finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_32_part_0.txt
The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 3
part 2, chapter 3
{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-3", "summary": "Julien is working in the de La Mole's study one day when the daughter, Mathilde, comes in looking for a book. She wants to borrow it in secret because it's indecent. But she can't because he's always there. This makes her dislike him. Count Norbert walks in and asks Julien to go horseback riding with him. Julien goes along. But he's not very good on a horse, so he soon falls off in the middle of the street. The family is impressed with how easily Julien tells the story of his fall. Most Paris men would be far too proud to admit to this story without sugarcoating it or blaming it on someone else. The next day, Julien finds a young man sitting next to him in the library. The marquis comes in and banishes the other guy from the library. His name is Monsieur Tanbeau and he's a young man who's also employed by the marquis. But it's clear that this guy isn't going to get the special treatment that Julien is. This of course makes them enemies. Julien asks Norbert to take him riding again. Norbert is worried that Julien will hurt himself, and he almost does. But everything works out fine in the end. Norbert praises Julien's bravery at the de La Mole's dinner table that night. Meanwhile, Father Pirard leaves to take up his new position at a nearby parish. Julien is now on his own with the de La Moles.", "analysis": ""}
CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST STEPS


        This immense valley, filled with brilliant lights and so
        many thousands of men dazzles my sight. No one knows me.
        All are superior to me. I lose my head. _Poemi dell' av.
        REINA_.

Julien was copying letters in the library very early the next day
when Mademoiselle Mathilde came in by a little dummy door very well
masked by the backs of the books. While Julien was admiring the
device, Mademoiselle Mathilde seemed astonished and somewhat annoyed
at finding him there: Julien saw that she was in curl-papers and had
a hard, haughty, and masculine expression. Mademoiselle de la Mole
had the habit of surreptitiously stealing books from her father's
library. Julien's presence rendered this morning's journey abortive,
a fact which annoyed her all the more as she had come to fetch the
second volume of Voltaire's _Princess of Babylon_, a worthy climax to
one of the most eminently monarchical and religious educations which
the convent of the Sacred Heart had ever provided. This poor girl of
nineteen already required some element of spiciness in order to get up
an interest in a novel.

Count Norbert put in an appearance in the library about three o'clock.
He had come to study a paper so as to be able to talk politics in the
evening, and was very glad to meet Julien, whose existence he had
forgotten. He was charming, and offered him a ride on horseback.

"My father will excuse us until dinner."

Julien appreciated the us and thought it charming.

"Great heavens! M. le Comte," said Julien, "if it were a question of
felling an eighty-foot tree or hewing it out and making it into planks
I would acquit myself all right, I daresay, but as for riding a horse,
I haven't done such a thing six times in my life."

"Well, this will be the seventh," said Norbert.

As a matter of fact, Julien remembered the king of ----'s entry into
Verrieres, and thought he rode extremely well. But as they were
returning from the Bois de Boulogne he fell right in the middle of the
Rue du Bac, as he suddenly tried to get out of the way of a cabriolet,
and was spattered all over with mud. It was lucky that he had two
suits. The marquis, wishing to favour him with a few words at dinner,
asked him for news of his excursion. Norbert began immediately to
answer him in general terms.

"M. le Comte is extremely kind to me," answered Julien. "I thank him
for it, and I fully appreciate it. He was good enough to have the
quietest and prettiest horse given to me, but after all he could
not tie me on to it, and owing to the lack of that precaution, I
had a fall right in the middle of that long street near the bridge.
Madame Mathilde made a futile effort to hide a burst of laughter, and
subsequently was indiscreet enough to ask for details. Julien acquitted
himself with much simplicity. He had grace without knowing it.

"I prophesy favourably about that little priest," said the marquis to
the academician. "Think of a provincial being simple over a matter like
that. Such a thing has never been witnessed before, and will never be
witnessed again; and what is more, he describes his misfortune before
ladies."

