CHAPTER VI

ENNUI

    Non so piu cosa son
    Cosa facio.
                     MOZART (_Figaro_).

Madame de Renal was going out of the salon by the folding window which
opened on to the garden with that vivacity and grace which was natural
to her when she was free from human observation, when she noticed a
young peasant near the entrance gate. He was still almost a child,
extremely pale, and looked as though he had been crying. He was in a
white shirt and had under his arm a perfectly new suit of violet frieze.

The little peasant's complexion was so white and his eyes were so soft,
that Madame de Renal's somewhat romantic spirit thought at first that
it might be a young girl in disguise, who had come to ask some favour
of the M. the Mayor. She took pity on this poor creature, who had
stopped at the entrance of the door, and who apparently did not dare
to raise its hand to the bell. Madame de Renal approached, forgetting
for the moment the bitter chagrin occasioned by the tutor's arrival.
Julien, who was turned towards the gate, did not see her advance. He
trembled when a soft voice said quite close to his ear:

"What do you want here, my child."

Julien turned round sharply and was so struck by Madame de Renal's
look, full of graciousness as it was, that up to a certain point he
forgot to be nervous. Overcome by her beauty he soon forgot everything,
even what he had come for. Madame de Renal repeated her question.

"I have come here to be tutor, Madame," he said at last, quite ashamed
of his tears which he was drying as best as he could.

Madame de Renal remained silent. They had a view of each other at close
range. Julien had never seen a human being so well-dressed, and above
all he had never seen a woman with so dazzling a complexion speak to
him at all softly. Madame de Renal observed the big tears which had
lingered on the cheeks of the young peasant, those cheeks which had
been so pale and were now so pink. Soon she began to laugh with all the
mad gaiety of a young girl, she made fun of herself, and was unable to
realise the extent of her happiness. So this was that tutor whom she
had imagined a dirty, badly dressed priest, who was coming to scold and
flog her children.

"What! Monsieur," she said to him at last, "you know Latin?"

The word "Monsieur" astonished Julien so much that he reflected for a
moment.

"Yes, Madame," he said timidly.

Madame de Renal was so happy that she plucked up the courage to say to
Julien, "You will not scold the poor children too much?"

"I scold them!" said Julien in astonishment; "why should I?"

"You won't, will you, Monsieur," she added after a little silence, in
a soft voice whose emotion became more and more intense. "You will be
nice to them, you promise me?"

To hear himself called "Monsieur" again in all seriousness by so well
dressed a lady was beyond all Julien's expectations. He had always said
to himself in all the castles of Spain that he had built in his youth,
that no real lady would ever condescend to talk to him except when he
had a fine uniform. Madame de Renal, on her side, was completely taken
in by Julien's beautiful complexion, his big black eyes, and his pretty
hair, which was more than usually curly, because he had just plunged
his head into the basin of the public fountain in order to refresh
himself. She was over-joyed to find that this sinister tutor, whom
she had feared to find so harsh and severe to her children, had, as a
matter of fact, the timid manner of a girl. The contrast between her
fears and what she now saw, proved a great event for Madame de Renal's
peaceful temperament. Finally, she recovered from her surprise. She
was astonished to find herself at the gate of her own house talking in
this way and at such close quarters to this young and somewhat scantily
dressed man.

"Let us go in, Monsieur," she said to him with a certain air of
embarrassment.

During Madame de Renal's whole life she had never been so deeply moved
by such a sense of pure pleasure. Never had so gracious a vision
followed in the wake of her disconcerting fears. So these pretty
children of whom she took such care were not after all to fall into
the hands of a dirty grumbling priest. She had scarcely entered the
vestibule when she turned round towards Julien, who was following her
trembling. His astonishment at the sight of so fine a house proved but
an additional charm in Madame de Renal's eyes. She could not believe
her own eyes. It seemed to her, above all, that the tutor ought to have
a black suit.

"But is it true, Monsieur," she said to him, stopping once again, and
in mortal fear that she had made a mistake, so happy had her discovery
made her. "Is it true that you know Latin?" These words offended
Julien's pride, and dissipated the charming atmosphere which he had
been enjoying for the last quarter of an hour.

"Yes, Madame," he said, trying to assume an air of coldness, "I know
Latin as well as the cure, who has been good enough to say sometimes
that I know it even better."

Madame de Renal thought that Julien looked extremely wicked. He had
stopped two paces from her. She approached and said to him in a whisper:

"You won't beat my children the first few days, will you, even if they
do not know their lessons?"

The softness and almost supplication of so beautiful a lady made Julien
suddenly forget what he owed to his reputation as a Latinist. Madame de
Renal's face was close to his own. He smelt the perfume of a woman's
summer clothing, a quite astonishing experience for a poor peasant.
Julien blushed extremely, and said with a sigh in a faltering voice:

"Fear nothing, Madame, I will obey you in everything."

It was only now, when her anxiety about her children had been relieved
once and for all, that Madame de Renal was struck by Julien's extreme
beauty. The comparative effeminancy of his features and his air of
extreme embarrassment did not seem in any way ridiculous to a woman who
was herself extremely timid. The male air, which is usually considered
essential to a man's beauty, would have terrified her.

"How old are you, sir," she said to Julien.

"Nearly nineteen."

"My elder son is eleven," went on Madame de Renal, who had completely
recovered her confidence. "He will be almost a chum for you. You will
talk sensibly to him. His father started beating him once. The child
was ill for a whole week, and yet it was only a little tap."

What a difference between him and me, thought Julien. Why, it was only
yesterday that my father beat me. How happy these rich people are.
Madame de Renal, who had already begun to observe the fine nuances of
the workings in the tutor's mind, took this fit of sadness for timidity
and tried to encourage him.

"What is your name, Monsieur?" she said to him, with an accent and
a graciousness whose charm Julien appreciated without being able to
explain.

"I am called Julien Sorel, Madame. I feel nervous of entering a strange
house for the first time in my life. I have need of your protection
and I want you to make many allowances for me during the first few
days. I have never been to the college, I was too poor. I have never
spoken to anyone else except my cousin who was Surgeon-Major, Member
of the Legion of Honour, and M. the cure Chelan. He will give you a
good account of me. My brothers always used to beat me, and you must
not believe them if they speak badly of me to you. You must forgive my
faults, Madame. I shall always mean everything for the best."

Julien had regained his confidence during this long speech. He was
examining Madame de Renal. Perfect grace works wonders when it is
natural to the character, and above all, when the person whom it
adorns never thinks of trying to affect it. Julien, who was quite a
connoisseur in feminine beauty, would have sworn at this particular
moment that she was not more than twenty. The rash idea of kissing her
hand immediately occurred to him. He soon became frightened of his
idea. A minute later he said to himself, it will be an act of cowardice
if I do not carry out an action which may be useful to me, and lessen
the contempt which this fine lady probably has for a poor workman just
taken away from the saw-mill. Possibly Julien was a little encouraged
through having heard some young girls repeat on Sundays during the last
six months the words "pretty boy."

