finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_8_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 30
chapter 30
{"name": "Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapter-30", "summary": "Pirard refuses to serve as Mole's secretary but recommends Julien for the post. The latter is notified by Pirard to come to Paris but visits Verrieres before his departure. Chelan requires that he not see Mme. de Renal. Julien obtains a ladder, however, and courageously presents himself at Mme. de Renal's window, not knowing who might be awaiting him there or how he would be received by Mme. de Renal. She admits him with reluctance, but after three hours of conversation, he succeeds in overcoming her remorse. She has given herself with a certain gaiety and abandon, an attitude that she retains the next day while she hides Julien in her room and, in spite of endless perils, until the next night. The arrival of M. de Renal, who has discovered the \"thief's\" ladder, pounding on her door, causes Julien to leap from her window and to take flight to Paris, on the road to Geneva, however, to avoid capture.", "analysis": "It is obvious that Pirard's journey to Paris is a means to get Julien there, and with a position, that is, protected by the powerful M. de La Mole. Julien can only assume that the gift he has received comes from Mme. de Renal. The superiority of the reader invites our complicity with Julien's other mentors. It is fitting that Julien returns to Verrieres before undertaking the next stage in his education in Paris. We are thereby made more aware of the distance covered in his formation. Fourteen months have passed, we are told, but we are not noticeably aware of the passage of time with Stendhal. We have, rather, the impression of a non-ending present. Contrast Julien's attitude as he undertakes with premeditation the seduction of Mme. de Renal to his awkwardness on the first occasion. A refusal on her part would have been a disgrace for his honor, and he is forced to cold calculation to overcome her remorse. The ruthlessness with which Julien calculates this seduction shows us the extent to which the hypocrisy of the seminary has permeated his character. His threat to leave and the avowal that he will be going to Paris never to return force her consent. Note the means employed by Julien to gain access to Mme. vie Renal's room prior to their last meeting. It is possible that Julien recalls his meeting with Mme. de Renal in the Besancon cathedral, a scene in which he had utilized a ladder to perform another act of daring: the decoration of the church. Stendhal flatters the intelligence of his reader by not making explicit this associational mechanism in the mind of Julien. In both incidents, Julien distinguishes himself by a spirit of adventure, a necessity to engage his entire existence in a single act, regardless of the consequences. What of Julien's love for Mme. de Renal? Once again he is able to appreciate her greatness of soul as he witnesses her courage and gaiety in the face of danger. They are worthy of one another in their heroism. The dangers to which his visit exposes Mme. de Renal, both real and in the form of remorse which will no doubt follow, and Julien's insistence -- everything indicates that although Stendhal says that Julien \"adores\" her, his love is rather a need to be loved, to be preferred, to be the object of sacrifice for another."}
CHAPTER XXX

AN AMBITIOUS MAN


    There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is
    ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round.
                                       _Edinburgh Review_.


The Marquis de la Mole received the abbe Pirard without any of those
aristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so
impertinent to one who understands them. It would have been a waste of
time, and the Marquis was sufficiently expeditious in big affairs to
have no time to lose.

He had been intriguing for six months to get both the king and people
to accept a minister who, as a matter of gratitude, was to make him a
Duke. The Marquis had been asking his Besancon advocate for years on
end for a clear and precise summary of his Franche-Comte lawsuits. How
could the celebrated advocate explain to him what he did not understand
himself? The little square of paper which the abbe handed him explained
the whole matter.

"My dear abbe," said the Marquis to him, having got through in less
than five minutes all polite formulae of personal questions. "My dear
abbe, in the midst of my pretended prosperity I lack the time to occupy
myself seriously with two little matters which are rather important,
my family and my affairs. I manage the fortune of my house on a large
scale. I can carry it far. I manage my pleasures, and that is the first
consideration in my eyes," he added, as he saw a look of astonishment
in the abbe Pirard's eyes. Although a man of common sense, the abbe was
surprised to hear a man talk so frankly about his pleasures.

"Work doubtless exists in Paris," continued the great lord, "but it is
perched on the fifth story, and as soon as I take anyone up, he takes
an apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a day at home;
the result is no more work and no more efforts except either to be, or
appear to be, a society man. That is the only thing they bother about,
as soon as they have got their bread and butter.

