The Red and the Black (62 page)

chairman, 'we must stop trying to convince one another. We must think
about the content of the memorandum which in forty-eight hours' time
will be before the eyes of our friends across the border. We have
talked about ministers. We can admit now that M. de Nerval has left
us: what do we care about ministers? We shall dictate wishes to them.'

The cardinal showed his approval with a subtle smile.

'Nothing could be easier, it seems to me, than summing up our
position,' said the young Bishop of Agde with the concentrated and
forced vehemence of the most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up
until then; his eyes, which Julien had been watching, had had a
gentle and serene look in them to start with, but had begun to blue
after the first hour of discussion. Now his soul was overflowing like
lava from Vesuvius.

'Between 1806
and 1814, the one thing England did wrong', he said 'was not to take
direct, personal action against Napoleon. Once the man had created dukes
and chamberlains, once he had restored the throne, the mission God
had entrusted to him was over; he was ripe for sacrificial slaughter.
The Holy Scriptures teach us in more places than one how to deal with
tyrants.' (Here followed a number of quotations in Latin.)

'Today, gentleman, what has to be sacrificed is not a man, but Paris.
The whole of France copies Paris. What's the use of arming your five
hundred men per département? It's a risky and never-ending enterprise.
What's the use of involving France in a business that is peculiar to
Paris? Paris alone with its newspapers and its salons has committed
the evil: let this new Babylon perish.

'There must be a decisive confrontation between the altar and Paris.
Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the
throne. Why didn't Paris dare breathe a word under Bonaparte? The
Saint-Roch cannon* has the answer to that one . . .'

... ... ...

It was not until three in the morning that Julien and M. de La Mole left.

The marquis felt embarrassed and tired. For the first time, when he addressed Julien, there was a note of entreaty in his

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voice. He wanted Julien's word for it that he would never disclose
the excesses of zeal--that was the marquis's expression--which chance
had just let him witness. 'Don't mention this to our friend abroad
unless he really insists on knowing what our young hotheads are like.
What does it matter to them if the State is overthrown? They will be
cardinals, and take refuge in Rome. But nobles like us, in our
châteaux, will be massacred by the peasants.'

The secret memorandum that the marquis drafted on the basis of
Julien's twenty-six pages of minutes was not ready until a quarter to
five.

'I'm absolutely dead beat,'
said the marquis, 'and it shows clearly in this memorandum, which
lacks clarity towards the end; I'm more dissatisfied with it than with
anything I've ever done in my whole life. Let's think now, dear
fellow,' he added, 'go and get a few hours' rest; and for fear of your
being abducted, I'm going to lock you into your room myself.'

The next day the marquis took Julien to a remote château some
distance from Paris. They were received by odd-looking hosts, whom
Julien took to be priests. He was handed a passport which bore an
assumed name, but did finally indicate the purpose of the journey
which he had always pretended to be ignorant of. He took his seat in a
barouche on his own.

The marquis had
no worries about Julien's memory: he had recited the secret
memorandum to him several times; but he was in great fear lest Julien
be waylaid.

'Make sure you always
keep up the appearance of a dandy travelling to while away the time,'
he said to him warmly as he was leaving the drawing-room. 'There may
have been several false brethren at our gathering yesterday.'

The journey was swift and very dreary. No sooner was Julien out of
the marquis's sight than he forgot both the secret memorandum and his
mission, and all his thoughts turned to Mathilde's disdain.

At a village several leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came to him
to say there were no horses. It was ten o'clock at night; most put
out, Julien ordered some supper. He walked up and down in front of the
door, and imperceptibly, without

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letting anyone see what he was doing, he slipped into the stable courtyard. He saw no horses there.

All the same, that man had a strange look, Julien said to himself; his vulgar eye was examining me.

He was beginning, as you see, not to believe every word of what was
said to him. He was thinking of slipping away after supper; and with a
view to learning at any rate something about the region, he left his
room to go and warm himself in front of the kitchen fire. Just imagine
his delight at finding Signor Geronimo, the famous singer, sitting
there.

Ensconced in an armchair that
he had had brought to the fireside for him, the Neapolitan was
groaning out loud and talking more himself than the twenty German
peasants put together who were crowding round him in open-mouthed
astonishment.

