The Red and the Black (18 page)

sign of love, he gave her a passionate look, for she had seemed very
pretty to him at lunch, and while keeping his eyes lowered, he had
spent the time going over her charms in his mind. This look consoled M
^me
de Rênal; it did not banish all her anxieties, but her anxieties almost entirely banished her remorse towards her husband.

At lunch this husband of hers had not noticed anything. The same could not be said of M
^me
Derville: she thought that M
^me
de Rênal was on the verge of succumbing. Throughout the whole day her bold and forthright friendship did not spare M
^me
de Rênal any innuendo designed to portray in hideous colours the danger she was in.

M
^me
de Rênal ached to be alone with Julien; she wanted to ask him if he
still loved her. In spite of the unvarying sweetness of her temper,
there were several occasions when she almost gave her friend to
understand how unwelcome her interference was.

That evening in the garden M me Derville arranged things so well that she found herself sitting between M
^me
de Rênal and Julien. M
^me
de Rênal, who had conjured up an exquisite image of the pleasure of
squeezing Julien's hand and putting it to her lips, was unable to
address a single word to him.

This
setback increased her agitation. She was consumed with remorse over
something: she had scolded Julien so much for his imprudent act in
coming to her room the previous night, that she was now in fear and
trembling that he would not come that evening. She left the garden
early and went and settled herself in her room. But unable to contain
her impatience she came and pressed her ear to Julien's door. In
spite of the uncertainty and the passion consuming her, she did not
dare go in. To do so seemed to her the most infamous step, for it
features in a provincial saying.
^*

The servants had not all gone to bed. Prudence at length dictated
that she return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries
of torment.

But Julien was too faithful to what he called duty to fail to carry out in every detail what he had laid down for himself.

As one o'clock was striking he slipped quietly from his room, made sure that the master of the house was deeply

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asleep, and made his appearance in M
^me
de Rênal's room. That day he found greater happiness in the arms of
his love, for his thoughts dwelled less constantly on the role he had
to play. He had eyes to see with and ears to hear. What M
^me
de Rênal said about her age contributed to his feeling of increased assurance.

'Alas! I'm ten years older than you! How can you love me!' she
repeated to him aimlessly, because the idea of it oppressed her.

Julien could not grasp this misfortune, but he saw that it was real
enough, and he forgot almost all his fear of being ridiculous.

The silly idea of being regarded as an inferior lover because of his
humble birth vanished as well. As Julien's rapture gradually reassured
his timid mistress, so she recovered a little happiness and the
ability to judge her lover. Luckily he showed virtually no signs on
that occasion of the stilted manner which had made the previous day's
encounter a victory but not a pleasure. If she had noticed the
attention he devoted to acting a part, this sad discovery would have
robbed her of all happiness for ever. She could only have taken it as a
sad result of the age-gap between them.

Although M
^me
de Rênal had never thought about theories of love, difference in age
follows close on difference in fortune as being one of the great
commonplaces of provincial humour whenever it comes to joking about
love.

It was only a matter of days before Julien, regaining the full ardour of his youth, was head over heels in love.

I must admit, he said to himself, that she's as sweet-natured as an angel, and it would be difficult to be prettier.

He had almost completely lost the idea of the role he had to play. In
an unguarded moment he even confided all his worries to her. This
confession fanned into a blaze the passion he inspired. So I never had
a happy rival! said M
^me
de Rênal to herself in ecstasy.
She plucked up courage to question him on the portrait he had been so
concerned about; Julien swore to her that it was the picture of a man.

At times when M
^me
de
Rênal still had enough composure to reflect, she couldn't get over her
astonishment that such happiness should exist, and that she had never
suspected it.

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Ah! she mused, if only I'd known Julien ten years ago when I was still considered pretty!

