finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_11_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 12
part 1, chapter 12
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-12", "summary": "Julien asks for a three-day leave from his boss so he can go visit his friend Fouqe. While leaving, he meets with Madame outside the house. She acts coldly toward him and his pride makes him angry with her. She backs down and gets scared that he'll stop loving her. That afternoon, Madame cries at the thought of Julien leaving. She excuses herself from her cousin and goes to cry in bed. Meanwhile, Julien sets off for his friend's house. On the way, he stops on a mountain and writes out his deepest thoughts. He feels completely free and decides to spend the night sleeping on the mountain. When he reaches his destination, his buddy Fouqe offers him a good job as his partner in the timber business. Julien doesn't like the offer because he's afraid it will seduce him away from his ambitions. Julien turns down the offer. Fouqe thinks he's crazy to turn down such a good deal. But there you have it.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XII

A JOURNEY


        Elegant people are to be found in Paris. People of
        character may exist in the provinces.--Sieyes


At five o'clock the following day, before Madame de Renal was visible,
Julien obtained a three days' holiday from her husband. Contrary to his
expectation Julien found himself desirous of seeing her again. He kept
thinking of that pretty hand of hers. He went down into the garden, but
Madame de Renal kept him waiting for a long time. But if Julien had
loved her, he would have seen her forehead glued to the pane behind the
half-closed blinds on the first floor. She was looking at him. Finally,
in spite of her resolutions, she decided to go into the garden. Her
habitual pallor had been succeeded by more lively hues. This woman,
simple as she was, was manifestly agitated; a sentiment of constraint,
and even of anger, altered that expression of profound serenity which
seemed, as it were, to be above all the vulgar interests of life and
gave so much charm to that divine face.

Julien approached her with eagerness, admiring those beautiful arms
which were just visible through a hastily donned shawl. The freshness
of the morning air seemed to accentuate still more the brilliance of
her complexion which the agitation of the past night rendered all the
more susceptible to all impressions. This demure and pathetic beauty,
which was, at the same time, full of thoughts which are never found in
the inferior classes, seemed to reveal to Julien a faculty in his own
soul which he had never before realised. Engrossed in his admiration of
the charms on which his his greedy gaze was riveted, Julien took for
granted the friendly welcome which he was expecting to receive. He was
all the more astonished at the icy coldness which she endeavoured to
manifest to him, and through which he thought he could even distinguish
the intention of putting him in his place.

The smile of pleasure died away from his lips as he remembered his
rank in society, especially from the point of view of a rich and noble
heiress. In a single moment his face exhibited nothing but haughtiness
and anger against himself. He felt violently disgusted that he could
have put off his departure for more than an hour, simply to receive so
humiliating a welcome.

"It is only a fool," he said to himself, "who is angry with others; a
stone falls because it is heavy. Am I going to be a child all my life?
How on earth is it that I manage to contract the charming habit of
showing my real self to those people simply in return for their money?
If I want to win their respect and that of my own self, I must shew
them that it is simply a business transaction between my poverty and
their wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues away from their
insolence, and is situated in too high a sphere to be affected by their
petty marks of favour or disdain."

While these feelings were crowding the soul of the young tutor, his
mobile features assumed an expression of ferocity and injured pride.
Madame de Renal was extremely troubled. The virtuous coldness that she
had meant to put into her welcome was succeeded by an expression of
interest--an interest animated by all the surprise brought about by
the sudden change which she had just seen. The empty morning platitudes
about their health and the fineness of the day suddenly dried up.
Julien's judgment was disturbed by no passion, and he soon found a
means of manifesting to Madame de Renal how light was the friendly
relationship that he considered existed between them. He said nothing
to her about the little journey that he was going to make; saluted her,
and went away.

As she watched him go, she was overwhelmed by the sombre haughtiness
which she read in that look which had been so gracious the previous
evening. Her eldest son ran up from the bottom of the garden, and said
as he kissed her,

"We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey."

