The Red and the Black (72 page)

feeble as to think about it constantly, and with terror in my soul?

He spent more than an hour trying to study himself thoroughly in his new light.

When he had seen clearly into the depths of his soul, and the truth
appeared before his eyes as distinctly as one of the pillars of his
prison, he turned his thoughts to remorse.

Why should I feel any? I was atrociously wronged; I committed murder,
I deserve death, but that's all there is to it. I'm going to die
after settling my account with the human race. I'm not leaving any
unfulfilled obligations behind me, I don't owe anything to anyone; the
only shameful feature of my death is the instrument of it: that
alone; it's true, is amply sufficient to shame me in the eyes of the
bourgeois citizens of Verrières; but from an intellectual point of
view, what could be more despicable! One means remains open to me to
win esteem in their eyes: flinging gold coins to the people as I walk
to the scaffold. Associated with the idea of gold, I shall remain a
resplendent memory for them.

After
following this line of reasoning, which a minute later struck him as
self-evident, Julien said to himself. I have nothing left to do on
earth, and he fell into a deep sleep.

At about nine o'clock in the evening the gaoler woke him up by bringing him supper.

'What are they saying in Verrières?'

'Monsieur Julien, the oath I swore before the crucifix at the crown
courthouse, the day I was invested with my office, obliges me to keep
silence.'

He said nothing, but went
on standing there. The sight of this vulgar hypocrisy amused Julien. I
must make him wait a good long time, he thought, for the five francs
he wants for selling me his conscience.

When the gaoler saw the meal coming to an end with no attempt being made to win him over:

'The friendship I feel for you, Monsieur Julien,' he said with a
gentle, contrived expression, 'obliges me to speak; though they say
it's against the interests of justice, because it may help you prepare
your fence... Monsieur Julien, who is

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good at heart, will be very glad to learn from me that Mme de Rênal is getting better.'

'What! isn't she dead!' Julien exclaimed, quite beside himself.

'What! you knew nothing about it!' said the poler with a dumbfounded
expression which soon became one of happy greed. 'It'll be only right
and proper for Sir to give something to the surgeon who, according to
the law and to justice, shouldn't have spoken. But to please Sir, I
went to his house, and he told me everything...'

'Yes, yes, so the wound isn't mortal,' Julien said impatiently, 'd'you vouch for it with your life, you wretch?'

The gaoler, a giant six foot high, took fright and retreated towards
the door. Julien saw that he was going about it the wrong way to get
at the truth, he sat down again and tossed M. Noiroud a gold napoléon.

As Julien gradually became convinced by the man's story that M
^me
de Rênal's wound was not mortal, he felt himself giving way to tears.

'Leave the room!' he said brusquely.

The gaoler obeyed. As soon as the door was shut: 'Oh God! she isn't
dead!' Julien exclaimed; and he fell on his knees in floods of tears.

In that solemn moment, he was a believer. What do priests and their
hypocrisies matter? Can they in any way detract from the truth and the
sublimeness of the idea of God?

Only
then did Julien begin to repent the crime he had committed. By a
coincidence which saved him from despair, that moment had also brought
an end at last to the state of physical tension and near madness in
which he had been engulfed since leaving Paris for Verrières.

His tears flowed from a generous source; he was in no doubt about the conviction awaiting him.

So she will live! he said to himself... She will live to forgive and to love me...

Very late the next morning when the gaoler woke him up:

'That must be a really stout heart you've got there, Monsieur Julien,' the man said to him. 'I came in twice and didn't want

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to wake you. Here are two bottles of excellent wine sent you by M. Maslon our priest.'

'Maslon? is that rogue still here?' Julien asked.

'Yes, sir,' the gaoler replied lowering his voice, 'but don't talk so loud, it could turn out badly for you.'

Julien laughed heartily.

'At the stage I've reached, good fellow, you're the only one who
could harm me if you stopped being kind and humane... You will be well
paid,' Julien said, interrupting himself and resuming his imperious
manner. This manner was instantly justified by the gift of a coin.