During this internal debate, Madame de Renal was giving him two or
three hints on the way to commence handling the children. The strain
Julien was putting on himself made him once more very pale. He said
with an air of constraint.

"I will never beat your children, Madame. I swear it before God." In
saying this, he dared to take Madame de Renal's hand and carry it
to his lips. She was astonished at this act, and after reflecting,
became shocked. As the weather was very warm, her arm was quite bare
underneath the shawl, and Julien's movement in carrying her hand to his
lips entirely uncovered it. After a few moments she scolded herself. It
seemed to her that her anger had not been quick enough.

M. de Renal, who had heard voices, came out of his study, and assuming
the same air of paternal majesty with which he celebrated marriages at
the mayoral office, said to Julien:

"It is essential for me to have a few words with you before my children
see you." He made Julien enter a room and insisted on his wife being
present, although she wished to leave them alone. Having closed the
door M. Renal sat down.

"M. the cure has told me that you are a worthy person, and everybody
here will treat you with respect. If I am satisfied with you I will
later on help you in having a little establishment of your own. I do
not wish you to see either anything more of your relatives or your
friends. Their tone is bound to be prejudicial to my children. Here are
thirty-six francs for the first month, but I insist on your word not to
give a sou of this money to your father."

M. de Renal was piqued against the old man for having proved the
shrewder bargainer.

"Now, Monsieur, for I have given orders for everybody here to call you
Monsieur, and you will appreciate the advantage of having entered the
house of real gentle folk, now, Monsieur, it is not becoming for the
children to see you in a jacket." "Have the servants seen him?" said M.
de Renal to his wife.

"No, my dear," she answered, with an air of deep pensiveness.

"All the better. Put this on," he said to the surprised young man,
giving him a frock-coat of his own. "Let us now go to M. Durand's the
draper."

When M. de Renal came back with the new tutor in his black suit more
than an hour later, he found his wife still seated in the same place.
She felt calmed by Julien's presence. When she examined him she forgot
to be frightened of him. Julien was not thinking about her at all. In
spite of all his distrust of destiny and mankind, his soul at this
moment was as simple as that of a child. It seemed as though he had
lived through years since the moment, three hours ago, when he had been
all atremble in the church. He noticed Madame de Renal's frigid manner
and realised that she was very angry, because he had dared to kiss her
hand. But the proud consciousness which was given to him by the feel
of clothes so different from those which he usually wore, transported
him so violently and he had so great a desire to conceal his
exultation, that all his movements were marked by a certain spasmodic
irresponsibility. Madame de Renal looked at him with astonishment.

"Monsieur," said M. de Renal to him, "dignity above all is necessary if
you wish to be respected by my children."

"Sir," answered Julien, "I feel awkward in my new clothes. I am a poor
peasant and have never wore anything but jackets. If you allow it, I
will retire to my room."

"What do you think of this 'acquisition?'" said M. de Renal to his wife.

Madame de Renal concealed the truth from her husband, obeying an almost
instinctive impulse which she certainly did not own to herself.

"I am not as fascinated as you are by this little peasant. Your favours
will result in his not being able to keep his place, and you will have
to send him back before the month is out."

"Oh, well! we'll send him back then, he cannot run me into more than
a hundred francs, and Verrieres will have got used to seeing M. de
Renal's children with a tutor. That result would not have been achieved
if I had allowed Julien to wear a workman's clothes. If I do send him
back, I shall of course keep the complete black suit which I have just
ordered at the draper's. All he will keep is the ready-made suit which
I have just put him into at the the tailor's."

The hour that Julien spent in his room seemed only a minute to Madame
de Renal. The children who had been told about their new tutor began
to overwhelm their mother with questions. Eventually Julien appeared.
He was quite another man. It would be incorrect to say that he was
grave--he was the very incarnation of gravity. He was introduced to
the children and spoke to them in a manner that astonished M. de Renal
himself.

"I am here, gentlemen, he said, as he finished his speech, to teach
you Latin. You know what it means to recite a lesson. Here is the Holy
Bible, he said, showing them a small volume in thirty-two mo., bound in
black. It deals especially with the history of our Lord Jesus Christ
and is the part which is called the New Testament. I shall often make
you recite your lesson, but do you make me now recite mine."

Adolphe, the eldest of the children, had taken up the book. "Open it
anywhere you like," went on Julien and tell me the first word of any
verse, "I will then recite by heart that sacred book which governs our
conduct towards the whole world, until you stop me."

Adolphe opened the book and read a word, and Julien recited the whole
of the page as easily as though he had been talking French. M. de Renal
looked at his wife with an air of triumph The children, seeing the
astonishment of their parents, opened their eyes wide. A servant came
to the door of the drawing-room; Julien went on talking Latin. The
servant first remained motionless, and then disappeared. Soon Madame's
house-maid, together with the cook, arrived at the door. Adolphe had
already opened the book at eight different places, while Julien went
on reciting all the time with the same facility. "Great heavens!" said
the cook, a good and devout girl, quite aloud, "what a pretty little
priest!" M. de Renal's self-esteem became uneasy. Instead of thinking
of examining the tutor, his mind was concentrated in racking his memory
for some other Latin words. Eventually he managed to spout a phrase of
Horace. Julien knew no other Latin except his Bible. He answered with a
frown. "The holy ministry to which I destine myself has forbidden me to
read so profane a poet."

M. de Renal quoted quite a large number of alleged verses from Horace.
He explained to his children who Horace was, but the admiring children,
scarcely attended to what he was saying: they were looking at Julien.

The servants were still at the door. Julien thought that he ought to
prolong the test--"M. Stanislas-Xavier also," he said to the youngest
of the children, "must give me a passage from the holy book."

Little Stanislas, who was quite flattered, read indifferently the first
word of a verse, and Julien said the whole page.

To put the finishing touch on M. de Renal's triumph, M. Valenod, the
owner of the fine Norman horses, and M. Charcot de Maugiron, the
sub-prefect of the district came in when Julien was reciting. This
scene earned for Julien the title of Monsieur; even the servants did
not dare to refuse it to him.

That evening all Verrieres flocked to M. de Renal's to see the prodigy.
Julien answered everybody in a gloomy manner and kept his own distance.
His fame spread so rapidly in the town that a few hours afterwards
M. de Renal, fearing that he would be taken away by somebody else,
proposed to that he should sign an engagement for two years.

"No, Monsieur," Julien answered coldly, "if you wished to dismiss me, I
should have to go. An engagement which binds me without involving you
in any obligation is not an equal one and I refuse it."