"For my lawsuits, yes, for every single one of them, I have, to put it
plainly, advocates who quarrel to death. One died of consumption the
day before yesterday. Taking my business all round, would you believe,
monsieur, that for three years I have given up all hope of finding a
man who deigns, during the time he is acting as my clerk, to give a
little serious thought to what he is doing. Besides, all this is only a
preliminary.

"I respect you and would venture to add that, although I only see you
for the first time to-day, I like you. Will you be my secretary at a
salary of eight hundred francs or even double. I shall still be the
gainer by it, I swear to you, and I will manage to reserve that fine
living for you for the day when we shall no longer be able to agree."
The abbe refused, but the genuine embarrassment in which he saw the
Marquis suggested an idea to him towards the end of the conversation.

"I have left in the depths of my seminary a poor young man who, if I
mistake not, will be harshly persecuted. If he were only a simple monk
he would be already _in pace_. So far this young man only knows Latin
and the Holy Scriptures, but it is not impossible that he will one day
exhibit great talent, either for preaching or the guiding of souls. I
do not know what he will do, but he has the sacred fire. He may go far.
I thought of giving him to our Bishop, if we had ever had one who was a
little of your way of considering men and things."

"What is your young man's extraction?" said the Marquis.

"He is said to be the son of a carpenter in our mountains. I rather
believe he is the natural son of some rich man. I have seen him receive
an anonymous or pseudonymous letter with a bill for five hundred
francs."

"Oh, it is Julien Sorel," said the Marquis.

"How do you know his name?" said the abbe, in astonishment, reddening
at his question.

"That's what I'm not going to tell you," answered the Marquis.

"Well," replied the abbe, "you might try making him your secretary. He
has energy. He has a logical mind. In a word, it's worth trying."

"Why not?" said the Marquis. "But would he be the kind of man to allow
his palm to be greased by the Prefect of Police or any one else and
then spy on me? That is only my objection."

After hearing the favourable assurances of the abbe Pirard, the Marquis
took a thousand franc note.

"Send this journey money to Julien Sorel. Let him come to me."

"One sees at once," said the abbe Pirard, "that you live in Paris.
You do not know the tyranny which weighs us poor provincials down,
and particularly those priests who are not friendly to the Jesuits.
They will refuse to let Julien Sorel leave. They will manage to cloak
themselves in the most clever excuses. They will answer me that he is
ill, that his letters were lost in the post, etc., etc."

"I will get a letter from the minister to the Bishop, one of these
days," answered the Marquis.

"I was forgetting to warn you of one thing," said the abbe. "This young
man, though of low birth, has a high spirit. He will be of no use if
you madden his pride. You will make him stupid."

"That pleases me," said the Marquis. "I will make him my son's comrade.
Will that be enough for you?"

Some time afterwards, Julien received a letter in an unknown writing,
and bearing the Chelon postmark. He found in it a draft on a Besancon
merchant, and instructions to present himself at Paris without delay.
The letter was signed in a fictitious name, but Julien had felt a
thrill in opening it. A leaf of a tree had fallen down at his feet. It
was the agreed signal between himself and the abbe Pirard.

Within an hour's time, Julien was summoned to the Bishop's Palace,
where he found himself welcomed with a quite paternal benevolence. My
lord quoted Horace and at the same time complimented him very adroitly
on the exalted destiny which awaited him in Paris in such a way as
to elicit an explanation by way of thanks. Julien was unable to say
anything, simply because he did not know anything, and my Lord showed
him much consideration. One of the little priests in the bishopric
wrote to the mayor, who hastened to bring in person a signed passport,
where the name of the traveller had been left in blank.

Before midnight of the same evening, Julien was at Fouque's. His
friend's shrewd mind was more astonished than pleased with the future
which seemed to await his friend.

"You will finish up," said that Liberal voter, "with a place in the
Government, which will compel you to take some step which will be
calumniated. It will only be by your own disgrace that I shall have
news of you. Remember that, even from the financial standpoint, it is
better to earn a hundred louis in a good timber business, of which
one is his own master, than to receive four thousand francs from a
Government, even though it were that of King Solomon."

Julien saw nothing in this except the pettiness of spirit of a country
bourgeois. At last he was going to make an appearance in the theatre of
great events. Everything was over-shadowed in his eyes by the happiness
of going to Paris, which he imagined to be populated by people of
intellect, full of intrigues and full of hypocrisy, but as polite as
the Bishop of Besancon and the Bishop of Agde. He represented to his
friend that he was deprived of any free choice in the matter by the
abbe Pirard's letter.'

