finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_19_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 20
part 1, chapter 20
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-20", "summary": "To be safe, Julien tells Madame de Renal that he won't be able to visit her at night. If the anonymous letter written to Monsieur de Renal says what Julien thinks it does, it would be crazy to try and sleep with Madame. The next day, Madame sends him a secret note asking whether he loves her anymore. She can't believe that he has stood her up. She also says that it doesn't matter if her husband has received a letter about her. It's not the first attempt to question her honor. Madame claims that she's going to convince her husband that the anonymous letter came from Monsieur Valenod and that Monsieur is just jealous that Madame has never given in to his sexual advances. Madame writes out a letter to her husband that she wants Julien to create by cutting words out of papers and magazines. The letter basically makes it obvious that Mr. Valenod is trying to steal Madame away from her husband.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XX

ANONYMOUS LETTERS


    Do not give dalliance
    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
    To the fire i' the blood.--_Tempest_.


As they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien had time to say to
his love,

"Don't let us see each other to-night. Your husband has suspicions. I
would swear that that big letter he read with a sigh was an anonymous
letter."

Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Renal had
the mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her.
She absolutely lost her head, and came to his door at the accustomed
hour. Julien, who had heard the noise in the corridor, immediately blew
out his lamp. Someone was trying to open the door. Was it Madame de
Renal? Was it a jealous husband?

Very early next morning the cook, who liked Julien, brought him a book,
on the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: _Guardate
alla pagina_ 130.

Julien shuddered at the imprudence, looked for page 130, and found
pinned to it the following letter hastily written, bathed with tears,
and full of spelling mistakes. Madame de Renal was usually very
correct. He was touched by this circumstance, and somewhat forgot the
awfulness of the indiscretion.

        "So you did not want to receive me to-night? There are
        moments when I think that I have never read down to the
        depths of your soul. Your looks frighten me. I am afraid
        of you. Great God! perhaps you have never loved me? In
        that case let my husband discover my love, and shut me
        up in a prison in the country far away from my children.
        Perhaps God wills it so. I shall die soon, but you will
        have proved yourself a monster.

        "Do you not love me? Are you tired of my fits of folly
        and of remorse, you wicked man? Do you wish to ruin me?
        I will show you an easy way. Go and show this letter to
        all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod. Tell him
        that I love you, nay, do not utter such a blasphemy,
        tell him I adore you, that it was only on the day I saw
        you that my life commenced; that even in the maddest
        moments of my youth I never even dreamt of the happiness
        that I owe to you, that I have sacrificed my life to
        you and that I am sacrificing my soul. You know that
        I am sacrificing much more. But does that man know
        the meaning of sacrifice? Tell him, I say, simply to
        irritate him, that I will defy all evil tongues, that
        the only misfortune for me in the whole world would
        be to witness any change in the only man who holds me
        to life. What a happiness it would be to me to lose
        my life, to offer it up as a sacrifice and to have no
        longer any fear for my children.

        "Have no doubt about it, dear one, if it is an
        anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who
        has persecuted me for the last six years with his loud
        voice, his stories about his jumps on horseback, his
        fatuity, and the never ending catalogue of all his
        advantages.

        "Is there an anonymous letter? I should like to discuss
        that question with you, you wicked man; but no, you
        acted rightly. Clasping you in my arms perhaps for the
        last time, I should never have been able to argue as
        coldly as I do, now that I am alone. From this moment
        our happiness will no longer be so easy. Will that be a
        vexation for you? Yes, on those days when you haven't
        received some amusing book from M. Fouque. The sacrifice
        is made; to-morrow, whether there is or whether there is
        not any anonymous letter, I myself will tell my husband
        I have received an anonymous letter and that it is
        necessary to give you a golden bridge at once, find some
        honourable excuse, and send you back to your parents
        without delay.

        "Alas, dear one, we are going to be separated for a
        fortnight, perhaps a month! Go, I will do you justice,
        you will suffer as much as I, but anyway, this is the
        only means of disposing of this anonymous letter. It is
        not the first that my husband has received, and on my
        score too. Alas! how I used to laugh over them!

