finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_9_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 10
part 1, chapter 10
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-10", "summary": "Julien walks up to Monsieur de Renal and scolds him for speaking so cruelly to him earlier that day. It's true that Julien slept in, but Monsieur was way overboard in his insults. Julien threatens to take his talents elsewhere. But Monsieur de Renal makes things all better by offering him fifty francs a month. Julien gets permission to go into town. Monsieur de Renal assumes he's going to tell Monsieur's rival, Valenod, that he will keep working for the de Renals. Julien retreats to a nearby mountain and looks over the countryside, wishing that he could conquer it all like Napoleon did.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER X

A GREAT HEART AND A SMALL FORTUNE


    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 Renal was going through all the rooms in the chateau, 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 Renal 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 Renal did not have
time to speak, "how dare you reproach me with neglecting them?"

M. de Renal, 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 Renal
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 Renal 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,

"I know where to go, Monsieur, when I leave your house."

At these words M. de Renal saw Julien installed with M. Valenod. "Well,
sir," he said at last with a sigh, just as though he had called in
a surgeon to perform the most painful operation, "I accede to your
request. I will give you fifty francs a month. Starting from the day
after to-morrow which is the first of the month."

Julien wanted to laugh, and stood there dumbfounded. All his anger had
vanished.

"I do not despise the brute enough," he said to himself. "I have no
doubt that that is the greatest apology that so base a soul can make."

The children who had listened to this scene with gaping mouths, ran
into the garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was very angry, but
that he was going to have fifty francs a month.

Julien followed them as a matter of habit without even looking at M. de
Renal whom he left in a considerable state of irritation.

"That makes one hundred and sixty-eight francs," said the mayor to
himself, "that M. Valenod has cost me. I must absolutely speak a few
strong words to him about his contract to provide for the foundlings."

A minute afterwards Julien found himself opposite M. de Renal.

"I want to speak to M. Chelan on a matter of conscience. I have the
honour to inform you that I shall be absent some hours."

"Why, my dear Julien," said M. de Renal smiling with the falsest
expression possible, "take the whole day, and to-morrow too if you
like, my good friend. Take the gardener's horse to go to Verrieres."

"He is on the very point," said M. de Renal to himself, "of giving an
answer to Valenod. He has promised me nothing, but I must let this
hot-headed young man have time to cool down."

Julien quickly went away, and went up into the great forest, through
which one can manage to get from Vergy to Verrieres. He did not wish
to arrive at M. Chelan's at once. Far from wishing to cramp himself in
a new pose of hypocrisy he needed to see clear in his own soul, and to
give audience to the crowd of sentiments which were agitating him.

"I have won a battle," he said to himself, as soon as he saw that he
was well in the forest, and far from all human gaze. "So I have won a
battle."

This expression shed a rosy light on his situation, and restored him to
some serenity.

"Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month, M. de Renal must be
precious afraid, but what of?"

This meditation about what could have put fear into the heart of that
happy, powerful man against whom he had been boiling with rage only
an hour back, completed the restoration to serenity of Julien's soul.
He was almost able to enjoy for a moment the delightful beauty of the
woods amidst which he was walking. Enormous blocks of bare rocks had
fallen down long ago in the middle of the forest by the mountain side.
Great cedars towered almost as high as these rocks whose shade caused a
delicious freshness within three yards of places where the heat of the
sun's rays would have made it impossible to rest.

Julien took breath for a moment in the shade of these great rocks,
and then he began again to climb. Traversing a narrow path that was
scarcely marked, and was only used by the goat herds, he soon found
himself standing upon an immense rock with the complete certainty of
being far away from all mankind. This physical position made him smile.
It symbolised to him the position he was burning to attain in the moral
sphere. The pure air of these lovely mountains filled his soul with
serenity and even with joy. The mayor of Verrieres still continued to
typify in his eyes all the wealth and all the arrogance of the earth;
but Julien felt that the hatred that had just thrilled him had nothing
personal about it in spite of all the violence which he had manifested.
If he had left off seeing M. de Renal he would in eight days have
forgotten him, his castle, his dogs, his children and all his family.
"I forced him, I don't know how, to make the greatest sacrifice. What?
more than fifty crowns a year, and only a minute before I managed to
extricate myself from the greatest danger; so there are two victories
in one day. The second one is devoid of merit, I must find out the why
and the wherefore. But these laborious researches are for to-morrow."

Standing up on his great rock, Julien looked at the sky which was all
afire with an August sun. The grasshoppers sang in the field about the
rock; when they held their peace there was universal silence around
him. He saw twenty leagues of country at his feet. He noticed from
time to time some hawk, which launching off from the great rocks over
his head was describing in silence its immense circles. Julien's eye
followed the bird of prey mechanically. Its tranquil powerful movements
struck him. He envied that strength, that isolation.

"Would Napoleon's destiny be one day his?"






Part 1, Chapter 10
Julien walks up to Monsieur de Renal and scolds him for speaking so cruelly to him earlier that day. It's true that Julien slept in, but Monsieur was way overboard in his insults. Julien threatens to take his talents elsewhere. But Monsieur de Renal makes things all better by offering him fifty francs a month. Julien gets permission to go into town. Monsieur de Renal assumes he's going to tell Monsieur's rival, Valenod, that he will keep working for the de Renals. Julien retreats to a nearby mountain and looks over the countryside, wishing that he could conquer it all like Napoleon did.