Julien played his cards so well, that in less than a month of his
arrival at the house, M. de Renal himself respected him. As the cure
had quarrelled with both M. de Renal and M. Valenod, there was no one
who could betray Julien's old passion for Napoleon. He always spoke of
Napoleon with abhorrence.

CHAPTER VII

THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

        They only manage to touch the heart by wounding it.--_A
        Modern_.

The children adored him, but he did not like them in the least. His
thoughts were elsewhere. But nothing which the little brats ever did
made him lose his patience. Cold, just and impassive, and none the less
liked, inasmuch his arrival had more or less driven ennui out of the
house, he was a good tutor. As for himself, he felt nothing but hate
and abhorrence for that good society into which he had been admitted;
admitted, it is true at the bottom of the table, a circumstance which
perhaps explained his hate and his abhorrence. There were certain
'full-dress' dinners at which he was scarcely able to control his
hate for everything that surrounded him. One St. Louis feast day in
particular, when M. Valenod was monopolizing the conversation of M.
de Renal, Julien was on the point of betraying himself. He escaped
into the garden on the pretext of finding the children. "What praise
of honesty," he exclaimed. "One would say that was the only virtue,
and yet think how they respect and grovel before a man who has almost
doubled and trebled his fortune since he has administered the poor
fund. I would bet anything that he makes a profit even out of the
monies which are intended for the foundlings of these poor creatures
whose misery is even more sacred than that of others. Oh, Monsters!
Monsters! And I too, am a kind of foundling, hated as I am by my
father, my brothers, and all my family."

Some days before the feast of St. Louis, when Julien was taking a
solitary walk and reciting his breviary in the little wood called
the Belvedere, which dominates the _Cours de la Fidelite_, he had
endeavoured in vain to avoid his two brothers whom he saw coming along
in the distance by a lonely path. The jealousy of these coarse workmen
had been provoked to such a pitch by their brother's fine black suit,
by his air of extreme respectability, and by the sincere contempt which
he had for them, that they had beaten him until he had fainted and was
bleeding all over.

Madame de Renal, who was taking a walk with M. de Renal and the
sub-prefect, happened to arrive in the little wood. She saw Julien
lying on the ground and thought that he was dead. She was so overcome
that she made M. Valenod jealous.

His alarm was premature. Julien found Madame de Renal very pretty, but
he hated her on account of her beauty, for that had been the first
danger which had almost stopped his career.

He talked to her as little as possible, in order to make her forget the
transport which had induced him to kiss her hand on the first day.

Madame de Renal's housemaid, Elisa, had lost no time in falling
in love with the young tutor. She often talked about him to her
mistress. Elisa's love had earned for Julien the hatred of one of the
men-servants. One day he heard the man saying to Elisa, "You haven't
a word for me now that this dirty tutor has entered the household."
The insult was undeserved, but Julien with the instinctive vanity of a
pretty boy redoubled his care of his personal appearance. M. Valenod's
hate also increased. He said publicly, that it was not becoming for a
young abbe to be such a fop.

Madame de Renal observed that Julien talked more frequently than usual
to Mademoiselle Elisa. She learnt that the reason of these interviews
was the poverty of Julien's extremely small wardrobe. He had so little
linen that he was obliged to have it very frequently washed outside the
house, and it was in these little matters that Elisa was useful to him.
Madame de Renal was touched by this extreme poverty which she had never
suspected before. She was anxious to make him presents, but she did not
dare to do so. This inner conflict was the first painful emotion that
Julien had caused her. Till then Julien's name had been synonymous with
a pure and quite intellectual joy. Tormented by the idea of Julien's
poverty, Madame de Renal spoke to her husband about giving him some
linen for a present.

"What nonsense," he answered, "the very idea of giving presents to a
man with whom we are perfectly satisfied and who is a good servant. It
will only be if he is remiss that we shall have to stimulate his zeal."

Madame de Renal felt humiliated by this way of looking at things,
though she would never have noticed it in the days before Julien's
arrival. She never looked at the young abbe's attire, with its
combination of simplicity and absolute cleanliness, without saying to
herself, "The poor boy, how can he manage?"

Little by little, instead of being shocked by all Julien's
deficiencies, she pitied him for them.

Madame de Renal was one of those provincial women whom one is apt
to take for fools during the first fortnight of acquaintanceship.
She had no experience of the world and never bothered to keep up the
conversation. Nature had given her a refined and fastidious soul,
while that instinct for happiness which is innate in all human beings
caused her, as a rule, to pay no attention to the acts of the coarse
persons in whose midst chance had thrown her. If she had received the
slightest education, she would have been noticeable for the spontaneity
and vivacity of her mind, but being an heiress, she had been brought
up in a Convent of Nuns, who were passionate devotees of the _Sacred
Heart of Jesus_ and animated by a violent hate for the French as being
the enemies of the Jesuits. Madame de Renal had had enough sense to
forget quickly all the nonsense which she had learned at the convent,
but had substituted nothing for it, and in the long run knew nothing.
The flatteries which had been lavished on her when still a child, by
reason of the great fortune of which she was the heiress, and a decided
tendency to passionate devotion, had given her quite an inner life of
her own. In spite of her pose of perfect affability and her elimination
of her individual will which was cited as a model example by all the
husbands in Verrieres and which made M. de Renal feel very proud, the
moods of her mind were usually dictated by a spirit of the most haughty
discontent.

Many a princess who has become a bye-word for pride has given
infinitely more attention to what her courtiers have been doing around
her than did this apparently gentle and demure woman to anything which
her husband either said or did. Up to the time of Julien's arrival she
had never really troubled about anything except her children. Their
little maladies, their troubles, their little joys, occupied all the
sensibility of that soul, who, during her whole life, had adored no one
but God, when she had been at the Sacred Heart of Besancon.

A feverish attack of one of her sons would affect her almost as deeply
as if the child had died, though she would not deign to confide
in anyone. A burst of coarse laughter, a shrug of the shoulders,
accompanied by some platitude on the folly of women, had been the only
welcome her husband had vouchsafed to those confidences about her
troubles, which the need of unburdening herself had induced her to make
during the first years of their marriage. Jokes of this kind, and above
all, when they were directed at her children's ailments, were exquisite
torture to Madame de Renal. And these jokes were all she found to take
the place of those exaggerated sugary flatteries with which she had
been regaled at the Jesuit Convent where she had passed her youth. Her
education had been given her by suffering. Too proud even to talk to
her friend, Madame Derville, about troubles of this kind, she imagined
that all men were like her husband, M. Valenod, and the sub-prefect,
M. Charcot de Maugiron. Coarseness, and the most brutal callousness to
everything except financial gain, precedence, or orders, together with
blind hate of every argument to which they objected, seemed to her as
natural to the male sex as wearing boots and felt hats.

After many years, Madame de Renal had still failed to acclimatize
herself to those monied people in whose society she had to live.

