finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_65_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 36
part 2, chapter 36
{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 36", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-36", "summary": "Julien gets tackled while trying to leave the Verrieres church. He's arrested for the murder of Madame de Renal. He basically knows he's finished. Little does he know that his shots haven't killed Madame, but only wounded her. A judge visits Julien in prison. Julien tells him that he killed Madame out of cold blood and that it was all premeditated. It's like the guy wants the death penalty. He writes a letter to Mathilde explaining what he's done. Later, he finds out that Madame de Renal isn't dead. Then he just starts bawling over what a mess he's made out of his life. Julien thinks about bribing the guard to help him escape, then forgets it because he doesn't really care enough to bother.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER LXVI

SAD DETAILS


        Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged
        myself. I have deserved death, and here I am. Pray for
        my soul.--_Schiller_


Julien remained motionless. He saw nothing more. When he recovered
himself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church.
The priest had left the altar. Julien started fairly slowly to follow
some women who were going away with loud screams. A woman who was
trying to get away more quickly than the others, pushed him roughly. He
fell. His feet got entangled with a chair, knocked over by the crowd;
when he got up, he felt his neck gripped. A gendarme, in full uniform,
was arresting him. Julien tried mechanically to have recourse to his
little pistol; but a second gendarme pinioned his arms.

He was taken to the prison. They went into a room where irons were put
on his hands. He was left alone. The door was doubly locked on him. All
this was done very quickly, and he scarcely appreciated it at all.

"Yes, upon my word, all is over," he said aloud as he recovered
himself. "Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight ... or killing myself
here."

His reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had
been seized in some violent grip. He looked round to see if anyone was
holding him. After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.

Madame de Renal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had pierced
her hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round. The
bullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate,
had ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however,
broken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous
splinter of stone.

When, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to
madame de Renal, "I answer for your life as I would for my own," she
was profoundly grieved.

She had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time. The letter
which she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the
injunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a
creature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness. This
unhappiness was caused by Julien's absence; but she, for her own part,
called it remorse. Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both
virtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no
mistake as to its nature.

"Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being
a sin," thought madame de Renal. "God will perhaps forgive me for
rejoicing over my death." She did not dare to add, "and dying by
Julien's hand puts the last touch on my happiness."

She had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the
crowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid,
Elisa. "The gaoler," she said to her with a violent blush, "is a cruel
man. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing
so.... I cannot bear that idea. Could you not go, as though on your own
account, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some
louis. You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly,
above all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money."

It was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had
to thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrieres. It was still the
same M. Noiraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so
finely alarmed by M. Appert's presence.

A judge appeared in the prison. "I occasioned death by premeditation,"
said Julien to him. "I bought the pistols and had them loaded at
so-and-so's, a gunsmith. Article 1342 of the penal code is clear. I
deserve death, and I expect it." Astonished at this kind of answer, the
judge started to multiply his questions, with a view of the accused
contradicting himself in his answers.

"Don't you see," said Julien to him with a smile, "that I am making
myself out as guilty as you can possibly desire? Go away, monsieur, you
will not fail to catch the quarry you are pursuing. You will have the
pleasure to condemn me. Spare me your presence."

"I have an irksome duty to perform," thought Julien. "I must write to
mademoiselle de la Mole:--"

        "I have avenged myself," he said to her. "Unfortunately,
        my name will appear in the papers, and I shall not be
        able to escape from the world incognito. I shall die
        in two months' time. My revenge was ghastly, like the
        pain of being separated from you. From this moment I
        forbid myself to write or pronounce your name. Never
        speak of me even to my son; silence is the only way of
        honouring me. To the ordinary commonplace man, I shall
        represent a common assassin. Allow me the luxury of the
        truth at this supreme moment; you will forget me. This
        great catastrophe of which I advise you not to say a
        single word to a single living person, will exhaust,
        for several years to come, all that romantic and unduly
        adventurous element which I have detected in your
        character. You were intended by nature to live among the
        heroes of the middle ages; exhibit their firm character.
        Let what has to happen take place in secret and without
        your being compromised. You will assume a false name,
        and you will confide in no one. If you absolutely need a
        friend's help, I bequeath the abbe Pirard to you.

