The Red and the Black (29 page)

calling out the scores; the players were running round the tables
cluttered with spectators. Great whiffs of tobacco smoke streaming
from every mouth enveloped all heads in a blue cloud. The tall stature
of these men, their rounded shoulders, their heavy tread, their huge
sidewhiskers, the long frock-coats draped round them--everything
caught Julien's eye. These noble children of ancient Bisontium only
spoke to shout; they assumed the poses of fearsome warriors. Julien
was rooted to the spot in admiration; his thoughts were on the sheer
size and the magnificence of a great capital like Besançon. He felt
nothing like bold enough to request a cup of coffee from one of those
haughty-looking gentlemen who were calling out the billiards score.
But the girl behind the bar had noticed the attractive figure of this
young bourgeois from the country who, standing three paces away from
the stove with his little bundle under his arm, was contemplating the
fine white plaster bust of the king. This barmaid, a tall
Franche-Comté lass with a lovely figure, dressed just right to do
honour to a café, had already said twice, in a quiet voice aiming not
to be heard by anyone but Julien: 'Sir! Sir!' Julien looked into two
big blue eyes filled with kindness, and saw that he was the person
being addressed.

He walked briskly
over to the bar and the pretty girl, as he would have marched to face
the enemy. In this great action, his bundle fell to the floor.

Imagine the pity our little provincial is going to arouse in those
young Parisian schoolboys who at the age of fifteen are already adept
at sauntering into a café with the most distinguished of airs! But these
boys who have so much style at fifteen become
common
at
eighteen. The intense reserve found in the provinces is sometimes
overcome, and it then brings out will-power. As he went over to this
beautiful girl who deigned to speak to him: I must tell her the truth,
thought Julien, who was growing brave through triumphing over his
reserve. 'Madam, this is the first time in my life I've come to
Besançon: I'd like to have a roll and a cup of coffee--I can pay.'

The barmaid smiled a little and then blushed; she was afraid of
hearing the billiard players direct quips and ironic comments

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at this attractive young man. He'd be frightened off and wouldn't come back.

'Take a seat here near me,' she said, showing him a marble table
almost completely hidden by the enormous mahogany bar projecting into
the room.

The girl leaned out over
the bar, which gave her the opportunity to display her superb figure.
Julien noticed it; his ideas underwent a rapid shift. The beautiful
girl had just put down a cup, some sugar and a roll in front of him.
She was hesitating to call a waiter for the coffee, realizing that his
arrival would put an end to her tête-à-tête with Julien.

Julien was pensive, comparing this fair, sparkling beauty with
certain memories which often disturbed him. The thought of the passion
he had inspired banished almost all his nervousness. The beautiful girl
only had a moment; she read Julien's gaze.

'This pipe smoke is making you cough, come for breakfast before eight o'clock tomorrow: at that time, I'm almost alone.'

'What's your name?' asked Julien with the caressing smile of nervousness reassured.

' Amanda Binet.'

'Will you allow me to send you, in an hour's time, a little bundle the size of this one?'

The beautiful Amanda thought for a moment.

'They've got their eye on me: what you're asking may compromise me;
all the same, I'll go off and write down my address on a card for you
to put on your bundle. You can send it to me without any worries.'

'I'm called Julien Sorel,' said the young man; I have neither relatives nor acquaintances in Besançon.'

'Ah! I understand,' she said delightedly, 'you're here to study law.'

'Alas! no,' Julien replied, 'I'm being sent to the seminary.'

The light in Amanda's face was instantly extinguished by a look of
the most total discouragement; she called a waiter: she felt able to
now. The waiter poured Julien some coffee without looking at him.

Amanda was taking money at the bar; Julien felt proud of having dared to speak; a quarrel broke out at one of the billiard

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tables. The shouts and denials of the players echoing round the
enormous room created a din that amazed Julien. Amanda was looking
dreamy and had her eyes lowered.

'If you like, mademoiselle,' he said to her suddenly in confident tones, 'I'll say I'm your cousin.'