Hence the success of the little peasant Julien. She found in the
sympathy of this proud and noble soul a sweet enjoyment which had all
the glamour and fascination of novelty.

Madame de Renal soon forgave him that extreme ignorance, which
constituted but an additional charm, and the roughness of his manner
which she succeeded in correcting. She thought that he was worth
listening to, even when the conversation turned on the most ordinary
events, even in fact when it was only a question of a poor dog which
had been crushed as he crossed the street by a peasant's cart going
at a trot. The sight of the dog's pain made her husband indulge in
his coarse laugh, while she noticed Julien frown, with his fine black
eyebrows which were so beautifully arched.

Little by little, it seemed to her that generosity, nobility of soul
and humanity were to be found in nobody else except this young abbe.
She felt for him all the sympathy and even all the admiration which
those virtues excite in well-born souls.

If the scene had been Paris, Julien's position towards Madame de Renal
would have been soon simplified. But at Paris, love is a creature of
novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would soon have found
the elucidation of their position in three or four novels, and even
in the couplets of the Gymnase Theatre. The novels which have traced
out for them the part they would play, and showed them the model which
they were to imitate, and Julien would sooner or later have been forced
by his vanity to follow that model, even though it had given him no
pleasure and had perhaps actually gone against the grain.

If the scene had been laid in a small town in Aveyron or the Pyrenees,
the slightest episode would have been rendered crucial by the fiery
condition of the atmosphere. But under our more gloomy skies, a poor
young man who is only ambitious because his natural refinement makes
him feel the necessity of some of those joys which only money can give,
can see every day a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, is
absorbed in her children, and never goes to novels for her examples of
conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens gradually, in the
provinces where there is far more naturalness.

Madame de Renal was often overcome to the point of tears when she
thought of the young tutor's poverty. Julien surprised her one day
actually crying.

"Oh Madame! has any misfortune happened to you?"

"No, my friend," she answered, "call the children, let us go for a
walk."

She took his arm and leant on it in a manner that struck Julien as
singular. It was the first time she had called Julien "My friend."

Towards the end of the walk, Julien noticed that she was blushing
violently. She slackened her pace.

"You have no doubt heard," she said, without looking at him, "that I
am the only heiress of a very rich aunt who lives at Besancon. She
loads me with presents.... My sons are getting on so wonderfully that
I should like to ask you to accept a small present as a token of my
gratitude. It is only a matter of a few louis to enable you to get
some linen. But--" she added, blushing still more, and she left off
speaking--

"But what, Madame?" said Julien.

"It is unnecessary," she went on lowering her head, "to mention this to
my husband."

"I may not be big, Madame, but I am not mean," answered Julien,
stopping, and drawing himself up to his full height, with his
eyes shining with rage, "and this is what you have not realised
sufficiently. I should be lower than a menial if I were to put myself
in the position of concealing from M de. Renal anything at all having
to do with my money."

Madame de Renal was thunderstruck.

"The Mayor," went on Julien, "has given me on five occasions sums of
thirty-six francs since I have been living in his house. I am ready
to show any account-book to M. de Renal and anyone else, even to M.
Valenod who hates me."

As the result of this outburst, Madame de Renal remained pale and
nervous, and the walk ended without either one or the other finding any
pretext for renewing the conversation. Julien's proud heart had found
it more and more impossible to love Madame de Renal.

As for her, she respected him, she admired him, and she had been
scolded by him. Under the pretext of making up for the involuntary
humiliation which she had caused him, she indulged in acts of the most
tender solicitude. The novelty of these attentions made Madame de
Renal happy for eight days. Their effect was to appease to some extent
Julien's anger. He was far from seeing anything in them in the nature
of a fancy for himself personally.

"That is just what rich people are," he said to himself--"they snub you
and then they think they can make up for everything by a few monkey
tricks."

Madame de Renal's heart was too full, and at the same time too
innocent, for her not too tell her husband, in spite of her resolutions
not to do so, about the offer she had made to Julien, and the manner in
which she had been rebuffed.

"How on earth," answered M. de Renal, keenly piqued, "could you put
up with a refusal on the part of a servant,"--and, when Madame de
Renal protested against the word "Servant," "I am using, madam, the
words of the late Prince of Conde, when he presented his Chamberlains
to his new wife. 'All these people' he said 'are servants.' I have
also read you this passage from the Memoirs of Besenval, a book which
is indispensable on all questions of etiquette. 'Every person, not
a gentleman, who lives in your house and receives a salary is your
servant.' I'll go and say a few words to M. Julien and give him a
hundred francs."

"Oh, my dear," said Madame De Renal trembling, "I hope you won't do it
before the servants!"

"Yes, they might be jealous and rightly so," said her husband as he
took his leave, thinking of the greatness of the sum.

Madame de Renal fell on a chair almost fainting in her anguish. He is
going to humiliate Julien, and it is my fault! She felt an abhorrence
for her husband and hid her face in her hands. She resolved that
henceforth she would never make any more confidences.

When she saw Julien again she was trembling all over. Her chest was so
cramped that she could not succeed in pronouncing a single word. In her
embarrassment she took his hands and pressed them.

"Well, my friend," she said to him at last, "are you satisfied with my
husband?"

"How could I be otherwise," answered Julien, with a bitter smile, "he
has given me a hundred francs."

Madame de Renal looked at him doubtfully.

"Give me your arm," she said at last, with a courageous intonation that
Julien had not heard before.

She dared to go as far as the shop of the bookseller of Verrieres, in
spite of his awful reputation for Liberalism. In the shop she chose
ten louis worth of books for a present for her sons. But these books
were those which she knew Julien was wanting. She insisted on each
child writing his name then and there in the bookseller's shop in
those books which fell to his lot. While Madame de Renal was rejoicing
over the kind reparation which she had had the courage to make to
Julien, the latter was overwhelmed with astonishment at the quantity
of books which he saw at the bookseller's. He had never dared to enter
so profane a place. His heart was palpitating. Instead of trying to
guess what was passing in Madame de Renal's heart he pondered deeply
over the means by which a young theological student could procure
some of those books. Eventually it occurred to him that it would be
possible, with tact, to persuade M. de Renal that one of the proper
subjects of his sons' curriculum would be the history of the celebrated
gentlemen who had been born in the province. After a month of careful
preparation Julien witnessed the success of this idea. The success was
so great that he actually dared to risk mentioning to M. de Renal in
conversation, a matter which the noble mayor found disagreeable from
quite another point of view. The suggestion was to contribute to the
fortune of a Liberal by taking a subscription at the bookseller's. M.
de Renal agreed that it would be wise to give his elder son a first
hand acquaintance with many works which he would hear mentioned in
conversation when he went to the Military School.

But Julien saw that the mayor had determined to go no further. He
suspected some secret reason but could not guess it.