        "My one aim is to make my husband think that the letter
        comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is
        its author. If you leave the house, make a point of
        establishing yourself at Verrieres; I will manage that
        my husband should think of passing a fortnight there
        in order to prove to the fools there was no coldness
        between him and me. Once at Verrieres, establish ties of
        friendship with everyone, even with the Liberals. I am
        sure that all their ladies will seek you out.

        "Do not quarrel with M. Valenod, or cut off his ears,
        as you said you would one day. Try, on the contrary, to
        ingratiate yourself with him. The essential point is
        that it should be notorious in Verrieres that you are
        going to enter the household either of Valenod or of
        someone else to take charge of the children's education.

        "That is what my husband will never put up with. If he
        does feel bound to resign himself to it, well, at any
        rate, you will be living in Verrieres and I shall be
        seeing you sometimes. My children, who love you so much,
        will go and see you. Great God! I feel that I love my
        children all the more because they love you. How is
        all this going to end? I am wandering.... Anyway you
        understand your line of conduct. Be nice, polite, but
        not in any way disdainful to those coarse persons. I
        ask you on my knees; they will be the arbiters of our
        fate. Do not fear for a moment but that, so far as you
        are concerned, my husband will conform to what public
        opinion lays down for him.

        "It is you who will supply me with the anonymous letter.
        Equip yourself with patience and a pair of scissors, cut
        out from a book the words which you will see, then stick
        them with the mouth-glue on to the leaf of loose paper
        which I am sending you. It comes to me from M. Valenod.
        Be on your guard against a search in your room; burn the
        pages of the book which you are going to mutilate. If
        you do not find the words ready-made, have the patience
        to form them letter by letter. I have made the anonymous
        letter too short.


        ANONYMOUS LETTER.


        'MADAME,

        All your little goings-on are known, but the persons
        interested in stopping have been warned. I have still
        sufficient friendship left for you to urge you to cease
        all relations with the little peasant. If you are
        sensible enough to do this, your husband will believe
        that the notification he has received is misleading, and
        he will be left in his illusion. Remember that I have
        your secret; tremble, unhappy woman, you must now _walk
        straight_ before me.'


        "As soon as you have finished glueing together the
        words that make up this letter (have you recognised the
        director's special style of speech) leave the house, I
        will meet you.

        "I will go into the village and come back with a
        troubled face. As a matter of fact I shall be very much
        troubled. Great God! What a risk I run, and all because
        you thought you guessed an anonymous letter. Finally,
        looking very much upset, I shall give this letter to my
        husband and say that an unknown man handed it to me. As
        for you, go for a walk with the children, on the road to
        the great woods, and do not come back before dinner-time.

        "You will be able to see the tower of the dovecot from
        the top of the rocks. If things go well for us, I
        will place a white handkerchief there, in case of the
        contrary, there will be nothing at all.

        "Ungrateful man, will not your heart find out some means
        of telling me that you love me before you leave for that
        walk. Whatever happens, be certain of one thing: I shall
        never survive our final separation by a single day.
        Oh, you bad mother! but what is the use of my writing
        those two words, dear Julien? I do not feel them, at
        this moment I can only think of you. I have only written
        them so as not to be blamed by you, but what is the good
        of deception now that I find myself face to face with
        losing you? Yes, let my soul seem monstrous to you,
        but do not let me lie to the man whom I adore. I have
        already deceived only too much in this life of mine. Go!
        I forgive you if you love me no more. I have not the
        time to read over my letter. It is a small thing in my
        eyes to pay for the happy days that I have just passed
        in your arms with the price of my life. You know that
        they will cost me more."






Part 1, Chapter 20
To be safe, Julien tells Madame de Renal that he won't be able to visit her at night. If the anonymous letter written to Monsieur de Renal says what Julien thinks it does, it would be crazy to try and sleep with Madame. The next day, Madame sends him a secret note asking whether he loves her anymore. She can't believe that he has stood her up. She also says that it doesn't matter if her husband has received a letter about her. It's not the first attempt to question her honor. Madame claims that she's going to convince her husband that the anonymous letter came from Monsieur Valenod and that Monsieur is just jealous that Madame has never given in to his sexual advances. Madame writes out a letter to her husband that she wants Julien to create by cutting words out of papers and magazines. The letter basically makes it obvious that Mr. Valenod is trying to steal Madame away from her husband.