The Red and the Black (27 page)

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 M
^me
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 billsticker 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 M
^me
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. M
^me
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 M
^me
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. M
^me
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 M
^me
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 go. 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 M
^me
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 M
^me
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.

One thing astonished Julien: the solitary weeks he had spent in
Verrières in M. de Rênal's house had been a happy time for him. He had
only experienced revulsion and gloomy thoughts during the dinners
that had been put on for him; in this solitary house, was he not able
to read, write and think without being disturbed? He wasn't dragged
from his brilliant flights of fancy at every moment, first by the
harsh necessity of studying the workings of a base mind, and then by
the need to outwit it through hypocritical actions or words.

Could happiness be so near at hand?... A life like this doesn't
involve much by way of expenditure; I can choose whether to marry M
^lle
Elisa or become Fouqué's partner... But a traveller who has just climbed a steep mountain sits down at

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the summit and finds perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be happy if forced to rest for ever?

M
^me
de Rênal's mind had come to entertain dire thoughts. In spite of her
resolve, she had told Julien about the whole business of the
assignment. He'll make me forget all my oaths, so it seems! she
thought.

She would have sacrificed
her own life without hesitating to save her husband's if she had seen
him in danger. She was one of those noble, romantic creatures for whom
seeing the possibility of a generous action and not carrying it out
gives rise to almost as much remorse as does a crime actually
committed. Nevertheless, there were black days when she could not
banish the image of the surfeit of happiness that would overwhelm
her if she were suddenly widowed and able to marry Julien.

He loved her sons much more than their father did; despite his stern
even-handedness, he was adored by them. She was well aware that in
marrying Julien she would have to leave Vergy with its beloved shade.
She pictured herself living in Paris, continuing to give her children
the education that everyone admired. Her children, herself,
Julien--all perfectly happy.

Strange is the effect of marriage as it has been fashioned by the
nineteenth century! The boredom of married life is sure to kill off
love when love precedes marriage. And at the same time, as a
philosopher would say, it soon induces in people rich enough not to
work a profound sense of being bored with all quiet pleasures. And,
among women, only the most unresponsive of natures are not predisposed
by it towards love.

Philosophic reflection makes me forgive M
^me
de Rênal, but she was not forgiven in Verrières, and without her
suspecting it, the entire town thought of nothing else but the scandal
of her passion. Because of this great affair, the inhabitants were
far less bored that autumn than usual.

Autumn and part of winter passed all too quickly. It was time to
leave the woods of Vergy. High society in Verrières began to grow
indignant that its anathemas were having so little effect on M. de
Rênal. Within the space of a week, a number of solemn individuals, who
make up for their habitual seriousness by the pleasure they derive
from carrying out this

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