M. Noiroud again recounted--in the greatest detail, what's more--everything he had found out about M
^me
de Rênal; but he did not mention M
^lle
Elisa's visit.

The man was base and servile in the extreme. An idea flashed across
Julien's mind: This hideous giant of a fellow can only earn three or
four hundred francs, for his prison doesn't get much custom; I can
guarantee him ten thousand francs if he's willing to escape to
Switzerland with me... The difficulty will be to persuade him of my
good faith. The idea of the lengthy discussion he would have to have
with such a vile creature filled Julien with disgust, and he turned
his thoughts elsewhere.

By evening
the moment had passed. A post-chaise came to fetch him at midnight. He
was thoroughly satisfied with the police officers who accompanied him
on his journey. The next morning, when he arrived at the prison in
Besançon, the authorities were good enough to house him in the upper
storey of a gothic keep. He judged the architecture to date from the
beginning of the fourteenth century; he admired its gracefulness and
striking elegance. Through a narrow gap between two walls on the far
side of a long courtyard, a magnificent view could be glimpsed.

On the following day he was formally interrogated, after which he was
left in peace for several days. His mind was at rest. Everything
seemed quite straightforward to him in his case: I intended to kill,
so I must be killed.

Ms thoughts did not pursue this line of reasoning any further. The trial, the irksome necessity of appearing in public,

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his defence--he considered all these as minor inconveniences, tedious
ceremonies that it would be time enough to think about on the day
itself. Nor did the moment of death give him greater pause: I'll think
about it after the trial. Life was not in the least boring for him,
he considered everything in a new light. He had no ambition left. He
only thought occasionally about M
^lle
de La Mole. His remorse preoccupied him a good deal, and often confronted him with the image of M
^me
de Rênal, especially in the night-time stillness that was only
broken, in this high keep, by the cry of the white-tailed eagle!

He gave thanks to heaven that he hadn't wounded her to death. It's an
astonishing thing! he said to himself, I thought that by writing that
letter to M. de La Mole she had destroyed my future happiness for
ever, and less than a fortnight from the date of that letter I'm no
longer concerned about all the things that preoccupied me then... An
income of two or three thousand pounds to live quietly in a
mountainous spot like Vergy...I was happy then...I didn't know how
happy I was!

At other moments he leaped up from his chair. If I'd wounded M
^me
de Rênal to death, I would have killed myself... I need this certainty in order not to find myself repugnant.

To kill myself... that is the great question, he reflected. These
judges, who are so formalistic, so dogged in their pursuit of the poor
accused, who would have the best of citizens hanged in order to
fasten a medal to their coats... I should escape from their power,
from their insults in bad French,
^*
which the local newspaper will call eloquence.

I may live for another five or six weeks, give or take a bit... Kill
myself! most certainly not, he said to himself a few days later,
Napoleon went on living...

Besides,
I'm finding life enjoyable; this place is quiet; I don't have any
tedious visitors, he added laughing, and he began to make a note of
the books he wanted to have sent from Paris.

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HE heard a loud noise in the corridor; it was not a time when people
came up to his prison; the white-tailed eagle flew off with a cry, the
door opened and the venerable Father Chélan, trembling all over and
leaning on a stick, flung himself into his arms.

'Ah! God Almighty! is this possible, my child... Monster! I should say.'

And the kind old man was unable to utter another word. Julien was
afraid he would collapse. He was obliged to walk him over to a chair.
The hand of time had fallen heavily on this once energetic man. He
struck Julien as no more than a shadow of his former self.

When he had got his breath back: 'It was only the day before
yesterday that I got your letter from Strasburg with your five hundred
francs for the poor of Verrières; it was delivered to me in the
mountains at Liveru where I'm living in retirement with my nephew
Jean. Yesterday I learned of the catastrophe... Oh heavens! is it
possible!' and the old man no longer wept, his face looked utterly
vacant, and he added mechanically: 'You'll need your five hundred
francs, I've brought them back for you.'

'I need to see you, Father!' Julien exclaimed, very touched. 'I've got money to spare.'

