Stendhal - The Red and the Black (World's Classics Series)

Walking as he did between these two women whose extreme nervousness filled their cheeks with a blushing embarrassment, the haughty pallor and sombre, resolute air of Julien formed a strange contrast. He despised these women and all tender sentiments.

"What!" he said to himself, "not even an income of five hundred francs to finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them packing."

And absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous words of his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to understand, displeased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a word—feminine.

As the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of endeavouring to keep the conversation alive, it came about that Madame de Rênal mentioned that her husband had come from Verrières because he had made a bargain for the May straw with one of his farmers. (In this district it is the May straw with which the bed mattresses are filled).

"My husband will not rejoin us," added Madame de Rênal; "he will occupy himself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses with the help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May straw this morning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at the second."

Julien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Rênal in a singular way, and soon managed somehow to take her on one side, doubling his pace. Madame Derville allowed them to get ahead.

"Save my life," said Julien to Madame de Rênal; "only you can do it, for you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess to you, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the mattress of my bed."

At these words Madame de Rênal in her turn became pale

"Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room, feel about without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it is nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black cardboard, very glossy."

"Does it contain a portrait?" said Madame de Rênal, scarcely able to hold herself upright. Julien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded to exploit it.

"I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to look at that portrait; it is my secret."

"It is a secret," repeated Madame de Rênal in a faint voice.

But though she had been brought up among people who are proud of their fortune and appreciative of nothing except money, love had already instilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as she was, it was with an air of the most simple devotion that Madame de Rênal asked Julien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil her commission.

"So" she said to him as she went away, "it is a little round box of black cardboard, very glossy."

"Yes, Madame," answered Julien, with that hardness which danger gives to men.

She ascended the second storey of the château as pale as though she had been going to her death. Her misery was completed by the sensation that she was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of doing Julien a service restored her strength.

"I must have that box," she said to herself, as she doubled her pace.

She heard her husband speaking to the valet in Julien's very room. Happily, they passed into the children's room. She lifted up the mattress, and plunged her hand into the stuffing so violently that she bruised her fingers. But, though she was very sensitive to slight pain of this kind, she was not conscious of it now, for she felt almost simultaneously the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized it and disappeared.

She had scarcely recovered from the fear of being surprised by her husband than the horror with which this box inspired her came within an ace of positively making her feel ill.

"So Julien is in love, and I hold here the portrait of the woman whom he loves!"

Seated on the chair in the ante-chamber of his apartment, Madame de Rênal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her extreme ignorance, moreover, was useful to her at this juncture; her astonishment mitigated her grief. Julien seized the box without thanking her or saying a single word, and ran into his room, where he lit a fire and immediately burnt it. He was pale and in a state of collapse. He exaggerated the extent of the danger which he had undergone.

"Finding Napoleon's portrait," he said to himself, "in the possession of a man who professes so great a hate for the usurper! Found, too, by M. de Rênal, who is so great an ultra , and is now in a state of irritation, and, to complete my imprudence, lines written in my own handwriting on the white cardboard behind the portrait, lines, too, which can leave no doubt on the score of my excessive admiration. And each of these transports of love is dated. There was one the day before yesterday."

"All my reputation collapsed and shattered in a moment," said Julien to himself as he watched the box burn, "and my reputation is my only asset. It is all I have to live by—and what a life to, by heaven!"

An hour afterwards, this fatigue, togother with the pity which he felt for himself made him inclined to be more tender. He met Madame de Rênal and took her hand, which he kissed with more sincerity than he had ever done before. She blushed with happiness and almost simultaneously rebuffed Julien with all the anger of jealousy. Julien's pride which had been so recently wounded made him act foolishly at this juncture. He saw in Madame de Rênal nothing but a rich woman, he disdainfully let her hand fall and went away. He went and walked about meditatively in the garden. Soon a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

"Here I am walking about as serenely as a man who is master of his own time. I am not bothering about the children! I am exposing myself to M. de Rênal's humiliating remarks, and he will be quite right." He ran to the children's room. The caresses of the youngest child, whom he loved very much, somewhat calmed his agony.

"He does not despise me yet," thought Julien. But he soon reproached himself for this alleviation of his agony as though it were a new weakness. The children caress me just in the same way in which they would caress the young hunting-hound which was bought yesterday.

Table of Contents

But passion most disembles, yet betrays,

Even by its darkness, as the blackest sky

Foretells the heaviest tempest.

Don Juan, c. 4, st. 75.

M. de Rênal was going through all the rooms in the chteau, and he came back into the children's room with the servants who were bringing back the stuffings of the mattresses. The sudden entry of this man had the effect on Julien of the drop of water which makes the pot overflow.

Looking paler and more sinister than usual, he rushed towards him. M. de Rênal stopped and looked at his servants.

"Monsieur," said Julien to him, "Do you think your children would have made the progress they have made with me with any other tutor? If you answer 'No,'" continued Julien so quickly that M. de Rênal did not have time to speak, "how dare you reproach me with neglecting them?"

M. de Rênal, who had scarcely recovered from his fright, concluded from the strange tone he saw this little peasant assume, that he had some advantageous offer in his pocket, and that he was going to leave him.

The more he spoke the more Julien's anger increased, "I can live without you, Monsieur," he added.

"I am really sorry to see you so upset," answered M. de Rênal shuddering a little. The servants were ten yards off engaged in making the beds.

"That is not what I mean, Monsieur," replied Julien quite beside himself. "Think of the infamous words that you have addressed to me, and before women too."

M. de Rênal understood only too well what Julien was asking, and a painful conflict tore his soul. It happened that Julien, who was really mad with rage, cried out,