"I was thinking, sir," he said to him one day, "that it would be highly
undesirable for the name of so good a gentleman as a Renal to appear on
a bookseller's dirty ledger." M. de Renal's face cleared.

"It would also be a black mark," continued Julien in a more humble
tone, "against a poor theology student if it ever leaked out that his
name had been on the ledger of a bookseller who let out books. The
Liberals might go so far as to accuse me of having asked for the most
infamous books. Who knows if they will not even go so far as to write
the titles of those perverse volumes after my name?" But Julien was
getting off the track. He noticed that the Mayor's physiognomy was
re-assuming its expression of embarrassment and displeasure. Julien was
silent. "I have caught my man," he said to himself.

It so happened that a few days afterwards the elder of the children
asked Julien, in M. de Renal's presence, about a book which had been
advertised in the _Quotidienne_.

"In order to prevent the Jacobin Party having the slightest pretext for
a score," said the young tutor, "and yet give me the means of answering
M. de Adolphe's question, you can make your most menial servant take
out a subscription at the booksellers."

"That's not a bad idea," said M. de Renal, who was obviously very
delighted.

"You will have to stipulate all the same," said Julien in that solemn
and almost melancholy manner which suits some people so well when they
see the realization of matters which they have desired for a long time
past, "you will have to stipulate that the servant should not take out
any novels. Those dangerous books, once they got into the house, might
corrupt Madame de Renal's maids, and even the servant himself."

"You are forgetting the political pamphlets," went on M. de Renal with
an important air. He was anxious to conceal the admiration with which
the cunning "middle course" devised by his children's tutor had filled
him.

In this way Julien's life was made up of a series of little acts of
diplomacy, and their success gave him far more food for thought than
the marked manifestation of favouritism which he could have read at any
time in Madame de Renal's heart, had he so wished.

The psychological position in which he had found himself all his
life was renewed again in the mayor of Verrieres' house. Here in the
same way as at his father's saw-mill, he deeply despised the people
with whom he lived, and was hated by them. He saw every day in the
conversation of the sub-perfect, M. Valenod and the other friends of
the family, about things which had just taken place under their very
eyes, how little ideas corresponded to reality. If an action seemed to
Julien worthy of admiration, it was precisely that very action which
would bring down upon itself the censure of the people with whom he
lived. His inner mental reply always was, "What beasts or what fools!"
The joke was that, in spite of all his pride, he often understood
absolutely nothing what they were talking about.

Throughout his whole life he had only spoken sincerely to the old
Surgeon-Major.

The few ideas he had were about Buonaparte's Italian Campaigns or else
surgery. His youthful courage revelled in the circumstantial details of
the most terrible operations. He said to himself.

"I should not have flinched."

The first time that Madame de Renal tried to enter into conversation
independently of the children's education, he began to talk of surgical
operations. She grew pale and asked him to leave off. Julien knew
nothing beyond that.

So it came about that, though he passed his life in Madame de Renal's
company, the most singular silence would reign between them as soon as
they were alone.

When he was in the salon, she noticed in his eyes, in spite of all the
humbleness of his demeanour, an air of intellectual superiority towards
everyone who came to visit her. If she found herself alone with him for
a single moment, she saw that he was palpably embarrassed. This made
her feel uneasy, for her woman's instinct caused her to realise that
this embarrassment was not inspired by any tenderness.

Owing to some mysterious idea, derived from some tale of good society,
such as the old Surgeon-Major had seen it, Julien felt humiliated
whenever the conversation languished on any occasion when he found
himself in a woman's society, as though the particular pause were his
own special fault. This sensation was a hundred times more painful in
_tete-a-tete_. His imagination, full as it was of the most extravagant
and most Spanish ideas of what a man ought to say when he is alone
with a woman, only suggested to the troubled youth things which were
absolutely impossible. His soul was in the clouds. Nevertheless he was
unable to emerge from this most humiliating silence. Consequently,
during his long walks with Madame de Renal and the children, the
severity of his manner was accentuated by the poignancy of his
sufferings. He despised himself terribly. If, by any luck, he made
himself speak, he came out with the most absurd things. To put the
finishing touch on his misery, he saw his own absurdity and exaggerated
its extent, but what he did not see was the expression in his eyes,
which were so beautiful and betokened so ardent a soul, that like good
actors, they sometimes gave charm to something which is really devoid
of it.

Madame de Renal noticed that when he was alone with her he never
chanced to say a good thing except when he was taken out of himself
by some unexpected event, and consequently forgot to try and turn a
compliment. As the friends of the house did not spoil her by regaling
her with new and brilliant ideas, she enjoyed with delight all the
flashes of Julien's intellect.

After the fall of Napoleon, every appearance of gallantry has been
severely exiled from provincial etiquette. People are frightened of
losing their jobs. All rascals look to the religious order for support,
and hypocrisy has made firm progress even among the Liberal classes.
One's ennui is doubled. The only pleasures left are reading and
agriculture.

Madame de Renal, the rich heiress of a devout aunt, and married at
sixteen to a respectable gentleman, had never felt or seen in her whole
life anything that had the slightest resemblance in the whole world
to love. Her confessor, the good cure Chelan, had once mentioned love
to her, in discussing the advances of M. de Valenod, and had drawn so
loathsome a picture of the passion that the word now stood to her for
nothing but the most abject debauchery. She had regarded love, such
as she had come across it, in the very small number of novels with
which chance had made her acquainted, as an exception if not indeed as
something absolutely abnormal. It was, thanks to this ignorance, that
Madame de Renal, although incessantly absorbed in Julien, was perfectly
happy, and never thought of reproaching herself in the slightest.

CHAPTER VIII

LITTLE EPISODES

    "Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,
    And stolen glances sweeter for the theft,
    And burning blushes, though for no transgression."
                                 _Don Juan_, c. I, st. 74.

It was only when Madame de Renal began to think of her maid Elisa
that there was some slight change in that angelic sweetness which she
owed both to her natural character and her actual happiness. The girl
had come into a fortune, went to confess herself to the cure Chelan
and confessed to him her plan of marrying Julien. The cure was truly
rejoiced at his friend's good fortune, but he was extremely surprised
when Julien resolutely informed him that Mademoiselle Elisa's offer
could not suit him.