At these words, Madame de Renal felt seized by a deadly coldness. She
was unhappy by reason of her virtue, and even more unhappy by reason of
her weakness.

This new event engrossed her imagination, and she was transported far
beyond the good resolutions which she owed to the awful night she had
just passed. It was not now a question of resisting that charming
lover, but of losing him for ever.

It was necessary to appear at breakfast. To complete her anguish, M. de
Renal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien's departure. The
mayor of Verrieres had noticed something unusual in the firm tone in
which he had asked for a holiday.

"That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else's offer up his
sleeve, but that somebody else, even though it's M. Valenod, is bound
to be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs, which the
annual salary now tots up to. He must have asked yesterday at Verrieres
for a period of three days to think it over, and our little gentleman
runs off to the mountains this morning so as not to be obliged to give
me an answer. Think of having to reckon with a wretched workman who
puts on airs, but that's what we've come to."

"If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien,
thinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?" said Madame de
Renal to herself. "Yes, that is all decided." In order to be able at
any rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering Madame Derville's
questions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to bed.

"That's what women are," repeated M. de Renal, "there is always
something out of order in those complicated machines," and he went off
jeering.

While Madame de Renal was a prey to all the poignancy of the terrible
passion in which chance had involved her, Julien went merrily on his
way, surrounded by the most beautiful views that mountain scenery
can offer. He had to cross the great chain north of Vergy. The path
which he followed rose gradually among the big beech woods, and ran
into infinite spirals on the slope of the high mountain which forms
the northern boundary of the Doubs valley. Soon the traveller's view,
as he passed over the lower slopes bounding the course of the Doubs
towards the south, extends as far as the fertile plains of Burgundy and
Beaujolais. However insensible was the soul of this ambitious youth to
this kind of beauty, he could not help stopping from time to time to
look at a spectacle at once so vast and so impressive.

Finally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which
he had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at
the solitary valley where lived his friend Fouque, the young wood
merchant. Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any other
human being. Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks which
crowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off anyone coming
near him. He discovered a little grotto in the middle of the almost
vertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it, and was soon
ensconced in this retreat. "Here," he said, "with eyes brilliant with
joy, men cannot hurt me." It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure
of writing down those thoughts of his which were so dangerous to him
everywhere else. A square stone served him for a desk; his pen flew. He
saw nothing of what was around him. He noticed at last that the sun was
setting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.

"Why shouldn't I pass the night here?" he said to himself. "I have
bread, and I am free." He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of
that great word. The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in his
not being free, even at Fouque's. Leaning his head on his two hands,
Julien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever been in his
life, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his freedom. Without
realising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight become successively
extinguished. Surrounded by this immense obscurity, his soul wandered
into the contemplation of what he imagined that he would one day meet
in Paris. First it was a woman, much more beautiful and possessed of a
much more refined temperament than anything he could have found in the
provinces. He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from
her for some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to
deserve to be loved still more.

A young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of Paris
society, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if we
assume him possessed of Julien's imagination, have been brought back
to himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great deeds would have
disappeared from out his ken together with hope of achieving them and
have been succeeded by the platitude. "If one leave one's mistress
one runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or three times a day."
But the young peasant saw nothing but the lack of opportunity between
himself and the most heroic feats.

But a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two
leagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which Fouque
lived. Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and
carefully burnt all that he had written. He quite astonished his friend
when he knocked at his door at one o'clock in the morning. He found
Fouque engaged in making up his accounts. He was a young man of high
stature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a never-ending
nose, and a large fund of good nature concealed beneath this repulsive
appearance.

"Have you quarelled with M. de Renal then that you turn up unexpectedly
like this?" Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the events of the
previous day.