The following day he arrived at Verrieres about noon. He felt the
happiest of men for he counted on seeing Madame de Renal again. He
went first to his protector the good abbe Chelan. He met with a severe
welcome.

"Do you think you are under any obligation to me?" said M. Chelan to
him, without answering his greeting. "You will take breakfast with me.
During that time I will have a horse hired for you and you will leave
Verrieres without seeing anyone."

"Hearing is obeying," answered Julien with a demeanour smacking of
the seminary, and the only questions now discussed were theology and
classical Latin.

He mounted his horse, rode a league, and then perceiving a wood and
not seeing any one who could notice him enter, he plunged into it.
At sunset, he sent away the horse. Later, he entered the cottage of
a peasant, who consented to sell him a ladder and to follow him with
it to the little wood which commands the _Cours de la Fidelite_ at
Verrieres.

"I have been following a poor mutineer of a conscript ... or a
smuggler," said the peasant as he took leave of him, "but what does
it matter? My ladder has been well paid for, and I myself have done a
thing or two in that line."

The night was very black. Towards one o'clock in the morning, Julien,
laden with his ladder, entered Verrieres. He descended as soon as he
could into the bed of the stream, which is banked within two walls, and
traverses M. de Renal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet.
Julien easily climbed up the ladder. "How will the watch dogs welcome
me," he thought. "It all turns on that." The dogs barked and galloped
towards him, but he whistled softly and they came and caressed him.
Then climbing from terrace to terrace he easily managed, although all
the grills were shut, to get as far as the window of Madame de Renal's
bedroom which, on the garden side, was only eight or six feet above the
ground. There was a little heart shaped opening in the shutters which
Julien knew well. To his great disappointment, this little opening was
not illuminated by the flare of a little night-light inside.

"Good God," he said to himself. "This room is not occupied by Madame de
Renal. Where can she be sleeping? The family must be at Verrieres since
I have found the dogs here, but I might meet M. de Renal himself, or
even a stranger in this room without a light, and then what a scandal!"
The most prudent course was to retreat, but this idea horrified Julien.

"If it's a stranger, I will run away for all I'm worth, and leave my
ladder behind me, but if it is she, what a welcome awaits me! I can
well imagine that she has fallen into a mood of penitence and the most
exalted piety, but after all, she still has some remembrance of me,
since she has written to me." This bit of reasoning decided him.

With a beating heart, but resolved none the less to see her or perish
in the attempt, he threw some little pebbles against the shutter.
No answer. He leaned his long ladder beside the window, and himself
knocked on the shutter, at first softly, and then more strongly.
"However dark it is, they may still shoot me," thought Julien. This
idea made the mad adventure simply a question of bravery.

"This room is not being slept in to-night," he thought, "or whatever
person might be there would have woken up by now. So far as it is
concerned, therefore, no further precautions are needed. I must only
try not to be heard by the persons sleeping in the other rooms."

He descended, placed his ladder against one of the shutters, climbed
up again, and placing his hand through the heart-shaped opening, was
fortunate enough to find pretty quickly the wire which is attached to
the hook which closed the shutter. He pulled this wire. It was with an
ineffable joy that he felt that the shutter was no longer held back,
and yielded to his effort.

I must open it bit by bit and let her recognise my voice. He opened the
shutter enough to pass his head through it, while he repeated in a low
voice, "It's a friend."

He pricked up his ears and assured himself that nothing disturbed the
profound silence of the room, but there could be no doubt about it,
there was no light, even half-extinguished, on the mantelpiece. It was
a very bad sign.

"Look out for the gun-shot," he reflected a little, then he ventured
to knock against the window with his finger. No answer. He knocked
harder. I must finish it one way or another, even if I have to break
the window. When he was knocking very hard, he thought he could catch
a glimpse through the darkness of something like a white shadow that
was crossing the room. At last there was no doubt about it. He saw a
shadow which appeared to advance with extreme slowness. Suddenly he saw
a cheek placed against the pane to which his eye was glued.