This little air of authority appealed to Amanda. This young man isn't
a nobody, she thought. She said to him very quickly, without looking
at him, since she was keeping a watchful eye to see if anyone was
coming up to the bar:

'I'm from Genlis, near Dijon; say you're from Genlis too, and a cousin of my mother's.'

'I'll be sure to.'

'Every Thursday at five o'clock in summertime the young gentlemen from the seminary pass by in front of the café.'

'When I go past, if you're thinking of me, have a bunch of violets in your hand.'

Amanda looked at him in astonishment; this look turned Julien's
courage into temerity; yet he blushed deeply as he said to her:

'I feel I love you with the most passionate love.'

'Do lower your voice,' she said to him with a terrified look.

Julien was thinking of calling up some passages he had read in an incomplete volume of
La Nouvelle Héloïse
^*
that he had found at Vergy. His memory served him well. He had been reciting
La Nouvelle Héloïse
for a good ten minutes to a delighted M
^lle
Amanda, and was feeling pleased with his bravery, when suddenly the
belle of the Franche-Comté assumed an icy glare. One of her lovers was
on the doorstep of the café.

He
walked over to the bar, whistling and swinging his shoulders in step;
he looked at Julien. Instantly, the latter's imagination, always
veering to extremes, was filled exclusively with thoughts of a duel.
He turned extremely pale, pushed his cup away, assumed a
self-confident air and stared closely at his rival. While this rival
had his head lowered, intent on pouring himself a glass of brandy at
the bar like an old customer, Amanda ordered Julien with a glance to
lower his gaze. He obeyed, and for two minutes remained motionless in
his seat, pale, resolute and wholly absorbed in what was to come; he

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looked really impressive at that moment. The rival had been
astonished at Julien's eyes; downing his brandy in one go, he said a
word to Amanda, stuck his two hands in the side pockets of his heavy
frock-coat and went over to one of the billiard tables, blowing the
air out of his mouth as he looked at Julien. The latter stood up in a
fit of rage; but he did not know how to go about being insulting. He
put down his little bundle and walked towards the billiard table,
swinging his hips as best he could manage.

It was to no avail that prudence said to him: Look, with a duel the
moment you arrive in Besançon, your ecclesiastical career is ruined.

So what, let no one say I let a cheeky devil get away with it.

Amanda observed his courage; it made a nice contrast with the naïvety
of his manners; it was the work of an instant for her to prefer him
to the tall young man in the frock-coat. She got up, and while
appearing to be gazing after someone who was passing in the street,
she quickly came and stationed herself between him and the billiard
table.

'Be careful not to give that gentleman dirty looks, he's my brother-in-law.'

'What do I care? He stared at me.'

'Do you want to make me unhappy? Maybe he did stare at you, perhaps
he's even going to come over and talk to you. I told him you're a
relative of my mother's and you've just arrived from Genlis. He's from
the Franche-Comté, and he's never been further than Dôle,
^*
on the way to Burgundy; so you can say what you like, there's nothing to fear.'

Julien was still hesitating; she added very quickly, her barmaid's imagination supplying her with lies in plenty:

'Maybe he did stare at you, but that was when he was asking me who you are. He's a man who's
boorish
to everybody; he didn't mean to insult you.'

Julien was keeping an eye fixed on the so-called brother-inlaw; he saw
him purchase a number for the pool being played at the further of the
two billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice shouting in menacing
tones:
I'm stepping in now
. He

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slipped quickly behind M
^lle
Amanda and began to walk towards the billiard table. Amanda grabbed him by the arm:

'Come and pay me first,' she said to him.

That's right, thought Julien, she's afraid I'll leave without paying.
Amanda was as agitated as he was and very flushed; she handed him his
change as slowly as she could, while repeating to him in a low voice:

'Leave the café this instant, or I won't love you any more; but I love you a lot, actually.'

Julien did indeed leave, but taking his time. Isn't it my duty, he
kept repeating to himself, to go and stare and puff at that rude
individual? This uncertainty kept him for an hour on the boulevard
outside the café; he was watching for his man to come out. He did not
appear and Julien went away.