Julien put his listeners so thoroughly at their ease over his
misfortune that at the end of the dinner, when the general conversation
had gone off on to another subject, Mademoiselle Mathilde asked her
brother some questions over the details of the unfortunate occurrence.
As she put numerous questions, and as Julien met her eyes several
times, he ventured to answer himself, although the questions had not
been addressed to him, and all three of them finished up by laughing
just as though they had all been inhabitants of some village in the
depths of a forest.

On the following day Julien attended two theology lectures, and then
came back to copy out about twenty letters. He found a young man, who
though very carefully dressed, had a mean appearance and an envious
expression, established near him in the library.

The marquis entered, "What are you doing here, M. Tanbeau?" he said
severely to the new-comer.

"I thought--" answered the young man, with a base smile.

"No, monsieur, you thought nothing of the kind. This is a try-on, but
it is an unfortunate one."

Young Tanbeau got up in a rage and disappeared. He was a nephew of the
academician who was a friend of Madame de la Mole, and intended to take
up the profession of letters. The academician had induced the marquis
to take him as a secretary. Tanbeau used to work in a separate room,
but having heard of the favour that was vouchsafed to Julien he wished
to share it, and he had gone this morning and established his desk in
the library.

At four o'clock Julien ventured, after a little hesitation, to present
himself to Count Norbert. The latter was on the point of going riding,
and being a man of perfect politeness felt embarrassed.

"I think," he said to Julien, "that you had better go to the riding
school, and after a few weeks, I shall be charmed to ride with you."

"I should like to have the honour of thanking you for the kindness
which you have shewn me. Believe me, monsieur," added Julien very
seriously, "that I appreciate all I owe you. If your horse has not been
hurt by the reason of my clumsiness of yesterday, and if it is free I
should like to ride it this afternoon."

"Well, upon my word, my dear Sorel, you do so at your own risk and
peril; kindly assume that I have put forth all the objections required
by prudence. As a matter of fact it is four o'clock, we have no time to
lose."

As soon as Julien was on horseback, he said to the young count, "What
must one do not to fall off?"

"Lots of things," answered Norbert, bursting into laughter. "Keep your
body back for instance."

Julien put his horse to the trot. They were at the Place Louis XVI.

"Oh, you foolhardy youngster," said Norbert "there are too many
carriages here, and they are driven by careless drivers into the
bargain. Once you are on the ground their tilburies will run over your
body, they will not risk spoiling their horses' mouths by pulling up
short."

Norbert saw Julien twenty times on the point of tumbling, but in the
end the excursion finished without misadventure. As they came back the
young count said to his sister,

"Allow me to introduce a dashing dare-devil."

When he talked to his father over the dinner from one end of the table
to the other, he did justice to Julien's courage. It was the only
thing one could possibly praise about his style of riding. The young
count had heard in the morning the men who groomed the horses in the
courtyard making Julien's fall an opportunity for the most outrageous
jokes at his expense.

In spite of so much kindness Julien soon felt himself completely
isolated in this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and
he was cognizant of none of them. His blunders were the delight of the
valets.

The abbe Pirard had left for his living. "If Julien is a weak reed,
let him perish. If he is a man of spirit, let him get out of his
difficulties all alone," he thought.






Part 2, Chapter 3
Julien is working in the de La Mole's study one day when the daughter, Mathilde, comes in looking for a book. She wants to borrow it in secret because it's indecent. But she can't because he's always there. This makes her dislike him. Count Norbert walks in and asks Julien to go horseback riding with him. Julien goes along. But he's not very good on a horse, so he soon falls off in the middle of the street. The family is impressed with how easily Julien tells the story of his fall. Most Paris men would be far too proud to admit to this story without sugarcoating it or blaming it on someone else. The next day, Julien finds a young man sitting next to him in the library. The marquis comes in and banishes the other guy from the library. His name is Monsieur Tanbeau and he's a young man who's also employed by the marquis. But it's clear that this guy isn't going to get the special treatment that Julien is. This of course makes them enemies. Julien asks Norbert to take him riding again. Norbert is worried that Julien will hurt himself, and he almost does. But everything works out fine in the end. Norbert praises Julien's bravery at the de La Mole's dinner table that night. Meanwhile, Father Pirard leaves to take up his new position at a nearby parish. Julien is now on his own with the de La Moles.