; do me the pleasure of taking it, and throwing out for good that sordid bit of black rope you have round your neck.

  'Well now,' the prince went on as they stepped out of the finest haberdasher's shop in Strasburg, 'what sort of company does Mme de Dubois keep? For Christ's sake! What a name! Don't get angry, my dear Sorel, I can't help it... Who shall you make advances to?'

  'A prude to end all prudes, the daughter of an immensely rich hosier. She has the loveliest eyes in the world, and I find

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  them infinitely charming; she is surely one of the highestranking women in the region; but in the midst of all her grandeur, she blushes so much that she quite goes to pieces if anyone happens to mention business or shops. And unfortunately, her father was one of the best-known merchants in Strasburg.'

  'And so if the subject of trade comes up,' the prince said, laughing, 'you can be sure that your fair lady is thinking of herself and not of you. This weak spot of hers is sheer heaven, and exceedingly useful; it will prevent you from having the slightest moment of folly in the presence of her lovely eyes. Success is assured.'

  Julien was thinking of Mme de Fervaques, the marshal's widow, who was a frequent visitor at the Hôtel de La Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had married the marshal a year before he died. Her whole life seemed entirely geared towards getting people to forget that her father was in trade; and, to have something going for her in Paris, she had put herself at the head of the cohorts of virtue.

  Julien had a sincere admiration for the prince; he would have given anything to have his foibles! The conversation between the two friends was endless; Korasov was delighted: never had a Frenchman listened to him for so long. So I've at last reached the point, said the prince to himself delightedly, where I'm listened to when I teach my masters a lesson!

  'We're quite clear about this, aren't we?' he repeated to Julien for the tenth time, 'not the slightest hint of passion when you talk to the young beauty--the daughter of the Strasburg hosier--in Mme de Dubois's presence. On the other hand, there must be burning passion when you write. Reading a well-written love letter is the ultimate pleasure for a prude; it's a moment when she can be off her guard. She's not acting a part, she can dare to listen to her heart; so two letters a day.'

  'Never, never!' said Julien despondently; 'I'd rather be pounded in a mortar than compose three fine phrases; I'm a corpse, dear fellow, don't hope for anything more from me. Let me die by the roadside.'

  'Who's talking about composing fine phrases? In my writingcase I have six volumes of hand-written love letters. There are

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  some for every possible kind of feminine character; I've got some for high virtue. Didn't Kalisky go wooing the prettiest Quaker lady in all England on Richmond Hill--you know, three leagues outside London?'

  Julien was less miserable when he took leave of his friend at two o'clock in the morning.

  The next day the prince sent for a clerk, and two days later Julien received fifty-three carefully numbered love letters, designed for the most sublime and dreary virtue.

  'There aren't fifty-four of them', said the prince, 'because Kalisky got shown the door; but what does it matter to you to be harshly treated by the hosier's daughter, since all you want is to produce an effect on Mme de Dubois's heart?'

  They went riding every day: the prince was mad about Julien. Not knowing what proof to give him of his sudden friendship, he eventually offered him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich heiress in Moscow; 'and once you're married,' he added, 'my influence and the cross you're wearing will make you a colonel in two years' time.'

  'But this cross wasn't awarded by Napoleon, quite the opposite.'

  'Who cares?' said the prince, 'He invented it, didn't he? It's still far and away the most distinguished in Europe.'

  Julien was on the verge of accepting; but his duty summoned him back to the important dignitary; when he took leave of Korasov, he promised to write. He was given the answer to the secret memorandum he had brought, and he sped off in the direction of Paris; but no sooner had he been on his own for two days on end than the idea of leaving France and Mathilde struck him as torture worse than death. I won't marry the millions that Korasov is offering me, but I will take his advice.

  After all, the art of seduction is his business; he's been thinking of nothing else for over fifteen years, for he's now thirty. No one could say he lacks wits; he's subtle and cunning; enthusiasm and poetry are out of the question in a character like his; he acts for other people; all the more reason for him to be right.

  It's essential, I shall pay court to Mme de Fervaques.

  She may well bore me a little, but I'll gaze at those lovely

  -411-

  eyes o
f hers, which are so like the ones which loved me most in the whole world.

  She's a foreigner; it'll be a new character to observe.

  I'm mad, I'm going under, I must follow a friend's advice and not trust in myself.