Julien was very far removed from such thoughts. His love still
stemmed from ambition, from the joy of knowing that he, a poor wretch
so deeply despised, could possess such a noble and beautiful woman.
His acts of adoration, his excitement at the sight of his loved one's
charms, eventually reassured her about the difference in their ages.
If she had had any of the worldly wisdom which women of thirty have
possessed for quite some time in more civilized parts of the country,
she would have feared for the duration of a love which only seemed
to feed on novelty and flattered self-esteem.

At moments when Julien forgot his ambition, his rapturous admiration extended to the very hats, the very dresses that M
^me
de Rênal wore. He could not have enough of the pleasure of smelling
their perfume. He opened her mirrored wardrobe and spent hours on end
admiring the beauty and the style of everything he found there.
Leaning against him, his mistress looked at him, while he looked at
the jewels and garments which might have composed a trousseau on the
eve of a wedding.

I might have married a man like that! M
^me
de Rênal thought from time to time. What a passionate creature! What an enchanting life together!

Julien for his part had never come so close to these terrible
instruments of feminine artillery. It just isn't possible, he said to
himself, that there's anything more beautiful to be had in Paris! At
this point he could find no further obstacle to his happiness. Often
his mistress's sincere admiration and her rapture caused him to forget
the futile theory which had made him so unnatural and almost
ridiculous at the beginning of their liaison. There were moments when,
in spite of his habitually assumed hypocrisy, he found it extremely
comforting to confesss to this grand lady who so admired him how
ignorant he was of a host of little customs. His mistress's rank
seemed to raise him up above himself. M
^me
de Rênal on her
side derived the sweetest of mental enjoyment from providing
instruction in this way, in a host of little matters, to a young man
so full of genius, who was universally regarded as someone

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who would one day go far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could
not help admiring him; and they seemed to him the less foolish for it.
As for M
^me
Derville, she was far from having such
sentiments to express. In despair at what she guessed to be going on,
and realizing that her wise counsel was becoming distasteful to a
woman who had literally lost her head, she left Vergy without offering
any explanation, and none was asked of her. M
^me
de Rênal
shed one or two tears over it, but it soon seemed to her that her
bliss had only increased. This departure gave her virtually the whole
of the daytime alone with her lover.

Julien was all the more ready to give himself up to the delightful
company of his beloved since, whenever he was alone with himself for
too long, Fouqué's fateful proposition returned to the forefront of
his mind to unsettle him. In the early days of his new life, there
were moments when Julien, who had never loved or been loved by anyone,
found such delightful pleasure in being sincere that he was on the
point of telling M
^me
de Rênal of the ambition that had up
till then been the be-all and end-all of his existence. He would have
liked to seek her opinion on the strange temptation which Fouqué's
proposition held out for him, but a little happening put any frankness
out of the question.

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O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun
And by and by a cloud takes all away!

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

ONE evening at sunset he sat deeply musing beside his mistress at the
bottom of the orchard, far from any intruder's gaze. Will such sweet
moments last for ever? he wondered. His mind was preoccupied with the
difficulty of adopting a profession, and he resented this great new
burden which brings an end to childhood and spoils the early years of
poverty-stricken youth.

'Ah!' he
exclaimed, 'Napoleon really was a man sent from God for the young men
of France! Who will replace him? Without him, what will become of the
unfortunate people-even those richer than I am--who can just scrape
together what it takes to pay for a good education, but haven't got
enough money at twenty to buy their way into a career! Whatever we
do', he added with a deep sigh, 'this fateful memory will always
prevent us from being happy!'

All of a sudden he saw M
^me
de Rênal frown and take on a cold and disdainful look: this way of
thinking struck her as something to be expected of a servant. Brought
up in the knowledge that she was extremely wealthy, it seemed to her
to go without saying that Julien was too. She loved him infinitely
more dearly than her life, and was quite indifferent to money.

Julien was nowhere near guessing these thoughts. Her frown brought
him down to earth again. He had enough presence of mind to modify what
he said and give the noble lady sitting on the grassy bank beside him
to understand that the words he had just repeated had been heard by
him on his visit to his friend the timber merchant. They represented
the way of thinking of the ungodly.