"Stay with me," said Fouque to him. "I see that you know M. de Renal,
M. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the cure Chelan. You have
understood the subtleties of the character of those people. So there
you are then, quite qualified to attend auctions. You know arithmetic
better than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot in my
business. The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the fear
of taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from undertaking
excellent business. It's scarcely a month since I put Michaud de
Saint-Amand, whom I haven't seen for six years, and whom I ran across
at the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six thousand francs. Why
shouldn't it have been you who made those six thousand francs, or at
any rate three thousand. For if I had had you with me that day, I would
have raised the bidding for that lot of timber and everybody else would
soon have run away. Be my partner."

This offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams. Fouque
showed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the supper--which the
two friends prepared themselves like the Homeric heroes (for Fouque
lived alone) and proved to him all the advantages offered by his timber
business. Fouque had the highest opinion of the gifts and character of
Julien.

When, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood, he
said to himself: "It is true I can make some thousands of francs here
and then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or of a
priest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France. The little
hoard that I shall have amassed will remove all petty difficulties. In
the solitude of this mountain I shall have dissipated to some extent my
awful ignorance of so many of the things which make up the life of all
those men of fashion. But Fouque has given up all thoughts of marriage,
and at the same time keeps telling me that solitude makes him unhappy.
It is clear that if he takes a partner who has no capital to put into
his business, he does so in the hopes of getting a companion who will
never leave him."

"Shall I deceive my friend," exclaimed Julien petulantly. This being
who found hypocrisy and complete callousness his ordinary means of
self-preservation could not, on this occasion, endure the idea of the
slightest lack of delicate feeling towards a man whom he loved.

But suddenly Julien was happy. He had a reason for a refusal. What!
Shall I be coward enough to waste seven or eight years. I shall get to
twenty-eight in that way! But at that age Bonaparte had achieved his
greatest feats. When I shall have made in obscurity a little money by
frequenting timber sales, and earning the good graces of some rascally
under-strappers who will guarantee that I shall still have the sacred
fire with which one makes a name for oneself?

The following morning, Julien with considerable sangfroid, said in
answer to the good Fouque, who regarded the matter of the partnership
as settled, that his vocation for the holy ministry of the altars would
not permit him to accept it. Fouque did not return to the subject.

"But just think," he repeated to him, "I'll make you my partner, or if
you prefer it, I'll give you four thousand francs a year, and you want
to return to that M. de Renal of yours, who despises you like the mud
on his shoes. When you have got two hundred louis in front of you, what
is to prevent you from entering the seminary? I'll go further: I will
undertake to procure for you the best living in the district, for,"
added Fouque, lowering his voice, I supply firewood to M. le ----, M.
le ----, M. ----. I provide them with first quality oak, but they only
pay me for plain wood, but never was money better invested.

Nothing could conquer Julien's vocation. Fouque finished by thinking
him a little mad. The third day, in the early morning, Julien left his
friend, and passed the day amongst the rocks of the great mountain. He
found his little cave again, but he had no longer peace of mind. His
friend's offers had robbed him of it. He found himself, not between
vice and virtue, like Hercules, but between mediocrity coupled with
an assured prosperity, and all the heroic dreams of his youth. "So I
have not got real determination after all," he said to himself, and it
was his doubt on this score which pained him the most. "I am not of
the stuff of which great men are made, because I fear that eight years
spent in earning a livelihood will deprive me of that sublime energy
which inspires the accomplishment of extraordinary feats."






Part 1, Chapter 12
Julien asks for a three-day leave from his boss so he can go visit his friend Fouqe. While leaving, he meets with Madame outside the house. She acts coldly toward him and his pride makes him angry with her. She backs down and gets scared that he'll stop loving her. That afternoon, Madame cries at the thought of Julien leaving. She excuses herself from her cousin and goes to cry in bed. Meanwhile, Julien sets off for his friend's house. On the way, he stops on a mountain and writes out his deepest thoughts. He feels completely free and decides to spend the night sleeping on the mountain. When he reaches his destination, his buddy Fouqe offers him a good job as his partner in the timber business. Julien doesn't like the offer because he's afraid it will seduce him away from his ambitions. Julien turns down the offer. Fouqe thinks he's crazy to turn down such a good deal. But there you have it.