He shuddered and went away a little, but the night was so black that
he could not, even at this distance, distinguish if it were Madame de
Renal. He was frightened of her crying out at first in alarm. He heard
the dogs prowling and growling around the foot of the ladder. "It is
I," he repeated fairly loudly. "A friend."

No answer. The white phantom had disappeared.

"Deign to open to me. I must speak to you. I am too unhappy." And he
knocked hard enough to break the pane.

A crisp sound followed. The casement fastening of the window yielded.
He pushed the casement and leaped lightly into the room.

The white phantom flitted away from him. He took hold of its arms. It
was a woman. All his ideas of courage vanished. "If it is she, what is
she going to say?" What were his emotions when a little cry gave him to
understand, that it was Madame de Renal?

He clasped her in his arms. She trembled and scarcely had the strength
to push him away.

"Unhappy man. What are you doing?" Her agonised voice could scarcely
articulate the words.

Julien thought that her voice rang with the most genuine indignation.

"I have come to see you after a cruel separation of more than fourteen
months."

"Go away, leave me at once. Oh, M. Chelan, why did you prevent me
writing to him? I could then have foreseen this horror." She pushed
him away with a truly extraordinary strength. "Heaven has deigned to
enlighten me," she repeated in a broken voice. "Go away! Flee!"

"After fourteen months of unhappiness I shall certainly not leave you
without a word. I want to know all you have done. Yes, I have loved
you enough to deserve this confidence. I want to know everything."
This authoritative tone dominated Madame de Renal's heart in spite of
herself. Julien, who was hugging her passionately and resisting her
efforts to get loose, left off clasping her in his arms. This reassured
Madame de Renal a little.

"I will take away the ladder," he said, "to prevent it compromising
us in case some servant should be awakened by the noise, and go on a
round."

"Oh leave me, leave me!" she cried with an admirable anger. "What
do men matter to me! It is God who sees the awful scene you are now
making. You are abusing meanly the sentiments which I had for you but
have no longer. Do you hear, Monsieur Julien?"

He took away the ladder very slowly so as not to make a noise.

"Is your husband in town, dear," he said to her not in order to defy
her but as a sheer matter of habit.

"Don't talk to me like that, I beg you, or I will call my husband. I
feel only too guilty in not having sent you away before. I pity you,"
she said to him, trying to wound his, as she well knew, irritable pride.

This refusal of all endearments, this abrupt way of breaking so tender
a tie which he thought still subsisted, carried the transports of
Julien's love to the point of delirium.

"What! is it possible you do not love me?" he said to her, with one of
those accents that come straight from the heart and impose a severe
strain on the cold equanimity of the listener.

She did not answer. As for him, he wept bitterly.

In fact he had no longer the strength to speak.

"So I am completely forgotten by the one being who ever loved me, what
is the good of living on henceforth?" As soon as he had no longer to
fear the danger of meeting a man all his courage had left him; his
heart now contained no emotion except that of love.

He wept for a long time in silence.

He took her hand; she tried to take it away, and after a few almost
convulsive moments, surrendered it to him. It was extremely dark; they
were both sitting on Madame de Renal's bed.

"What a change from fourteen months ago," thought Julien, and his tears
redoubled. "So absence is really bound to destroy all human sentiments."

"Deign to tell me what has happened to you?" Julien said at last.

"My follies," answered Madame de Renal in a hard voice whose frigid
intonation contained in it a certain element of reproach, "were no
doubt known in the town when you left, your conduct was so imprudent.
Some time afterwards when I was in despair the venerable Chelan came to
see me. He tried in vain for a long time to obtain a confession. One
day he took me to that church at Dijon where I made my first communion.
In that place he ventured to speak himself----" Madame de Renal
was interrupted by her tears. "What a moment of shame. I confessed
everything. The good man was gracious enough not to overwhelm me with
the weight of his indignation. He grieved with me. During that time I
used to write letters to you every day which I never ventured to send.
I hid them carefully and when I was more than usually unhappy I shut
myself up in my room and read over my letters."

"At last M. Chelan induced me to hand them over to him, some of them
written a little more discreetly were sent to you, you never answered."

"I never received any letters from you, I swear!"

"Great heavens! Who can have intercepted them? Imagine my grief until
the day I saw you in the cathedral. I did not know if you were still
alive."

"God granted me the grace of understanding how much I was sinning
towards Him, towards my children, towards my husband," went on Madame
de Renal. "He never loved me in the way that I then thought that you
had loved me."