        "Do not talk to anyone else, particularly to the people
        of your own class--the de Luz's, the Caylus's.

        "A year after my death, marry M. de Croisenois; I
        command you as your husband. Do not write to me at all,
        I shall not answer. Though in my view, much less wicked
        than Iago, I am going to say, like him: 'From this time
        forth, I never will speack word.'[1]

        "I shall never be seen to speak or write again. You will
        have received my final words and my final expressions of
        adoration.

                                                         "J. S."

It was only after he had despatched this letter and had recovered
himself a little, that Julien felt for the first time extremely
unhappy. Those momentous words, I shall die, meant the successive
tearing out of his heart of each individual hope and ambition.
Death, in itself, was not horrible in his eyes. His whole life had
been nothing but a long preparation for unhappiness, and he had
made a point of not losing sight of what is considered the greatest
unhappiness of all.

"Come then," he said to himself; "if I had to fight a duel in a couple
of months, with an expert duellist, should I be weak enough to think
about it incessantly with panic in my soul?"

He passed more than an hour in trying to analyze himself thoroughly on
this score.

When he saw clear in his own soul, and the truth appeared before his
eyes with as much definiteness as one of the pillars of his prison, he
thought about remorse.

"Why should I have any? I have been atrociously injured; I have
killed--I deserve death, but that is all. I die after having squared my
account with humanity. I do not leave any obligation unfulfilled. I owe
nothing to anybody; there is nothing shameful about my death, except
the instrument of it; that alone, it is true, is simply sufficient to
disgrace me in the eyes of the bourgeois of Verrieres; but from the
intellectual standpoint, what could be more contemptible than they? I
have one means of winning their consideration; by flinging pieces of
gold to the people as I go to the scaffold. If my memory is linked with
the idea of gold, they will always look upon it as resplendent."

After this chain of reasoning, which after a minute's reflection seemed
to him self-evident, Julien said to himself, "I have nothing left to do
in the world," and fell into a deep sleep.

About 9 o'clock in the evening the gaoler woke him up as he brought in
his supper.

"What are they saying in Verrieres?"

"M. Julien, the oath which I took before the crucifix in the 'Royal
Courtyard,' on the day when I was installed in my place, obliges me to
silence."

He was silent, but remained. Julien was amused by the sight of this
vulgar hypocrisy. I must make him, he thought, wait a long time for the
five francs which he wants to sell his conscience for.

When the gaoler saw him finish his meal without making any attempt to
corrupt him, he said in a soft and perfidious voice:

"The affection which I have for you, M. Julien, compels me to speak.
Although they say that it is contrary to the interests of justice,
because it may assist you in preparing your defence. M. Julien you are
a good fellow at heart, and you will be very glad to learn that madame
de Renal is better."

"What! she is not dead?" exclaimed Julien, beside himself.

"What, you know nothing?" said the gaoler, with a stupid air which soon
turned into exultant cupidity. "It would be very proper, monsieur, for
you to give something to the surgeon, who, so far as law and justice
go, ought not to have spoken. But in order to please you, monsieur, I
went to him, and he told me everything."

"Anyway, the wound is not mortal," said Julien to him impatiently, "you
answer for it on your life?"

The gaoler, who was a giant six feet tall, was frightened and retired
towards the door. Julien saw that he was adopting bad tactics for
getting at the truth. He sat down again and flung a napoleon to M.
Noiraud.

As the man's story proved to Julien more and more conclusively that
madame de Renal's wound was not mortal, he felt himself overcome by
tears. "Leave me," he said brusquely.

The gaoler obeyed. Scarcely had the door shut, than Julien exclaimed:
"Great God, she is not dead," and he fell on his knees, shedding hot
tears.

In this supreme moment he was a believer. What mattered the hypocrisies
of the priests? Could they abate one whit of the truth and sublimity of
the idea of God?

It was only then that Julien began to repent of the crime that he had
committed. By a coincidence, which prevented him falling into despair,
it was only at the present moment that the condition of physical
irritation and semi-madness, in which he had been plunged since his
departure from Paris for Verrieres came to an end.

His tears had a generous source. He had no doubt about the condemnation
which awaited him.

"So she will live," he said to himself. "She will live to forgive me
and love me."