"Beware, my friend, of what is passing within your heart," said the
cure with a frown, "I congratulate you on your mission, if that is the
only reason why you despise a more than ample fortune. It is fifty-six
years since I was first cure of Verrieres, and yet I shall be turned
out, according to all appearances. I am distressed by it, and yet my
income amounts to eight hundred francs. I inform you of this detail so
that you may not be under any illusions as to what awaits you in your
career as a priest. If you think of paying court to the men who enjoy
power, your eternal damnation is assured. You may make your fortune,
but you will have to do harm to the poor, flatter the sub-prefect,
the mayor, the man who enjoys prestige, and pander to his passion;
this conduct, which in the world is called knowledge of life, is not
absolutely incompatible with salvation so far as a layman is concerned;
but in our career we have to make a choice; it is a question of making
one's fortune either in this world or the next; there is no middle
course. Come, my dear friend, reflect, and come back in three days with
a definite answer. I am pained to detect that there is at the bottom
of your character a sombre passion which is far from indicating to me
that moderation and that perfect renunciation of earthly advantages so
necessary for a priest; I augur well of your intellect, but allow me to
tell you," added the good cure with tears in his eyes, "I tremble for
your salvation in your career as a priest."

Julien was ashamed of his emotion; he found himself loved for the first
time in his life; he wept with delight; and went to hide his tears in
the great woods behind Verrieres.

"Why am I in this position?" he said to himself at last, "I feel that
I would give my life a hundred times over for this good cure Chelan,
and he has just proved to me that I am nothing more than a fool. It
is especially necessary for me to deceive him, and he manages to find
me out. The secret ardour which he refers to is my plan of making my
fortune. He thinks I am unworthy of being a priest, that too, just when
I was imagining that my sacrifice of fifty louis would give him the
very highest idea of my piety and devotion to my mission."

"In future," continued Julien, "I will only reckon on those elements in
my character which I have tested. Who could have told me that I should
find any pleasure in shedding tears? How I should like some one to
convince me that I am simply a fool!"

Three days later, Julien found the excuse with which he ought to have
been prepared on the first day; the excuse was a piece of calumny, but
what did it matter? He confessed to the cure, with a great deal of
hesitation, that he had been persuaded from the suggested union by a
reason he could not explain, inasmuch as it tended to damage a third
party. This was equivalent to impeaching Elisa's conduct. M. Chelan
found that his manner betrayed a certain worldly fire which was very
different from that which ought to have animated a young acolyte.

"My friend," he said to him again, "be a good country citizen,
respected and educated, rather than a priest without a true mission."

So far as words were concerned, Julien answered these new remonstrances
very well. He managed to find the words which a young and ardent
seminarist would have employed, but the tone in which he pronounced
them, together with the thinly concealed fire which blazed in his eye,
alarmed M. Chelan.

You must not have too bad an opinion of Julien's prospects. He
invented with correctness all the words suitable to a prudent and
cunning hypocrisy. It was not bad for his age. As for his tone and his
gestures, he had spent his life with country people; he had never been
given an opportunity of seeing great models. Consequently, as soon as
he was given a chance of getting near such gentlemen, his gestures
became as admirable as his words.

Madame de Renal was astonished that her maid's new fortune did not
make her more happy. She saw her repeatedly going to the cure and
coming back with tears in her eyes. At last Elisa talked to her of her
marriage.

Madame de Renal thought she was ill. A kind of fever prevented her from
sleeping. She only lived when either her maid or Julien were in sight.
She was unable to think of anything except them and the happiness
which they would find in their home. Her imagination depicted in the
most fascinating colours the poverty of the little house, where they
were to live on their income of fifty louis a year. Julien could quite
well become an advocate at Bray, the sub-prefecture, two leagues from
Verrieres. In that case she would see him sometimes. Madame de Renal
sincerely believed she would go mad. She said so to her husband and
finally fell ill. That very evening when her maid was attending her,
she noticed that the girl was crying. She abhorred Elisa at that
moment, and started to scold her; she then begged her pardon. Elisa's
tears redoubled. She said if her mistress would allow her, she would
tell her all her unhappiness.

"Tell me," answered Madame de Renal.

"Well, Madame, he refuses me, some wicked people must have spoken badly
about me. He believes them."

"Who refuses you?" said Madame de Renal, scarcely breathing.

"Who else, Madame, but M. Julien," answered the maid sobbing. "M. the
cure had been unable to overcome his resistance, for M. the cure thinks
that he ought not to refuse an honest girl on the pretext that she
has been a maid. After all, M. Julien's father is nothing more than
a carpenter, and how did he himself earn his living before he was at
Madame's?"

Madame de Renal stopped listening; her excessive happiness had almost
deprived her of her reason. She made the girl repeat several times
the assurance that Julien had refused her, with a positiveness which
shut the door on the possibility of his coming round to a more prudent
decision.

"I will make a last attempt," she said to her maid. "I will speak to M.
Julien."

The following day, after breakfast, Madame de Renal indulged in the
delightful luxury of pleading her rival's cause, and of seeing Elisa's
hand and fortune stubbornly refused for a whole hour.

Julien gradually emerged from his cautiously worded answers, and
finished by answering with spirit Madame de Renal's good advice. She
could not help being overcome by the torrent of happiness which, after
so many days of despair, now inundated her soul. She felt quite ill.
When she had recovered and was comfortably in her own room she sent
everyone away. She was profoundly astonished.

"Can I be in love with Julien?" she finally said to herself. This
discovery, which at any other time would have plunged her into remorse
and the deepest agitation, now only produced the effect of a singular,
but as it were, indifferent spectacle. Her soul was exhausted by all
that she had just gone through, and had no more sensibility to passion
left.

Madame de Renal tried to work, and fell into a deep sleep; when she
woke up she did not frighten herself so much as she ought to have. She
was too happy to be able to see anything wrong in anything. Naive and
innocent as she was, this worthy provincial woman had never tortured
her soul in her endeavours to extract from it a little sensibility to
some new shade of sentiment or unhappiness. Entirely absorbed as she
had been before Julien's arrival with that mass of work which falls
to the lot of a good mistress of a household away from Paris, Madame
de Renal thought of passion in the same way in which we think of a
lottery: a certain deception, a happiness sought after by fools.

The dinner bell rang. Madame de Renal blushed violently. She heard the
voice of Julien who was bringing in the children. Having grown somewhat
adroit since her falling in love, she complained of an awful headache
in order to explain her redness.

"That's just like what all women are," answered M. de Renal with a
coarse laugh. "Those machines have always got something or other to be
put right."

Although she was accustomed to this type of wit, Madame de Renal was
shocked by the tone of voice. In order to distract herself, she looked
at Julien's physiognomy; he would have pleased her at this particular
moment, even if he had been the ugliest man imaginable.

M. de Renal, who always made a point of copying the habits of the
gentry of the court, established himself at Vergy in the first fine
days of the spring; this is the village rendered celebrated by the
tragic adventure of Gabrielle. A hundred paces from the picturesque
ruin of the old Gothic church, M. de Renal owns an old chateau with its
four towers and a garden designed like the one in the Tuileries with
a great many edging verges of box and avenues of chestnut trees which
are cut twice in the year. An adjacent field, crowded with apple trees,
served for a promenade. Eight or ten magnificent walnut trees were at
the end of the orchard. Their immense foliage went as high as perhaps
eighty feet.