Julien rushed into her arms, as a matter of fact without any particular
purpose and feeling quite beside himself. But Madame de Renal repelled
him and continued fairly firmly.

"My venerable friend, M. Chelan, made me understand that in marrying I
had plighted all my affections, even those which I did not then know,
and which I had never felt before a certain fatal attachment ... after
the great sacrifice of the letters that were so dear to me, my life has
flowed on, if not happily, at any rate calmly. Do not disturb it. Be
a friend to me, my best friend." Julien covered her hand with kisses.
She perceived he was still crying. "Do not cry, you pain me so much.
Tell me, in your turn, what you have been doing," Julien was unable
to speak. "I want to know the life you lead at the seminary," she
repeated. "And then you will go."

Without thinking about what he was saying Julien spoke of the
numberless intrigues and jealousies which he had first encountered, and
then of the great serenity of his life after he had been made a tutor.

"It was then," he added, "that after a long silence which was no doubt
intended to make me realise what I see only too clearly to-day, that
you no longer loved me and that I had become a matter of indifference
to you...."

Madame de Renal wrung her hands.

"It was then that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs."

"Never," said Madame de Renal.

"It was a letter stamped Paris and signed Paul Sorel so as to avert
suspicion."

There was a little discussion about how the letter could possibly have
originated.

The psychological situation was altered. Without knowing it Julien had
abandoned his solemn tone; they were now once more on the footing of a
tender affection. It was so dark that they did not see each other but
the tone of their voices was eloquent of everything. Julien clasped
his arm round his love's waist. This movement had its dangers. She
tried to put Julien's arms away from her; at this juncture he cleverly
diverted her attention by an interesting detail in his story. The arm
was practically forgotten and remained in its present position.

After many conjectures as to the origin of the five hundred francs
letter, Julien took up his story. He regained a little of his
self-control as he spoke of his past life, which compared with what he
was now experiencing interested him so little. His attention was now
concentrated on the final outcome of of his visit. "You will have to
go," were the curt words he heard from time to time.

"What a disgrace for me if I am dismissed. My remorse will embitter all
my life," he said to himself, "she will never write to me. God knows
when I shall come back to this part of the country." From this moment
Julien's heart became rapidly oblivious of all the heavenly delights of
his present position.

Seated as he was close to a woman whom he adored and practically
clasping her in his arms in this room, the scene of his former
happiness, amid a deep obscurity, seeing quite clearly as he did that
she had just started crying, and feeling that she was sobbing from the
heaving of her chest, he was unfortunate enough to turn into a cold
diplomatist, nearly as cold as in those days when in the courtyard
of the seminary he found himself the butt of some malicious joke on
the part of one of his comrades who was stronger than he was. Julien
protracted his story by talking of his unhappy life since his departure
from Verrieres.

"So," said Madame de Renal to herself, "after a year's absence and
deprived almost entirely of all tokens of memory while I myself was
forgetting him, he only thought of the happy days that he had had in
Verrieres." Her sobs redoubled. Julien saw the success of his story.
He realised that he must play his last card. He abruptly mentioned a
letter he had just received from Paris.

"I have taken leave of my Lord Bishop."

"What! you are not going back to Besancon? You are leaving us for ever?"

"Yes," answered Julien resolutely, "yes, I am leaving a country where I
have been forgotten even by the woman whom I loved more than anyone in
my life; I am leaving it and I shall never see it again. I am going to
Paris."

"You are going to Paris, dear," exclaimed Madame de Renal.

Her voice was almost choked by her tears and showed the extremity of
her trouble. Julien had need of this encouragement. He was on the point
of executing a manoeuvre which might decide everything against him; and
up to the time of this exclamation he could not tell what effect he was
producing as he was unable to see. He no longer hesitated. The fear of
remorse gave him complete control over himself. He coldly added as he
got up.

"Yes, madame, I leave you for ever. May you be happy. Adieu."

He moved some steps towards the window. He began to open it. Madame de
Renal rushed to him and threw herself into his arms. So it was in this
way that, after a dialogue lasting three hours, Julien obtained what he
desired so passionately during the first two hours.

Madame de Renal's return to her tender feelings and this overshadowing
of her remorse would have been a divine happiness had they come a
little earlier; but, as they had been obtained by artifice, they were
simply a pleasure. Julien insisted on lighting the night-light in spite
of his mistress's opposition.