'These people will be the ruin of me,' he called out to Julien, 'I've promised to sing in Mainz
^*
tomorrow. Seven sovereign princes have flocked to listen to me. But
let's go and take the air,' he added with a meaningful look.

When he was a hundred yards off down the road, and out of range of being overheard:

'Do you know what's going on?' he asked Julien; 'this postmaster is a
rogue. While I was out walking, I gave twenty sous to a little urchin
who told me everything. There are more than twelve horses in a stable
at the far end of the village. They want to delay some courier or
other.'

'Really?' said Julien innocently.

It wasn't everything to have discovered the fraud: they still had to
leave; but this result Geronimo and his friend failed to achieve.
'Let's wait until tomorrow,' the singer said at last, 'they're
suspicious of us. Perhaps one of us is the person they've got it in
for. Tomorrow morning we order a good breakfast; while they prepare it
we go for a walk, we slip away, we hire horses and get to the next
post.'

'What about your luggage?'
said Julien, who was thinking that perhaps Geronimo himself might have
been sent to waylay him. There was nothing for it but to have supper
and go to bed. Julien was still in his first deep sleep when he was
woken

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with a start by the voices of two people talking quite uninhibitedly in his room.

He recognized the postmaster, wielding a dark lantern. The light was
directed towards the trunk of the barouche, which Julien had had
brought up to his room. Next to the postmaster was a man rummaging
unperturbed in the open trunk. All Julien could make out were the
sleeves of his coat, which were black and tight-fitting.

It's a cassock, he said to himself, and he quietly seized hold of two small pistols he had put under his pillow.

'Don't be afraid that he'll wake up, Father,' the postmaster was
saying. 'The wine they were served was some of the one you yourself
prepared.'

'I can't find any sign of
papers,' replied the priest. 'Plenty of linen, essences, creams and
other frivolities; he's a young man of the world, in pursuit of his
pleasures. The envoy is more likely to be the other one, who puts on
an Italian accent.'

The men moved
closer to Julien to search the pockets of his travelling suit. He was
very tempted to kill them as thieves. Nothing could have been less
risky as far as the consequences went. He really wanted to. I
would
be a fool, he told himself, I'd compromise my mission. When his suit
had been searched; 'He's no diplomat,' said the priest; he moved away,
luckily for him.

If he touches me
in my bed, he'd better watch out! Julien said to himself; he may very
well come and stab me, and I won't put up with
that
.

The priest looked round. Julien had his eyes half open; imagine his
astonishment: it was Father Castanède! Indeed, although the two people
were trying to keep their voices down, he had fancied right from the
start that he recognized one of the voices. Julien was seized with an
overwhelming desire to purge the earth of one of its most dastardly
scoundrels...

But what about my mission! he said to himself.

The priest and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour later,
Julien pretended to wake up. He called for someone and woke the whole
house.

'I've been poisoned!' he shouted, 'I'm in horrible agony!'

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He wanted a pretext to go to Geronimo's assistance. He found him half-asphyxiated by the laudanum that was in the wine.

Fearing some funny business of this sort, at supper Julien had drunk
some chocolate brought from Paris. He did not succeed in waking
Geronimo sufficiently to persuade him to leave.

'If you gave me the whole kingdom of Naples', said the singer, 'I still wouldn't give up the bliss of sleeping right now.'

'But what about the seven sovereign princes!'

'Let them wait.'

Julien set off alone and arrived without further incident at the
important dignitary's residence. He wasted a whole morning trying in
vain to obtain an audience. By a stroke of good fortune, about four
o'clock, the duke decided to take the air. Julien saw him going out on
foot, and did not hesitate to go up to him to ask for alms. When he
was a couple of paces from the important dignitary, he drew out the
Marquis de La Mole's watch and displayed it ostentatiously. '
Follow me at a distance
', he was told, without so much as a glance.

A quarter of a league further on, the duke plunged into a little Café-hauss.
^*
It was in one of the rooms of this low-class inn that Julien had the
honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished: '
Begin again and go more slowly
,' he was told.