But he was unable to elicit any coherent response from him after
that. Now and again M. Chélan shed a few tears which trickled silently
down his cheeks; then he looked at Julien, and seemed somehow dazed
to see him take hold of his hands and raise them to his lips. This
countenance that had been so full of life before, and had so
energetically portrayed the noblest of feelings could not now shake
off a look of total apathy. A peasant of some description soon came to
fetch the old man.

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'He mustn't be over-tired,' he said to Julien, who gathered that this
was the nephew. This apparition left Julien plunged in cruel
suffering which kept tears at bay. Everything seemed irreparably
gloomy to him; his heart felt like ice in his chest.

This was the cruellest moment he had experienced since the crime. He
had just seen death in all its hideousness. All illusions of spiritual
grandeur and generosity had melted away like clouds before a storm.

This terrible state lasted several hours. Someone who has been
psychologically poisoned needs physical remedies and champagne. Julien
would have considered himself a coward for resorting to them. Towards
the end of a horrendous day when he did nothing but pace up and down
his narrow tower: I'm utterly mad! he exclaimed. Only if I had to die
like everyone else should the sight of this poor old man have
plunged me into such terrible gloom; but a quick death in the prime of
life is precisely a guarantee against this sorry decrepitude.

Whatever arguments he put to himself, Julien found himself feeling
emotional, as if he were a coward, and he was consequently upset by this
visit.

There was nothing rugged and
grandiose left in him, no more Roman virtue; death appeared as way
above him now, and as something less easy.

This shall be my thermometer, he told himself. Tonight I'm ten
degrees below the courage that will take me on a level path to the
guillotine. I had it this morning, that sort of courage. Anyway, what
does it matter! As long as it returns to me at the crucial moment.
This thermometer idea amused him, and ended up by taking his mind off
his plight.

On waking the next
morning he was ashamed of the previous day. My happiness, my peace of
mind are at stake. He almost resolved to write to the public
prosecutor to request that no one be admitted to see him. What about
Fouqué? he thought. If he takes it upon himself to come to Besançon,
just think how distressed he'd be!

It was some two months now since he had last thought about Fouqué. I
was a real fool at Strasburg, my thoughts didn't go beyond the collar
of my suit. He was greatly preoccupied by

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the memory of Fouqué, and it left him feeling more tender. He paced
up and down in agitation. Here I am now well and truly twenty degrees
below the death level... If this feebleness increases, I'll be better
off killing myself. What a delight for the Father Maslons and the
Valenods if I die like a menial wretch!

Fouqué came; this unpretentious, kind man was beside himself with
grief. His only idea when he had one was to sell all his possessions
to bribe the gaoler and engineer Julien's escape. He talked to him at
length of M. de Lavalette's escape.
^*

'You're distressing me,' Julien said to him; 'M. de Lavalette was
innocent, whereas I'm guilty. Without meaning to, you're rubbing in
the difference...

'But is it true!
Honestly? You'd sell all your possessions?' Julien asked, suddenly
becoming observant and suspicious again.

Fouqué was delighted to see his friend responding at last to his
great idea, and he gave him a lengthy account, down to the last
hundred francs, of what he would make from each one of his holdings.

What a sublime effort from a country landowner. Think what he's
sacrificing for me now--all those economies, all those stingy little
half-measures that made me squirm so much when I observed him engaged
in them! One of those fine young men I saw at the Hôtel de La Mole,
who all read
René
,
^*
wouldn't have any of these absurd characteristics; but apart from
the ones who are very young, and whose wealth is inherited, what's
more, so they don't know the value of money, which of these fine
Parisians would be capable of a sacrifice like this?

All Fouqué's bad grammar,
^*
all his unrefined gestures vanished: Julien flung himself into his
arms. Never had the provinces, when compared with Paris, received a
finer accolade. Fouqué, delighted by the momentary enthusiasm he saw
in his friend's eyes, took it for consent to make a getaway.

This vision of the
sublime
restored to Julien all the strength Father Chélan's sudden appearance
had robbed him of. He was still very young; but in my opinion he was a
fine specimen. Instead of going from tenderness to cunning, like most
men,

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