"Each of these cursed walnut trees," M. de Renal was in the habit of
saying, whenever his wife admired them, "costs me the harvest of at
least half an acre; corn cannot grow under their shade."

Madame de Renal found the sight of the country novel: her admiration
reached the point of enthusiasm. The sentiment by which she was
animated gave her both ideas and resolution. M. de Renal had returned
to the town, for mayoral business, two days after their arrival in
Vergy. But Madame de Renal engaged workmen at her own expense. Julien
had given her the idea of a little sanded path which was to go round
the orchard and under the big walnut trees, and render it possible
for the children to take their walk in the very earliest hours of the
morning without getting their feet wet from the dew. This idea was put
into execution within twenty-four hours of its being conceived. Madame
de Renal gaily spent the whole day with Julien in supervising the
workmen.

When the Mayor of Verrieres came back from the town he was very
surprised to find the avenue completed. His arrival surprised Madame
de Renal as well. She had forgotten his existence. For two months
he talked with irritation about the boldness involved in making so
important a repair without consulting him, but Madame de Renal had had
it executed at her own expense, a fact which somewhat consoled him.

She spent her days in running about the orchard with her children,
and in catching butterflies. They had made big hoods of clear gauze
with which they caught the poor _lepidoptera_. This is the barbarous
name which Julien taught Madame de Renal. For she had had M. Godart's
fine work ordered from Besancon, and Julien used to tell her about the
strange habits of the creatures.

They ruthlessly transfixed them by means of pins in a great cardboard
box which Julien had prepared.

Madame de Renal and Julien had at last a topic of conversation; he was
no longer exposed to the awful torture that had been occasioned by
their moments of silence.

They talked incessantly and with extreme interest, though always about
very innocent matters. This gay, full, active life, pleased the fancy
of everyone, except Mademoiselle Elisa who found herself overworked.
Madame had never taken so much trouble with her dress, even at carnival
time, when there is a ball at Verrieres, she would say; she changes her
gowns two or three times a day.

As it is not our intention to flatter anyone, we do not propose to
deny that Madame de Renal, who had a superb skin, arranged her gowns
in such a way as to leave her arms and her bosom very exposed. She was
extremely well made, and this style of dress suited her delightfully.

"You have never been _so young_, Madame," her Verrieres friends would
say to her, when they came to dinner at Vergy (this is one of the local
expressions).

It is a singular thing, and one which few amongst us will believe, but
Madame de Renal had no specific object in taking so much trouble. She
found pleasure in it and spent all the time which she did not pass in
hunting butterflies with the children and Julien, in working with Elisa
at making gowns, without giving the matter a further thought. Her only
expedition to Verrieres was caused by her desire to buy some new summer
gowns which had just come from Mulhouse.

She brought back to Vergy a young woman who was a relative of hers.
Since her marriage, Madame de Renal had gradually become attached to
Madame Derville, who had once been her school mate at the _Sacre Coeur_.

Madame Derville laughed a great deal at what she called her cousin's
mad ideas: "I would never have thought of them alone," she said. When
Madame de Renal was with her husband, she was ashamed of those sudden
ideas, which, are called sallies in Paris, and thought them quite
silly: but Madame Derville's presence gave her courage. She would start
to telling her her thoughts in a timid voice, but after the ladies
had been alone for a long time, Madame de Renal's brain became more
animated, and a long morning spent together by the two friends passed
like a second, and left them in the best of spirits. On this particular
journey, however, the acute Madame Derville thought her cousin much
less merry, but much more happy than usual.

Julien, on his side, had since coming to the country lived like an
absolute child, and been as happy as his pupils in running after
the butterflies. After so long a period of constraint and wary
diplomacy, he was at last alone and far from human observation; he
was instinctively free from any apprehension on the score of Madame
de Renal, and abandoned himself to the sheer pleasure of being alive,
which is so keen at so young an age, especially among the most
beautiful mountains in the world.

Ever since Madame Derville's arrival, Julien thought that she was his
friend; he took the first opportunity of showing her the view from the
end of the new avenue, under the walnut tree; as a matter of fact it is
equal, if not superior, to the most wonderful views that Switzerland
and the Italian lakes can offer. If you ascend the steep slope which
commences some paces from there, you soon arrive at great precipices
fringed by oak forests, which almost jut on to the river. It was to the
peaked summits of these rocks that Julien, who was now happy, free, and
king of the household into the bargain, would take the two friends, and
enjoy their admiration these sublime views.

"To me it's like Mozart's music," Madame Derville would say.

The country around Verrieres had been spoilt for Julien by the jealousy
of his brothers and the presence of a tyranous and angry father. He
was free from these bitter memories at Vergy; for the first time in
his life, he failed to see an enemy. When, as frequently happened, M.
de Renal was in town, he ventured to read; soon, instead of reading at
night time, a procedure, moreover, which involved carefully hiding his
lamp at the bottom of a flower-pot turned upside down, he was able to
indulge in sleep; in the day, however, in the intervals between the
children's lessons, he would come among these rocks with that book
which was the one guide of his conduct and object of his enthusiasm. He
found in it simultaneously happiness, ecstasy and consolation for his
moments of discouragement.

Certain remarks of Napoleon about women, several discussions about the
merits of the novels which were fashionable in his reign, furnished him
now for the first time with some ideas which any other young man of his
age would have had for a long time.

The dog days arrived. They started the habit of spending the evenings
under an immense pine tree some yards from the house. The darkness was
profound. One evening, Julien was speaking and gesticulating, enjoying
to the full the pleasure of being at his best when talking to young
women; in one of his gestures, he touched the hand of Madame de Renal
which was leaning on the back of one of those chairs of painted wood,
which are so frequently to be seen in gardens.

The hand was quickly removed, but Julien thought it a point of duty
to secure that that hand should not be removed when he touched it.
The idea of a duty to be performed and the consciousness of his
stultification, or rather of his social inferiority, if he should fail
in achieving it, immediately banished all pleasure from his heart.

CHAPTER IX

AN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY

        M. Guerin's Dido, a charming sketch!--_Strombeck_.

His expression was singular when he saw Madame de Renal the next
day; he watched her like an enemy with whom he would have to fight a
duel. These looks, which were so different from those of the previous
evening, made Madame de Renal lose her head; she had been kind to him
and he appeared angry. She could not take her eyes off his.

Madame Derville's presence allowed Julien to devote less time to
conversation, and more time to thinking about what he had in his mind.
His one object all this day was to fortify himself by reading the
inspired book that gave strength to his soul.

He considerably curtailed the children's lessons, and when Madame de
Renal's presence had effectually brought him back to the pursuit of his
ambition, he decided that she absolutely must allow her hand to rest in
his that evening.