Very late the next morning the gaoler woke him up and said, "You must
have a famous spirit, M. Julien. I have come in twice, but I did not
want to wake you up. Here are two bottles of excellent wine which our
cure, M. Maslon, has sent you."

"What, is that scoundrel still here?" said Julien.

"Yes, monsieur," said the gaoler, lowering his voice. "But do not talk
so loud, it may do you harm."

Julien laughed heartily.

"At the stage I have reached, my friend, you alone can do me harm in
the event of your ceasing to be kind and tender. You will be well
paid," said Julien, changing his tone and reverting to his imperious
manner. This manner was immediately justified by the gift of a piece of
money.

M. Noiraud related again, with the greatest detail, everything he
had learnt about madame de Renal, but he did not make any mention of
mademoiselle Elisa's visit.

The man was as base and servile as it was possible to be. An idea
crossed Julien's mind. "This kind of misshapen giant cannot earn more
than three or four hundred francs, for his prison is not at all full.
I can guarantee him ten thousand francs, if he will escape with me
to Switzerland. The difficulty will be in persuading him of my good
faith." The idea of the long conversation he would need to have with so
vile a person filled Julien with disgust. He thought of something else.

In the evening the time had passed. A post-chaise had come to pick him
up at midnight. He was very pleased with his travelling companions, the
gendarmes. When he arrived at the prison of Besancon in the morning
they were kind enough to place him in the upper storey of a Gothic
turret. He judged the architecture to be of the beginning of the
fourteenth century. He admired its fascinating grace and lightness.
Through a narrow space between two walls, beyond the deep court, there
opened a superb vista.

On the following day there was an interrogation, after which he was
left in peace for several days. His soul was calm. He found his affair
a perfectly simple one. "I meant to kill. I deserve to be killed."

His thoughts did not linger any further over this line of reasoning.
As for the sentence, the disagreeableness of appearing in public,
the defence, he considered all this as slight embarrassment, irksome
formalities, which it would be time enough to consider on the actual
day. The actual moment of death did not seize hold of his mind either.
"I will think about it after the sentence." Life was no longer boring,
he was envisaging everything from a new point of view, he had no longer
any ambition. He rarely thought about mademoiselle de la Mole. His
passion of remorse engrossed him a great deal, and often conjured up
the image of madame de Renal, particularly during the silence of the
night, which in this high turret was only disturbed by the song of the
osprey.

He thanked heaven that he had not inflicted a mortal wound.
"Astonishing," he said to himself, "I thought that she had destroyed my
future happiness for ever by her letter to M. de la Mole, and here am
I, less than a fortnight after the date of that letter, not giving a
single thought to all the things that engrossed me then. An income of
two or three thousand francs, on which to live quietly in a mountain
district, like Vergy.... I was happy then.... I did not realise my
happiness."

At other moments he would jump up from his chair. "If I had mortally
wounded madame de Renal, I would have killed myself.... I need to feel
certain of that so as not to horrify myself."

"Kill myself? That's the great question," he said to himself. "Oh,
those judges, those fiends of red tape, who would hang their best
citizen in order to win the cross.... At any rate, I should escape from
their control and from the bad French of their insults, which the local
paper will call eloquence."

"I still have five or six weeks, more or less to live.... Kill myself.
No, not for a minute," he said to himself after some days, "Napoleon
went on living."

"Besides, I find life pleasant, this place is quiet, I am not troubled
with bores," he added with a smile, and he began to make out a list of
the books which he wanted to order from Paris.


[1] Stendhal's bad spelling is here reproduced.






Part 2, Chapter 36
Julien gets tackled while trying to leave the Verrieres church. He's arrested for the murder of Madame de Renal. He basically knows he's finished. Little does he know that his shots haven't killed Madame, but only wounded her. A judge visits Julien in prison. Julien tells him that he killed Madame out of cold blood and that it was all premeditated. It's like the guy wants the death penalty. He writes a letter to Mathilde explaining what he's done. Later, he finds out that Madame de Renal isn't dead. Then he just starts bawling over what a mess he's made out of his life. Julien thinks about bribing the guard to help him escape, then forgets it because he doesn't really care enough to bother.