'Very well then! Don't mix with people like that any more,'

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said M
^me
de Rênal, still with a trace of the frosty air that had suddenly replaced an expression of the utmost tenderness.

Her frown, or rather the regret he felt at his rash words, was the
first setback to the illusion beguiling Julien. He said to himself:
She's kind and sweet, and has a strong attachment to me, but she was
brought up in the enemy camp. They must be particularly afraid of the
class of spirited young men who receive a good education but haven't
enough money to embark on a career. What would become of these same
nobles if it fell to our lot to fight them with equal arms! Imagine me
as mayor of Verrières for instance. I'm well-intentioned and honest
just like M. de Rênal is underneath! I'd soon get the better of the
curate, M. Valenod and all their skullduggery! Justice would soon
triumph in Verrières! It wouldn't be their talents that put obstacles
in my way. They're forever groping in the dark.

Julien's happiness reached the verge, that day, of becoming lasting.
In the event our hero lacked the courage to be sincere. He needed to
be bold enough to engage battle--and that
forthwith
. M
^me
de Rênal had been astonished by Julien's words, because the men in
her circle said repeatedly that what made the return of Robespierre
^*
possible was first and foremost the young men from the lower orders who had been too well educated. M
^me
de Rênal's chilly air lasted some while, and struck Julien as very
marked. You see, the fear of having indirectly said something
disagreeable to him had replaced her distaste for his unsuitable
remarks. This unhappiness was vividly reflected in her countenance,
which was usually so pure and innocent when she was happy and away
from tedious company.

Julien no longer dared let his fancies run free. Calmer and less madly in love, he decided it was unwise to visit M
^me
de Rênal in her bedroom. It was better for her to come to his; if
one of the servants noticed her moving about the house, any number of
reasons could be found to explain her conduct.

But this arrangement had its disadvantages too. Julien had received
from Fouqué some books which as a theology student he could never have
requested from a bookseller. He did not dare open them except at
night. Often he would have been very glad not to be interrupted by a
visit which, as recently as

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the evening before the little scene in the orchard, would have put
him in a state of anticipation quite unconducive to reading.

He owed to M
^me
de Rênal a totally new understanding of the books he read. He had
been bold enough to question her about a host of little things that
are unfamiliar to a young man born outside society, and stop his
comprehension in its tracks, however much natural ability one is
prepared to credit him with.

This
education of love given by an extremely ignorant woman was a great
joy. Julien was able to gain a direct perspective on society as it is
today. His intelligence was not offended by the account of what it had
been at other times, two thousand years ago or only sixty years back,
in the time of Voltaire
^*
and of Louis XV.
^*
To his unutterable delight the scales fell from his eyes and he at last understood the goingson in Verrières.

In the foreground there emerged some very complicated intrigues which
had been plotted over the past two years in the prefect of Besançon's
entourage. They received support in the form of letters emanating
from Paris, written in the most illustrious quarters. The aim was to
make M. de Moirod--he was the most pious man in the region--the first
and not the second deputy to the mayor of Verrières.

He had a rival in the person of an extremely rich manufacturer whom it
was vital to keep down in the position of second deputy.

Julien at last understood the veiled remarks he had overheard when the
high society of the locality came to dine with M. de Rênal. This
privileged society was deeply preoccupied by the business of selecting
a first deputy, which the rest of the town and in particular the
liberals never even suspected was an issue. What made this a matter of
importance was that, as everyone knows, the east side of the main
street in Verrières needs to be moved back more than nine feet, for
this street has become a royal highway.

Now if M. de Moirod, who owned three houses requiring to be moved
back, succeeded in becoming first deputy, and later on mayor of
Verrières in the eventuality of M. de Rênal's being chosen for the
Chamber of Deputies,
^*
M. de Moirod would

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