"Do you wish me then," he said to her "to have no recollection of
having seen you. Is the love in those charming eyes to be lost to me
for ever? Is the whiteness of that pretty hand to remain invisible?
Remember that perhaps I am leaving you for a very long time."

Madame de Renal could refuse him nothing. His argument made her melt
into tears. But the dawn was beginning to throw into sharp relief the
outlines of the pine trees on the mountain east of Verrieres. Instead
of going away Julien, drunk with pleasure, asked Madame de Renal to let
him pass the day in her room and leave the following night.

"And why not?" she answered. "This fatal relapse robs me of all my
respect and will mar all my life," and she pressed him to her heart.
"My husband is no longer the same; he has suspicions, he believes I led
him the way I wanted in all this business, and shows great irritation
against me. If he hears the slightest noise I shall be ruined, he will
hound me out like the unhappy woman that I am."

"Ah here we have a phrase of M. Chelan's," said Julien "you would not
have talked like that before my cruel departure to the seminary; in
those days you used to love me."

Julien was rewarded for the frigidity which he put into those words. He
saw his love suddenly forget the danger which her husband's presence
compelled her to run, in thinking of the much greater danger of seeing
Julien doubt her love. The daylight grew rapidly brighter and vividly
illuminated the room. Julien savoured once more all the deliciousness
of pride, when he saw this charming woman in his arms and almost at his
feet, the only woman whom he had ever loved, and who had been entirely
absorbed only a few hours before by her fear of a terrible God and her
devotion to her duties. Resolutions, fortified by a year's persuasion,
had failed to hold out against his courage.

They soon heard a noise in the house. A matter that Madame de Renal had
not thought of began to trouble her.

"That wicked Elisa will come into the room. What are we to do with this
enormous ladder?" she said to her sweetheart, "where are we to hide it?
I will take it to the loft," she exclaimed suddenly half playfully.

"But you will have to pass through the servants' room," said Julien in
astonishment.

"I will leave the ladder in the corridor and will call the servant and
send him on an errand."

"Think of some explanation to have ready in the event of a servant
passing the ladder and noticing it in the corridor."

"Yes, my angel," said Madame de Renal giving him a kiss "as for you,
dear, remember to hide under the bed pretty quickly if Elisa enters
here during my absence."

Julien was astonished by this sudden gaiety--"So" he thought, "the
approach of a real danger instead of troubling her gives her back
her spirits before she forgets her remorse. Truly a superior woman.
Yes, that's a heart over which it is glorious to reign." Julien was
transported with delight.

Madame de Renal took the ladder, which was obviously too heavy for her.
Julien went to her help. He was admiring that elegant figure which was
so far from betokening any strength when she suddenly seized the ladder
without assistance and took it up as if it had been a chair. She took
it rapidly into the corridor of the third storey where she laid it
alongside the wall. She called a servant, and in order to give him time
to dress himself, went up into the dovecot.

Five minutes later, when she came back to the corridor, she found no
signs of the ladder. What had happened to it? If Julien had been out
of the house she would not have minded the danger in the least. But
supposing her husband were to see the ladder just now, the incident
might be awful. Madame de Renal ran all over the house.

Madame de Renal finally discovered the ladder under the roof where the
servant had carried it and even hid it.

"What does it matter what happens in twenty-four hours," she thought,
"when Julien will be gone?"

She had a vague idea that she ought to take leave of life but what
mattered her duty? He was restored to her after a separation which she
had thought eternal. She was seeing him again and the efforts he had
made to reach her showed the extent of his love.

"What shall I say to my husband," she said to him. "If the servant
tells him he found this ladder?" She was pensive for a moment. "They
will need twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it
to you." And she threw herself into Julien's arms and clasped him
convulsively.

"Oh, if I could only die like this," she cried covering him with
kisses. "But you mustn't die of starvation," she said with a smile.

"Come, I will first hide you in Madame Derville's room which is always
locked." She went and watched at the other end of the corridor and
Julien ran in. "Mind you don't try and open if any one knocks," she
said as she locked him in. "Anyway it would only be a frolic of the
children as they play together."

"Get them to come into the garden under the window," said Julien, "so
that I may have the pleasure of seeing them. Make them speak."