The prince took notes. '
Make
your way on foot to the next post. Abandon your belongings and your
barouche here. Get to Strasburg as best you can, and on the
twenty-second of this month
(it was then the tenth)
be here at half past twelve noon in this same Café-hauss. Don't leave it now until half an hour is up. Silence!
'

These were the only words Julien heard. They were enough to imbue him
with the utmost admiration. That's the way, he thought, to conduct
business; what ever would this great statesman think if he heard the
impassioned talkers of three days ago?

Julien spent two days getting to Strasburg: it did not seem to him
that he had any business there. He made a great detour. If that devil
of a Father Castanède recognized me, he's not a

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man to lose track of me that easily... And what a pleasure for him to make a fool of me and scupper my mission!

Father Castanède, chief of the Congregation's police
^*
for the whole of the northern border, had fortunately not recognized
him. And despite their zeal, the Jesuits in Strasburg did not think
to put Julien under observation: with his cross fastened to his blue
greatcoat, he had the air of a young soldier very taken with his
personal appearance.

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Fascination! You have all the energy of love, all its power to endure
unhappiness. Only its enchanting pleasures, its sweet delights are
outside your sphere. I could not say as I watched her sleep: she is
all mine, with her angelic beauty and her sweet failings! Here she is
delivered into my power, just as heaven created her in its mercy to
delight a man's heart.

SCHILLER,
Ode

FORCED to spend a week in Strasburg, Julien tried to keep himself
entertained by thoughts of military glory and devotion to his country.
Was he in love, then? he really didn't know, but in his tortured mind
he did find Mathilde absolute mistress of his happiness and of his
imagination. He needed all the energy in his character to keep himself
from sinking into despair. Thinking about anything that didn't have
some connection with M
^lle
de La Mole was beyond his powers.
Ambition or the simple triumphs of vanity used to take his mind off
the feelings inspired in him formerly by M
^me
de Rênal. Mathilde had absorbed everything; he found her everywhere in the future.

On all sides, in this future, Julien saw lack of success. This
individual we saw so full of presumption, so arrogant in Verrières,
had lapsed into ridiculous extremes of selfdisparagement.

Three days previously he would have taken pleasure in killing Father
Castanède, and here in Strasburg, if a child had picked a quarrel with
him, he would have decided the child was in the right. Thinking back
over the adversaries and enemies he had encountered in his life, he
felt every time that he, Julien, had been in the wrong.

The reason was that now he had an implacable enemy in the shape of that powerful imagination of his, which had previ-

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ously been wholly engaged in depicting such brilliant success for him in the future.

The unmitigated solitude of a traveller's life increased the hold of
his black imagination. What a treasure a friend would have been! But,
Julien said to himself, is there any heart that beats for me? And even
if I had a friend, doesn't honour bid me keep eternal silence?

He was out riding, miserably, in the countryside round Kehl; this
little town on the banks of the Rhine has been immortalized by Desaix
and Gouvion Saint-Cyr
^*
. A German peasant was showing him the little streams, the paths and
the islands in the Rhine made famous by the courage of those great
generals. Using his left hand to guide the horse, Julien held open
with his right hand the superb map which adorns the
Memoirs
of Marshal Saint-Cyr. A cheerful exclamation made him look up.

It was Prince Korasov, his friend from London who some months earlier
had instructed him in the first principles of high foppery. Faithful
to this great art, Korasov, who had arrived in Strasburg the day
before, and in Kehl an hour ago, and who had never in his life read a
word on the siege of 1796, began to explain everything to Julien. The
German peasant stared at him astonished, for he knew enough French to
make out the gross howlers perpetrated by the prince. Julien was a
thousand miles away from what the peasant was thinking, he was looking
in astonishment at this handsome young man, and admiring the
graceful way he rode his horse.

Oh
happy man! he said to himself. How well his breeches suit him; and
what an elegant haircut! Alas! if I had been like that, perhaps when
she'd loved me for three days she wouldn't have taken an aversion to
me.

When the prince had finished his
siege of Kehl: 'Your expression is like a Trappist's,' he said to
Julien, 'you're exceeding the guidelines on gravity I explained to you
in London. Looking miserable is never in good taste; looking bored
is the done thing. If you're miserable, there must be something you're
wanting, something that hasn't turned out right.

'
It's showing yourself to be inferior
. If you're bored, on the

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