  -412-

  CHAPTER 25

  The Ministry of Virtue

  But if I sample this pleasure with so much prudence and circumspection, it won't be a pleasure for me any more.

  LOPE DE VEGA *

  As soon as he was back in Paris, and had stepped out of M .de La Mole's study, leaving him most put out by the despatches in front of him, our hero hurried off to see Count Altamira. To add to the distinction of being sentenced to death, this handsome foreigner could also boast a high degree of gravity and the good fortune of being religious; these two qualities, and most importantly, the count's high birth, were entirely to the liking of Mme de Fervaques, who saw a good deal of him.

  Julien confessed gravely to him that he was deeply in love with her.

  'There you have the purest and the highest virtue,' Altamira replied, 'just a trifle jesuitical and bombastic. There are days when I understand each individual word she uses, but I don't understand the whole sentence. She often makes me feel I don't understand French as well as I'm said to. This is an acquaintance which will put your name on people's lips; it will make you count in society. But let's go and see Bustos,' said Count Altamira, who was a systematic thinker, 'he has courted the marshal's widow.'

  Don Diego Bustos * wanted the matter explained to him at length, and listened without a word, like a barrister in chambers. He had the chubby face of a monk, with a black moustache, and an air of incomparable gravity; apart from that, he was every inch the good carbonaro * .

  'I understand,' he said to Julien at last. 'Has the Maréchale de Fervaques had any lovers or hasn't she? Do you therefore have any hope of success? That's the question. This is to admit that for my part, I got nowhere. Now that it no longer rankles, I reason things out like this: she's often ill-tempered, and as I shall explain in a minute, she's really quite vindictive.

  -413-

  'I don't detect in her the bilious temperament of genius, which puts something like a veneer of passion over every action. On the contrary, it's the phlegmatic and calm manner characteristic of the Dutch which gives her such rare beauty and fresh colouring.'

  Julien was growing impatient with the Spaniard's longwindedness and imperturbable phlegm; from time to time, in spite of himself, he let slip one or two monosyllables.

  'Do you mind hearing me out?' Don Diego Bustos said to him gravely.

  'Do forgive my furia francese, * I'm all ears,' said Julien.

  'As I was saying, the maréchale is very prone to hatred; she is merciless in her pursuit of people she has never seen, lawyers, wretched men of letters who have composed songs like Collé, * you know?

  'Tis my caprice To love Bernice, etc. *

  And Julien had to listen to him reeling off the whole thing. The Spaniard was very glad of a chance to sing in French.

  This divine song was never listened to with more impatience. When it was over: 'The marshal's widow', said Don Diego Bustos, 'had the author of this song sacked:

  'One day the lover at the inn...'

  Julien shuddered lest he should decide to sing it, but he was content with analysing it. It genuinely was sacrilegious and quite improper.

  'When Mme de Fervaques took against this song,' * said Don Diego, 'I pointed out to her that a woman of her rank shouldn't read all the silly rubbish that gets published. Whatever the advances in piety and gravity, there will always be a good collection of drinking songs in France. When Mme de Fervaques had had the author, a poor devil on half pay, sacked from a position worth eighteen hundred francs, "Watch out," I said to her, "you've attacked this versemonger with your weapons; he may answer back with his verse: he'll write a song about virtue. The gilded salons will be on your side; people who enjoy a laugh will repeat his epigrams." Do you know,

  -414-

  sir, what the maréchale replied to me? "In the cause of the Lord the whole of Paris would see me march to martyrdom; it would be a new spectacle in France. The common people would learn to respect quality. It would be the most glorious day in my life." Never had her eyes looked more glorious.'

  'Aren't they magnificent!' Julien exclaimed.

  'I see you're in love... So', Don Diego Bustos went on gravely, 'she doesn't have the bilious constitution which drives people to revenge. If she nevertheless enjoys causing harm, it's because she's unhappy; I suspect some inner unhappiness there. Might she not be a prude grown weary of her profession?

  The Spaniard looked at him in silence for a full minute.

  'That's the real question,' he added gravely, 'and that's where you can draw some hope. I thought a lot about it throughout the two years when I made myself her most humble servant. Your whole future--you, sir, who are in love--hangs on this great uncertainty: Is she a prude grown weary of her profession, and spiteful because she's unhappy?'

