finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_13_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 14
part 1, chapter 14
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-14", "summary": "Julien stresses about his friend Fouqe's offer to become business partners. He feels tempted to give up his ambitions and become a semi-wealthy businessman. One day, he kisses Madame de Renal on the mouth. He and she both know it's reckless, and from that point on, Madame makes sure to have her kids around when she's with him. Julien keeps thinking of new ways to seduce Madame, but none of them come to fruition. One day, Julien tries playing footsies with Madame in front of distinguished company. She disguises his move by dropping some scissors and making the touching look like an accident. Afterward, she orders Julien to be more careful around people. Julien goes to visit his old friend, Father Chelan. It looks like the old priest has finally been forced out of office. He's packing to leave.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XIV

THE ENGLISH SCISSORS


        A young girl of sixteen had a pink complexion, and yet
        used red rouge.--_Polidori_.


Fouque's offer had, as a matter of fact, taken away all Julien's
happiness; he could not make up his mind to any definite course. "Alas!
perhaps I am lacking in character. I should have been a bad soldier of
Napoleon. At least," he added, "my little intrigue with the mistress of
the house will distract me a little."

Happily for him, even in this little subordinate incident, his inner
emotions quite failed to correspond with his flippant words. He was
frightened of Madame de Renal because of her pretty dress. In his
eyes, that dress was a vanguard of Paris. His pride refused to leave
anything to chance and the inspiration of the moment. He made himself
a very minute plan of campaign, moulded on the confidences of Fouque,
and a little that he had read about love in the Bible. As he was very
nervous, though he did not admit it to himself, he wrote down this plan.

Madame de Renal was alone with him for a moment in the drawing-room on
the following morning.

"Have you no other name except Julien," she said.

Our hero was at a loss to answer so nattering a question. This
circumstance had not been anticipated in his plan. If he had not been
stupid enough to have made a plan, Julien's quick wit would have served
him well, and the surprise would only have intensified the quickness of
his perception.

He was clumsy, and exaggerated his clumsiness, Madame de Renal quickly
forgave him. She attributed it to a charming frankness. And an air of
frankness was the very thing which in her view was just lacking in this
man who was acknowledged to have so much genius.

"That little tutor of yours inspires me with a great deal of
suspicion," said Madame Derville to her sometimes. "I think he looks as
if he were always thinking, and he never acts without calculation. He
is a sly fox."

Julien remained profoundly humiliated by the misfortune of not having
known what answer to make to Madame de Renal.

"A man like I am ought to make up for this check!" and seizing the
moment when they were passing from one room to another, he thought it
was his duty to give Madame de Renal a kiss.

Nothing could have been less tactful, nothing less agreeable, and
nothing more imprudent both for him and for her. They were within
an inch of being noticed. Madame de Renal thought him mad. She was
frightened, and above all, shocked. This stupidity reminded her of M.
Valenod.

"What would happen to me," she said to herself, "if I were alone with
him?" All her virtue returned, because her love was waning.

She so arranged it that one of her children always remained with her.
Julien found the day very tedious, and passed it entirely in clumsily
putting into operation his plan of seduction. He did not look at Madame
de Renal on a single occasion without that look having a reason, but
nevertheless he was not sufficiently stupid to fail to see that he was
not succeeding at all in being amiable, and was succeeding even less in
being fascinating.

Madame de Renal did not recover from her astonishment at finding him
so awkward and at the same time so bold. "It is the timidity of love
in men of intellect," she said to herself with an inexpressible joy.
"Could it be possible that he had never been loved by my rival?"

After breakfast Madame de Renal went back to the drawing-room to
receive the visit of M. Charcot de Maugiron, the sub-prefect of Bray.
She was working at a little frame of fancy-work some distance from the
ground. Madame Derville was at her side; that was how she was placed
when our hero thought it suitable to advance his boot in the full
light and press the pretty foot of Madame de Renal, whose open-work
stockings, and pretty Paris shoe were evidently attracting the looks of
the gallant sub-prefect.

Madame de Renal was very much afraid, and let fall her scissors, her
ball of wool and her needles, so that Julien's movement could be passed
for a clumsy effort, intended to prevent the fall of the scissors,
which presumably he had seen slide. Fortunately, these little scissors
of English steel were broken, and Madame de Renal did not spare her
regrets that Julien had not succeeded in getting nearer to her. "You
noticed them falling before I did--you could have prevented it,
instead, all your zealousness only succeeding in giving me a very big
kick." All this took in the sub-perfect, but not Madame Derville. "That
pretty boy has very silly manners," she thought. The social code of a
provincial capital never forgives this kind of lapse.

Madame de Renal found an opportunity of saying to Julien, "Be prudent,
I order you."

Julien appreciated his own clumsiness. He was upset. He deliberated
with himself for a long time, in order to ascertain whether or not he
ought to be angry at the expression "I order you." He was silly enough
to think she might have said "I order you," if it were some question
concerning the children's education, but in answering my love she puts
me on an equality. It is impossible to love without equality ... and
all his mind ran riot in making common-places on equality. He angrily
repeated to himself that verse of Corneille which Madame Derville had
taught him some days before.

                                      "L'amour
        les egalites, et ne les cherche pas."

Julien who had never had a mistress in his whole life, but yet insisted
on playing the role of a Don Juan, made a shocking fool of himself all
day. He had only one sensible idea. Bored with himself and Madame de
Renal, he viewed with apprehension the advance of the evening when he
would have to sit by her side in the darkness of the garden. He told M.
de Renal that he was going to Verrieres to see the cure. He left after
dinner, and only came back in the night.

At Verrieres Julien found M. Chelan occupied in moving. He had just
been deprived of his living; the curate Maslon was replacing him.
Julien helped the good cure, and it occurred to him to write to Fouque
that the irresistible mission which he felt for the holy ministry had
previously prevented him from accepting his kind offer, but that he had
just seen an instance of injustice, and that perhaps it would be safer
not to enter into Holy Orders.

Julien congratulated himself on his subtlety in exploiting the
dismissal of the cure of Verrieres so as to leave himself a loop-hole
for returning to commerce in the event of a gloomy prudence routing the
spirit of heroism from his mind.






Part 1, Chapter 14
Julien stresses about his friend Fouqe's offer to become business partners. He feels tempted to give up his ambitions and become a semi-wealthy businessman. One day, he kisses Madame de Renal on the mouth. He and she both know it's reckless, and from that point on, Madame makes sure to have her kids around when she's with him. Julien keeps thinking of new ways to seduce Madame, but none of them come to fruition. One day, Julien tries playing footsies with Madame in front of distinguished company. She disguises his move by dropping some scissors and making the touching look like an accident. Afterward, she orders Julien to be more careful around people. Julien goes to visit his old friend, Father Chelan. It looks like the old priest has finally been forced out of office. He's packing to leave.