Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

Madame de Renal’s mind was a prey to carking thoughts. In spite of her resolve to the contrary, she had revealed to Julien the whole business of the lease. ‘So he will make me forget all my vows!’ she thought.

She would have given her life without hesitation to save that of her husband, had she seen him in peril. Hers was one of those noble and romantic natures, for which to see the possibility of a generous action, and not to perform it gives rise to a remorse almost equal to that which one feels for a past crime. Nevertheless, there were dreadful days on which she could not banish the thought of the absolute happiness which she would enjoy, if, suddenly left a widow, she were free to marry Julien.

He loved her children far more than their father; in spite of his strict discipline, he was adored by them. She was well aware that, if she married Julien, she would have to leave this Vergy whose leafy shade was so dear to her. She pictured herself living in Paris, continuing to provide her sons with that education at which everyone marvelled. Her children, she herself, Julien, all perfectly happy.

A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.

The philosopher’s observation makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but there was no excuse for her at Verrieres, and the whole town, without her suspecting it, was exclusively occupied with the scandal of her love. Thanks to this great scandal, people that autumn were less bored than usual.

The autumn, the first weeks of winter had soon come and gone. It was time to leave the woods of Vergy. The high society of Verrieres began to grow indignant that its anathemas were making so little impression upon M. de Renal. In less than a week, certain grave personages who made up for their habitual solemnity by giving themselves the pleasure of fulfilling missions of this sort, implanted in him the most cruel suspicions, but without going beyond the most measured terms.

M. Valenod, who was playing a close game, had placed Elisa with a noble and highly respected family, which included five women. Elisa fearing, she said, that she might not find a place during the winter, had asked this family for only about two thirds of what she was receiving at the Mayor’s. Of her own accord, the girl had the excellent idea of going to confess to the retired cure Chelan as well as to the new cure, so as to be able to give them both a detailed account of Julien’s amours.

On the morning after his return, at six o’clock, the abbe Chelan sent for Julien:

‘I ask you nothing,’ he said to him; ‘I beg you, and if need be order you to tell me nothing, I insist that within three days you leave either for the Seminary at Besancon or for the house of your friend Fouque, who is still willing to provide a splendid career for you. I have foreseen and settled everything, but you must go, and not return to Verrieres for a year.’

Julien made no answer; he was considering whether his honour ought to take offence at the arrangements which M. Chelan, who after all was not his father, had made for him.

‘Tomorrow at this hour I shall have the honour of seeing you again,’ he said at length to the cure.

M. Chelan, who reckoned upon overcoming the young man by main force, spoke volubly. His attitude, his features composed in the utmost humility, Julien did not open his mouth.

At length he made his escape, and hastened to inform Madame de Renal, whom he found in despair. Her husband had just been speaking to her with a certain frankness. The natural weakness of his character, seeking encouragement in the prospect of the inheritance from Besancon, had made him decide to regard her as entirely innocent. He had just confessed to her the strange condition in which he found public opinion at Verrieres. The public were wrong, had been led astray by envious ill-wishers, but what was to be done?

Madame de Renal had the momentary illusion that Julien might be able to accept M. Valenod’s offer, and remain at Verrieres. But she was no longer the simple, timid woman of the previous year; her fatal passion, her spells of remorse had enlightened her. Soon she had to bear the misery of proving to herself, while she listened to her husband, that a separation, at any rate for the time being, was now indispensable. ‘Away from me, Julien will drift back into those ambitious projects that are so natural when one has nothing. And I, great God! I am so rich, and so powerless to secure my own happiness! He will forget me. Charming as he is, he will be loved, he will love. Ah, unhappy woman! Of what can I complain? Heaven is just, I have not acquired merit by putting a stop to my crime; it blinds my judgment. It rested with me alone to win over Elisa with a bribe, nothing would have been easier. I did not take the trouble to reflect for a moment, the wild imaginings of love absorbed all my time. And now I perish.’

One thing struck Julien; as he conveyed to Madame de Renal the terrible news of his departure, he was met with no selfish objection. Evidently she was making an effort not to cry.

‘We require firmness, my friend.’

She cut off a lock of her hair.

‘I do not know what is to become of me,’ she said to him, ‘but if I die, promise me that you will never forget my children. Far or near, try to make them grow up honourable men. If there is another revolution, all the nobles will be murdered, their father may emigrate, perhaps, because of that peasant who was killed upon a roof. Watch over the family . . . Give me your hand. Farewell, my friend! These are our last moments together. This great sacrifice made, I hope that in public I shall have the courage to think of my reputation.’

Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell touched him.

‘No, I do not accept your farewell thus. I shall go; they wish it; you wish it yourself. But, three days after my departure, I shall return to visit you by night.’

Madame de Renal’s existence was changed. So Julien really did love her since he had had the idea, of his own accord, of seeing her again. Her bitter grief changed into one of the keenest bursts of joy that she had ever felt in her life. Everything became easy to her. The certainty of seeing her lover again took from these last moments all their lacerating force. From that instant the conduct, like the features of Madame de Renal was noble, firm, and perfectly conventional.

M. de Renal presently returned; he was beside himself. For the first time he mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two months earlier.

‘I intend to take it to the Casino, to show them all that it comes from that wretch Valenod, whom I picked up out of the gutter and made into one of the richest citizens of Verrieres. I shall disgrace him publicly, and then fight him. It is going too far.’

‘I might be left a widow, great God!’ thought Madame de Renal. But almost at the same instant she said to herself: ‘If I do not prevent this duel, as I certainly can, I shall be my husband’s murderess.’

Never before had she handled his vanity with so much skill. In less than two hours she made him see, always by the use of arguments that had occurred first to him, that he must show himself friendlier than ever towards M. Valenod, and even take Elisa into the house again. Madame de Renal required courage to make up her mind to set eyes on this girl, the cause of all her troubles. But the idea had come to her from Julien.

Finally, after having been set three or four times in the right direction, M. de Renal arrived of his own accord at the idea (highly distressing, from the financial point of view) that the most unpleasant thing that could happen for himself was that Julien, amid the seething excitement and gossip of the whole of Verrieres, should remain there as tutor to M. Valenod’s children. It was obviously in Julien’s interest to accept the offer made him by the Governor of the Poorhouse. It was essential however to M. de Renal’s fair fame that Julien should leave Verrieres to enter the seminary at Besancon or at Dijon. But how was he to be made to agree, and after that how was he to maintain himself there?