  'Or alternatively,' said Altamira, emerging at last from his deep silence, 'is it something I've suggested to you over and over again? Quite simply French vanity; it's the memory of her father, the famous draper, which is causing such misery to this naturally morose and arid character. I suppose there's only one way for her to be happy; to live in Toledo, and be tormented by a confessor who conjures up daily visions of hell gaping open.'

  As Julien was leaving: ' Altamira tells me you're one of us,' said Don Diego, more grave than ever. 'One day you'll help us win back our freedom, so I'm ready to help you with this little distraction. You need to know Mme de Fervaques's style; here are four letters in her hand.'

  'I shall copy them out,' said Julien, 'and bring them back to you.'

  'And no one shall ever learn through you a single word of what we have said?'

  'Never, upon my honour!' Julien exclaimed.

  'Then may God help you!' the Spaniard added; and he accompanied Altamira and Julien in silence right out on to the stairs.

  -415-

  This scene cheered our hero up a bit; he was on the verge of smiling. And here is the pious Altamira, he said to himself, helping me in an adulterous venture.

  Throughout the whole of the grave conversation with Don Diego Bustos, Julien had been attentive to the hours struck by the clock on the Hôtel d'Aligre. *

  The hour for dinner was drawing near, he was therefore going to see Mathilde again! He went home and dressed with great care.

  First piece of stupidity, he said to himself as he went downstairs; I must follow the prince's prescription to the letter.

  He went back up to his room and chose the plainest travelling outfit imaginable.

  Now, he thought, there's the matter of how I look at her. It was only five thirty, and dinner was at six. He decided to go down to the drawing-room, which he found deserted. The sight of the blue sofa moved him to tears; soon his cheeks were burning hot. I must wear down this foolish hypersensitivity of mine, he told himself angrily; it might betray me. He picked up a newspaper to appear to be doing something, and went out three or four times from the drawing-room into the garden.

  It was only in great fear and trembling, and when he was well hidden behind a large oak tree, that he dared to look up at Mlle de La Mole's window. It was hermetically shut; he almost collapsed, and stood leaning against the oak for some considerable time; then he walked over with tottering steps to look at the gardener's ladder again.

  The link in the chain, which he had once forced open in circumstances, alas! so different from now, had not been repaired. Carried away by a mad impulse, Julien pressed it to his lips.

  Having spent a long time wandering between the drawingroom and the garden, Julien found he was terribly tired; this was a first victory which he was keenly aware of. The look in my eyes will be listless and won't betray me! Gradually the dinner guests foregathered in the drawing-room; the door did not open once without causing dire turmoil in Julien's heart.<
br />
  The company sat down to table. At last Mlle de La Mole

  -416-

  appeared, ever faithful to her habit of keeping people waiting. She blushed deeply on seeing Julien; no one had told her of his arrival. In accordance with Prince Korasov's advice, Julien looked at her hands: they were trembling. Agitated beyond measure as he was by this discovery, he was fortunate enough not to appear other than tired.

  M. de La Mole praised him openly. The marquise spoke to him immediately afterwards, and complimented him on his look of fatigue. Julien kept saying to himself: I mustn't look at Mlle de La Mole too much, but then nor must I avoid looking at her either. I must appear to be the way I really was a week before my misfortune... He had occasion to be satisfied with his success, and he stayed on in the drawing-room. For the first time he was attentive towards his hostess, and made every effort to draw out the men in her company, and to keep up a lively conversation.

  His civility was rewarded: at about eight o'clock the Maréchale de Fervaques was announced. Julien slipped away and soon reappeared, dressed with the greatest care. Mme de La Mole was infinitely appreciative of this mark of respect, and made a point of showing him her satisfaction by telling Mme de Fervaques about his journey. Julien seated himself next to the maréchale in such a way as to keep his eyes hidden from Mathilde. From this position, following all the rules of the art, he made Mme de Fervaques the target of his most dumbfounded admiration. A tirade on this sentiment formed the opening of the first of the fifty-three letters presented to him by Prince Korasov.

  The maréchale announced that she was going to the OperaBuffa. * Julien made his way there in haste; he ran into the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who took him off to a box reserved for gentlemen of the royal household, which just happened to be next to Mme de Fervaques's box. Julien kept on gazing at her. It's vital, he said to himself on returning home, that I keep a siege diary; otherwise I might forget my attacking moves. He forced himself to write two or three pages on this boring subject, and in so doing succeeded--most miraculously!--in almost not thinking about Mlle de La Mole.