"Yes, yes," cried Madame de Renal to him as she went away. She soon
returned with oranges, biscuits and a bottle of Malaga wine. She had
not been able to steal any bread.

"What is your husband doing?" said Julien.

"He is writing out the figures of the bargains he is going to make with
the peasants."

But eight o'clock had struck and they were making a lot of noise in the
house. If Madame de Renal failed to put in an appearance, they would
look for her all over the house. She was obliged to leave him. Soon she
came back, in defiance of all prudence, bringing him a cup of coffee.
She was frightened lest he should die of starvation.

She managed after breakfast to bring the children under the window of
Madame Derville's room. He thought they had grown a great deal, but
they had begun to look common, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de
Renal spoke to them about Julien. The elder answered in an affectionate
tone and regretted his old tutor, but he found that the younger
children had almost forgotten him.

M. de Renal did not go out that morning; he was going up and downstairs
incessantly engaged in bargaining with some peasants to whom he was
selling potatoes.

Madame de Renal did not have an instant to give to her prisoner until
dinner-time. When the bell had been rung and dinner had been served,
it occurred to her to steal a plate of warm soup for him. As she
noiselessly approached the door of the room which he occupied, she
found herself face to face with the servant who had hid the ladder
in the morning. At the time he too was going noiselessly along the
corridor, as though listening for something. The servant took himself
off in some confusion.

Madame de Renal boldly entered Julien's room. The news of this
encounter made him shudder.

"You are frightened," she said to him, "but I would brave all the
dangers in the world without flinching. There is only one thing I fear,
and that is the moment when I shall be alone after you have left," and
she left him and ran downstairs.

"Ah," thought Julien ecstatically, "remorse is the only danger which
this sublime soul is afraid of."

At last evening came. Monsieur de Renal went to the Casino.

His wife had given out that she was suffering from an awful headache.
She went to her room, hastened to dismiss Elisa and quickly got up in
order to let Julien out.

He was literally starving. Madame de Renal went to the pantry to fetch
some bread. Julien heard a loud cry. Madame de Renal came back and told
him that when she went to the dark pantry and got near the cupboard
where they kept the bread, she had touched a woman's arm as she
stretched out her hand. It was Elisa who had uttered the cry Julien had
heard.

"What was she doing there?"

"Stealing some sweets or else spying on us," said Madame de Renal with
complete indifference, "but luckily I found a pie and a big loaf of
bread."

"But what have you got there?" said Julien pointing to the pockets of
her apron.

Madame de Renal had forgotten that they had been filled with bread
since dinner.

Julien clasped her in his arms with the most lively passion. She had
never seemed to him so beautiful. "I could not meet a woman of greater
character even at Paris," he said confusedly to himself. She combined
all the clumsiness of a woman who was but little accustomed to paying
attentions of this kind, with all the genuine courage of a person who
is only afraid of dangers of quite a different sphere and quite a
different kind of awfulness.

While Julien was enjoying his supper with a hearty appetite and his
sweetheart was rallying him on the simplicity of the meal, the door of
the room was suddenly shaken violently. It was M. de Renal.

"Why have you shut yourself in?" he cried to her.

Julien had only just time to slip under the sofa.

On any ordinary day Madame de Renal would have been upset by this
question which was put with true conjugal harshness; but she realised
that M. de Renal had only to bend down a little to notice Julien, for
M. de Renal had flung himself into the chair opposite the sofa which
Julien had been sitting in one moment before.

Her headache served as an excuse for everything. While her husband on
his side went into a long-winded account of the billiards pool which he
had won at Casino, "yes, to be sure a nineteen franc pool," he added.
She noticed Julien's hat on a chair three paces in front of them.
Her self-possession became twice as great, she began to undress, and
rapidly passing one minute behind her husband threw her dress over the
chair with the hat on it.

At last M. de Renal left. She begged Julien to start over again his
account of his life at the Seminary. "I was not listening to you
yesterday all the time you were speaking, I was only thinking of
prevailing on myself to send you away."

She was the personification of indiscretion. They talked very loud and
about two o'clock in the morning they were interrupted by a violent
knock at the door. It was M. de Renal again.

"Open quickly, there are thieves in the house!" he said. "Saint Jean
found their ladder this morning."

