finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_12_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 13
part 1, chapter 13
{"name": "Part 1, Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-13", "summary": "While he's at Fouqe's, Julien hears all kinds of stories about how Fouqe's past sweethearts cheated on him. He learns a lot about the world of relationships. Back at the de Renal house, Madame de Renal has literally gotten sick with grief during Julien's absence. Her cousin, Madame Derville, realizes what's up and laments that fact that her cousin has fallen in love with a poor servant. When Julien gets back, he goes to hold Madame de Renal's hand in the garden and realizes that he wants to become her lover. It's not because he loves her, really. It's because this is what he's supposed to do if he's going to be a heroic character. Julien whispers to Madame de Renal that he must leave forever because he's madly in love with her. This almost makes her heart explode.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XIII

THE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS


        A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk
        along the high road.--_Saint-Real_.


When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy,
he noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Renal
since the day before yesterday. The other day, when I took my leave,
that woman made me realise the infinite distance which separated us;
she treated me like a labourer's son. No doubt she wished to signify
her repentance for having allowed me to hold her hand the evening
before.

... It is, however very pretty, is that hand. What a charm, what a
nobility is there in that woman's expression!

The possibility of making a fortune with Fouque gave a certain facility
to Julien's logic. It was not spoilt quite so frequently by the
irritation and the keen consciousness of his poverty and low estate in
the eyes of the world. Placed as it were on a high promontory, he was
able to exercise his judgment, and had a commanding view, so to speak,
of both extreme poverty and that competence which he still called
wealth. He was far from judging his position really philosophically,
but he had enough penetration to feel different after this little
journey into the mountain.

He was struck with the extreme uneasiness with which Madame de Renal
listened to the brief account which she had asked for of his journey.
Fouque had had plans of marriage, and unhappy love affairs, and long
confidences on this subject had formed the staple of the two friends'
conversation. Having found happiness too soon, Fouque had realised
that he was not the only one who was loved. All these accounts had
astonished Julien. He had learnt many new things. His solitary life of
imagination and suspicion had kept him remote from anything which could
enlighten him.

During his absence, life had been nothing for Madame de Renal but a
series of tortures, which, though different, were all unbearable. She
was really ill.

"Now mind," said Madame Derville to her when she saw Julien arrive,
"you don't go into the garden this evening in your weak state; the damp
air will make your complaint twice as bad."

Madame Derville was surprised to see that her friend, who was always
scolded by M. de Renal by reason of the excessive simplicity of her
dress, had just got some open-work stockings and some charming little
shoes which had come from Paris. For three days Madame de Renal's only
distraction had been to cut out a summer dress of a pretty little
material which was very fashionable, and get it made with express speed
by Elisa. This dress could scarcely have been finished a few moments
before Julien's arrival, but Madame de Renal put it on immediately. Her
friend had no longer any doubt. "She loves," unhappy woman, said Madame
Derville to herself. She understood all the strange symptoms of the
malady.

She saw her speak to Julien. The most violent blush was succeeded by
pallor. Anxiety was depicted in her eyes, which were riveted on those
of the young tutor. Madame de Renal expected every minute that he would
give an explanation of his conduct, and announce that he was either
going to leave the house or stay there. Julien carefully avoided that
subject, and did not even think of it. After terrible struggles, Madame
de Renal eventually dared to say to him in a trembling voice that
mirrored all her passion:

"Are you going to leave your pupils to take another place?"

Julien was struck by Madame de Renal's hesitating voice and look.
"That woman loves me," he said to himself! "But after this temporary
moment of weakness, for which her pride is no doubt reproaching her,
and as soon as she has ceased fearing that I shall leave, she will be
as haughty as ever." This view of their mutual position passed through
Julien's mind as rapidly as a flash of lightning. He answered with some
hesitation,

"I shall be extremely distressed to leave children who are so nice
and so well-born, but perhaps it will be necessary. One has duties to
oneself as well."

As he pronounced the expression, "well-born" (it was one of those
aristocratic phrases which Julien had recently learnt), he became
animated by a profound feeling of antipathy.

"I am not well-born," he said to himself, "in that woman's eyes."

As Madame de Renal listened to him, she admired his genius and his
beauty, and the hinted possibility of his departure pierced her
heart. All her friends at Verrieres who had come to dine at Vergy
during Julien's absence had complimented her almost jealously on the
astonishing man whom her husband had had the good fortune to unearth.
It was not that they understood anything about the progress of
children. The feat of knowing his Bible by heart, and what is more, of
knowing it in Latin, had struck the inhabitants of Verrieres with an
admiration which will last perhaps a century.

Julien, who never spoke to anyone, was ignorant of all this. If Madame
de Renal had possessed the slightest presence of mind, she would have
complimented him on the reputation which he had won, and Julien's
pride, once satisfied, he would have been sweet and amiable towards
her, especially as he thought her new dress charming. Madame de Renal
was also pleased with her pretty dress, and with what Julien had
said to her about it, and wanted to walk round the garden. But she
soon confessed that she was incapable of walking. She had taken the
traveller's arm, and the contact of that arm, far from increasing her
strength, deprived her of it completely.