He
hadn't been in Besançon for more than a few hours and already he had
notched up a sense of failure. The old army surgeon had once given him
a few fencing lessons in spite of his gout; this was all the
knowledge Julien could muster in the service of his anger. But this
embarrassment would not have mattered a whit, had he but known how to
show his annoyance otherwise than by delivering a slap in the face;
and if it came to a punch-up, his rival, an enormous man, would have
beaten him and left him there.

For a
poor devil like me, said Julien to himself, with nobody to protect me
and no money, there won't be much difference between a seminary and a
prison; I must leave my plain clothes in some inn or other, and
resume my black suit. If ever I manage to get out of the seminary for a
few hours, I can perfectly well go and see M
^lle
Amanda
wearing my plain clothes. It was a fine piece of reasoning, but Julien
went past all the inns without daring to enter a single one.

At last, as he was going past the Ambassadors Hotel for a second
time, his anxious gaze met that of a fat woman, still fairly young,
with a ruddy complexion and a happy, cheerful air. He went up to her
and told her his story.

'Of course,
my fine little Father,' said the mistress of the Ambassadors, 'I'll
keep your plain clothes for you, and I'll even get them dusted off
regularly. In this weather it isn't a good idea to leave a cloth suit
undisturbed.' She took a key

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and led him off to one of the rooms herself, advising him to make a note of what he was depositing.

'Lord a mercy! Don't you look dandy like that, Father Sorel, sir!'
said the fat woman to him when he came down to the kitchen. 'I'll be
seeing to it you get a good dinner put in front of you; and', she
added in a low voice, 'it'll not cost you more than twenty sous,
instead of the fifty that everyone else pays; for we've surely got to
go easy on your little
nest egg
.'

'I've got ten louis,' Julien retorted with some pride.

'Oh Lord!' replied the good hostess in alarm, 'don't talk so loud;
there's a lot of good-for-nothings in Besançon. You'll have it nicked
in next to no time. Above all, don't ever set foot in those cafés,
they're full of good-for-nothings.'

'Really!' said Julien; the term set him thinking.

'Don't come anywhere except my place; I'll see to it there's coffee
made for you. Remember that here you'll always find a friend and a
good dinner for twenty sous; that means something, I trust. Go and sit
yourself down, I'll be serving you myself.'

'I don't feel like eating,' Julien said to her, 'I'm too upset, I'm going into the seminary when I leave here.'

The good woman did not let him leave until she had filled his pockets
with supplies. At last Julien set off on his way to the terrible
place; the hostess gave him directions leaning out through the top
section of her door.

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Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at 83 centimes, three hundred
and thirty-six suppers at 38 centimes, chocolate for those entitled
to it; how much profit is there to be made from my submission-and from
theirs?

THE BESANÇON VALENOD
^*

HE caught sight of the gilded iron cross on the door from a long way
off; he approached slowly; his legs seemed to be giving way beneath
him. So this is the hell on earth that I shan't be able to escape
from! Eventually he made up his mind to ring the doorbell. The noise
resounded as in a desolate spot. Ten minutes later a pale man dressed
in black came to let him in. Julien looked at him and at once lowered
his gaze. The porter had a strange face. The bulging green irises of
his eyes were rounded like a cat's; the motionless lines of his
eyelids proclaimed the absence of any possible sympathy; his thin lips
spread in a semicircle over a set of protruding teeth. However, this
face did not proclaim criminality so much as the kind of total
impassivity that arouses far greater terror in the young. The only
feeling that Julien's rapid glance could detect in this long, pious
face was a profound disdain for everything that anyone might wish to
say to him unless it concerned the interests of heaven.

Julien made an effort to look up and, in a voice trembling from the
pounding of his heart, explained that he wished to speak to M. Pirard,
the master of the seminary. Without uttering a word, the man in black
beckoned to him to follow. They went up two flights of a wide
staircase with wooden banisters and sagging steps which sloped right
down on the side away from the wall, and looked about to collapse. A
small door with a large graveyard cross above it made of deal painted
black was opened with difficulty, and the porter showed him in to a
gloomy, low room with whitewashed walls, decorated

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