"This is the end of everything," cried Madame de Renal, throwing
herself into Julien's arms. "He will kill both of us, he doesn't
believe there are any thieves. I will die in your arms, and be more
happy in my death than I ever was in my life." She made no attempt to
answer her husband who was beginning to lose his temper, but started
kissing Julien passionately.

"Save Stanislas's mother," he said to her with an imperious look. "I
will jump down into the courtyard through the lavatory window, and
escape in the garden; the dogs have recognised me. Make my clothes into
a parcel and throw them into the garden as soon as you can. In the
meanwhile let him break the door down. But above all, no confession, I
forbid you to confess, it is better that he should suspect rather than
be certain."

"You will kill yourself as you jump!" was her only answer and her only
anxiety.

She went with him to the lavatory window; she then took sufficient time
to hide his clothes. She finally opened the door to her husband who was
boiling with rage. He looked in the room and in the lavatory without
saying a word and disappeared. Julien's clothes were thrown down to
him; he seized them and ran rapidly towards the bottom of the garden in
the direction of the Doubs.

As he was running he heard a bullet whistle past him, and heard at the
same time the report of a gun.

"It is not M. de Renal," he thought, "he's far too bad a shot." The
dogs ran silently at his side, the second shot apparently broke the paw
of one dog, for he began to whine piteously. Julien jumped the wall of
the terrace, did fifty paces under cover, and began to fly in another
direction. He heard voices calling and had a distinct view of his enemy
the servant firing a gun; a farmer also began to shoot away from the
other side of the garden. Julien had already reached the bank of the
Doubs where he dressed himself.

An hour later he was a league from Verrieres on the Geneva road. "If
they had suspicions," thought Julien, "they will look for me on the
Paris road."






Chapter 30
Pirard refuses to serve as Mole's secretary but recommends Julien for the post. The latter is notified by Pirard to come to Paris but visits Verrieres before his departure. Chelan requires that he not see Mme. de Renal. Julien obtains a ladder, however, and courageously presents himself at Mme. de Renal's window, not knowing who might be awaiting him there or how he would be received by Mme. de Renal. She admits him with reluctance, but after three hours of conversation, he succeeds in overcoming her remorse. She has given herself with a certain gaiety and abandon, an attitude that she retains the next day while she hides Julien in her room and, in spite of endless perils, until the next night. The arrival of M. de Renal, who has discovered the "thief's" ladder, pounding on her door, causes Julien to leap from her window and to take flight to Paris, on the road to Geneva, however, to avoid capture.
It is obvious that Pirard's journey to Paris is a means to get Julien there, and with a position, that is, protected by the powerful M. de La Mole. Julien can only assume that the gift he has received comes from Mme. de Renal. The superiority of the reader invites our complicity with Julien's other mentors. It is fitting that Julien returns to Verrieres before undertaking the next stage in his education in Paris. We are thereby made more aware of the distance covered in his formation. Fourteen months have passed, we are told, but we are not noticeably aware of the passage of time with Stendhal. We have, rather, the impression of a non-ending present. Contrast Julien's attitude as he undertakes with premeditation the seduction of Mme. de Renal to his awkwardness on the first occasion. A refusal on her part would have been a disgrace for his honor, and he is forced to cold calculation to overcome her remorse. The ruthlessness with which Julien calculates this seduction shows us the extent to which the hypocrisy of the seminary has permeated his character. His threat to leave and the avowal that he will be going to Paris never to return force her consent. Note the means employed by Julien to gain access to Mme. vie Renal's room prior to their last meeting. It is possible that Julien recalls his meeting with Mme. de Renal in the Besancon cathedral, a scene in which he had utilized a ladder to perform another act of daring: the decoration of the church. Stendhal flatters the intelligence of his reader by not making explicit this associational mechanism in the mind of Julien. In both incidents, Julien distinguishes himself by a spirit of adventure, a necessity to engage his entire existence in a single act, regardless of the consequences. What of Julien's love for Mme. de Renal? Once again he is able to appreciate her greatness of soul as he witnesses her courage and gaiety in the face of danger. They are worthy of one another in their heroism. The dangers to which his visit exposes Mme. de Renal, both real and in the form of remorse which will no doubt follow, and Julien's insistence -- everything indicates that although Stendhal says that Julien "adores" her, his love is rather a need to be loved, to be preferred, to be the object of sacrifice for another.