It was night. They had scarcely sat down before Julien, availing
himself of his old privilege, dared to bring his lips near his pretty
neighbour's arm, and to take her hand. He kept thinking of the boldness
which Fouque had exhibited with his mistresses and not of Madame de
Renal; the word "well-born" was still heavy on his heart. He felt his
hand pressed, but experienced no pleasure. So far from his being proud,
or even grateful for the sentiment that Madame de Renal was betraying
that evening by only too evident signs, he was almost insensible to
her beauty, her elegance, and her freshness. Purity of soul, and the
absence of all hateful emotion, doubtless prolong the duration of
youth. It is the face which ages first with the majority of women.

Julien sulked all the evening. Up to the present he had only been angry
with the social order, but from that time that Fouque had offered him
an ignoble means of obtaining a competency, he was irritated with
himself. Julien was so engrossed in his thoughts, that, although from
time to time he said a few words to the ladies, he eventually let go
Madame de Renal's hand without noticing it. This action overwhelmed the
soul of the poor woman. She saw in it her whole fate.

If she had been certain of Julien's affection, her virtue would
possibly have found strength to resist him. But trembling lest she
should lose him for ever, she was distracted by her passion to
the point of taking again Julien's hand, which he had left in his
absent-mindedness leaning on the back of the chair. This action woke up
this ambitious youth; he would have liked to have had for witnesses all
those proud nobles who had regarded him at meals, when he was at the
bottom of the table with the children, with so condescending a smile.
"That woman cannot despise me; in that case," he said to himself. "I
ought to shew my appreciation of her beauty. I owe it to myself to be
her lover." That idea would not have occurred to him before the naive
confidences which his friend had made.

The sudden resolution which he had just made formed an agreeable
distraction. He kept saying to himself, "I must have one of those two
women;" he realised that he would have very much preferred to have
paid court to Madame Derville. It was not that she was more agreeable,
but that she had always seen him as the tutor distinguished by his
knowledge, and not as the journeyman carpenter with his cloth jacket
folded under his arm as he had first appeared to Madame de Renal.

It was precisely as a young workman, blushing up to the whites of his
eyes, standing by the door of the house and not daring to ring, that he
made the most alluring appeal to Madame de Renal's imagination.

As he went on reviewing his position, Julien saw that the conquest of
Madame Derville, who had probably noticed the taste which Madame de
Renal was manifesting for him, was out of the question. He was thus
brought back to the latter lady. "What do I know of the character of
that woman?" said Julien to himself. "Only this: before my journey, I
used to take her hand, and she used to take it away. To-day, I take my
hand away, and she seizes and presses it. A fine opportunity to pay her
back all the contempt she had had for me. God knows how many lovers she
has had, probably she is only deciding in my favour by reason of the
easiness of assignations."

Such, alas, is the misfortune of an excessive civilisation. The soul
of a young man of twenty, possessed of any education, is a thousand
leagues away from that _abandon_ without which love is frequently but
the most tedious of duties.

"I owe it all the more to myself," went on the petty vanity of Julien,
"to succeed with that woman, by reason of the fact that if I ever make
a fortune, and I am reproached by anyone with my menial position as a
tutor, I shall then be able to give out that it was love which got me
the post."

Julien again took his hand away from Madame de Renal, and then took her
hand again and pressed it. As they went back to the drawing-room about
midnight, Madame de Renal said to him in a whisper.

"You are leaving us, you are going?"

Julien answered with a sigh.

"I absolutely must leave, for I love you passionately. It is wrong
... how wrong indeed for a young priest?" Madame de Renal leant upon
his arm, and with so much abandon that her cheek felt the warmth of
Julien's.

The nights of these two persons were quite different. Madame de
Renal was exalted by the ecstacies of the highest moral pleasure. A
coquettish young girl, who loves early in life, gets habituated to
the trouble of love, and when she reaches the age of real passion,
finds the charm of novelty lacking. As Madame de Renal had never read
any novels, all the refinements of her happiness were new to her. No
mournful truth came to chill her, not even the spectre of the future.
She imagined herself as happy in ten years' time as she was at the
present moment. Even the idea of virtue and of her sworn fidelity to M.
de Renal, which had agitated her some days past, now presented itself
in vain, and was sent about its business like an importunate visitor.
"I will never grant anything to Julien," said Madame de Renal; "we will
live in the future like we have been living for the last month. He
shall be a friend."






Part 1, Chapter 13
While he's at Fouqe's, Julien hears all kinds of stories about how Fouqe's past sweethearts cheated on him. He learns a lot about the world of relationships. Back at the de Renal house, Madame de Renal has literally gotten sick with grief during Julien's absence. Her cousin, Madame Derville, realizes what's up and laments that fact that her cousin has fallen in love with a poor servant. When Julien gets back, he goes to hold Madame de Renal's hand in the garden and realizes that he wants to become her lover. It's not because he loves her, really. It's because this is what he's supposed to do if he's going to be a heroic character. Julien whispers to Madame de Renal that he must leave forever because he's madly in love with her. This almost makes her heart explode.