The setting of the sun which brought the crucial moment nearer and
nearer made Julien's heart beat in a strange way. Night came. He
noticed with a joy, which took an immense weight off his heart, that
it was going to be very dark. The sky, which was laden with big clouds
that had been brought along by a sultry wind, seemed to herald a storm.
The two friends went for their walk very late. All they did that night
struck Julien as strange. They were enjoying that hour which seems to
give certain refined souls an increased pleasure in loving.

At last they sat down, Madame de Renal beside Julien, and Madame
Derville near her friend. Engrossed as he was by the attempt which
he was going to make, Julien could think of nothing to say. The
conversation languished.

"Shall I be as nervous and miserable over my first duel?" said Julien
to himself; for he was too suspicious both of himself and of others,
not to realise his own mental state.

In his mortal anguish, he would have preferred any danger whatsoever.
How many times did he not wish some matter to crop up which would
necessitate Madame de Renal going into the house and leaving the
garden! The violent strain on Julien's nerves was too great for his
voice not to be considerably changed; soon Madame de Renal's voice
became nervous as well, but Julien did not notice it. The awful battle
raging between duty and timidity was too painful, for him to be in a
position to observe anything outside himself. A quarter to ten had
just struck on the chateau clock without his having ventured anything.
Julien was indignant at his own cowardice, and said to himself, "at
the exact moment when ten o'clock strikes, I will perform what I have
resolved to do all through the day, or I will go up to my room and blow
out my brains."

After a final moment of expectation and anxiety, during which Julien
was rendered almost beside himself by his excessive emotion, ten
o'clock struck from the clock over his head. Each stroke of the fatal
clock reverberated in his bosom, and caused an almost physical pang.

Finally, when the last stroke of ten was still reverberating, he
stretched out his hand and took Madame de Renal's, who immediately
withdrew it. Julien, scarcely knowing what he was doing, seized it
again. In spite of his own excitement, he could not help being struck
by the icy coldness of the hand which he was taking; he pressed it
convulsively; a last effort was made to take it away, but in the end
the hand remained in his.

His soul was inundated with happiness, not that he loved Madame de
Renal, but an awful torture had just ended. He thought it necessary
to say something, to avoid Madame Derville noticing anything. His
voice was now strong and ringing. Madame de Renal's, on the contrary,
betrayed so much emotion that her friend thought she was ill, and
suggested her going in. Julien scented danger, "if Madame de Renal goes
back to the salon, I shall relapse into the awful state in which I have
been all day. I have held the hand far too short a time for it really
to count as the scoring of an actual advantage."

At the moment when Madame Derville was repeating her suggestion to
go back to the salon, Julien squeezed vigorously the hand that was
abandoned to him.

Madame de Renal, who had started to get up, sat down again and said in
a faint voice,

"I feel a little ill, as a matter of fact, but the open air is doing me
good."

These words confirmed Julien's happiness, which at the present moment
was extreme; he spoke, he forgot to pose, and appeared the most
charming man in the world to the two friends who were listening to him.
Nevertheless, there was a slight lack of courage in all this eloquence
which had suddenly come upon him. He was mortally afraid that Madame
Derville would get tired of the wind before the storm, which was
beginning to rise, and want to go back alone into the salon. He would
then have remained _tete-a-tete_ with Madame de Renal. He had had,
almost by accident that blind courage which is sufficient for action;
but he felt that it was out of his power to speak the simplest word to
Madame de Renal. He was certain that, however slight her reproaches
might be, he would nevertheless be worsted, and that the advantage he
had just won would be destroyed.

Luckily for him on this evening, his moving and emphatic speeches found
favour with Madame Derville, who very often found him as clumsy as a
child and not at all amusing. As for Madame de Renal, with her hand in
Julien's, she did not have a thought; she simply allowed herself to go
on living.

The hours spent under this great pine tree, planted by by Charles the
Bold according to the local tradition, were a real period of happiness.
She listened with delight to the soughing of the wind in the thick
foliage of the pine tree and to the noise of some stray drops which
were beginning to fall upon the leaves which were lowest down. Julien
failed to notice one circumstance which, if he had, would have quickly
reassured him; Madame de Renal, who had been obliged to take away her
hand, because she had got up to help her cousin to pick up a flower-pot
which the wind had knocked over at her feet, had scarcely sat down
again before she gave him her hand with scarcely any difficulty and as
though it had already been a pre-arranged thing between them.

Midnight had struck a long time ago; it was at last necessary to leave
the garden; they separated. Madame de Renal swept away as she was, by
the happiness of loving, was so completely ignorant of the world that
she scarcely reproached herself at all. Her happiness deprived her of
her sleep. A leaden sleep overwhelmed Julien who was mortally fatigued
by the battle which timidity and pride had waged in his heart all
through the day.

He was called at five o'clock on the following day and scarcely gave
Madame de Renal a single thought.

He had accomplished his duty, and a heroic duty too. The consciousness
of this filled him with happiness; he locked himself in his room, and
abandoned himself with quite a new pleasure to reading exploits of his
hero.

When the breakfast bell sounded, the reading of the Bulletins of the
Great Army had made him forget all his advantages of the previous day.
He said to himself flippantly, as he went down to the salon, "I must
tell that woman that I am in love with her." Instead of those looks
brimful of pleasure which he was expecting to meet, he found the stern
visage of M. de Renal, who had arrived from Verrieres two hours ago,
and did not conceal his dissatisfaction at Julien's having passed the
whole morning without attending to the children. Nothing could have
been more sordid than this self-important man when he was in a bad
temper and thought that he could safely show it.

Each harsh word of her husband pierced Madame de Renal's heart.

As for Julien, he was so plunged in his ecstasy, and still so engrossed
by the great events which had been passing before his eyes for several
hours, that he had some difficulty at first in bringing his attention
sufficiently down to listen to the harsh remarks which M. de Renal was
addressing to him. He said to him at last, rather abruptly,

"I was ill."

The tone of this answer would have stung a much less sensitive man than
the mayor of Verrieres. He half thought of answering Julien by turning
him out of the house straight away. He was only restrained by the
maxim which he had prescribed for himself, of never hurrying unduly in
business matters.

"The young fool," he said to himself shortly afterwards, "has won a
kind of reputation in my house. That man Valenod may take him into his
family, or he may quite well marry Elisa, and in either case, he will
be able to have the laugh of me in his heart."

In spite of the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Renal's
dissatisfaction did not fail to vent itself any the less by a string
of coarse insults which gradually irritated Julien. Madame de Renal
was on the point of bursting into tears. Breakfast was scarcely over,
when she asked Julien to give her his arm for a walk. She leaned on him
affectionately. Julien could only answer all that Madame de Renal said
to him by whispering.

"_That's what rich people are like!_"

M. de Renal was walking quite close to them; his presence increased
Julien's anger. He suddenly noticed that Madame de Renal was leaning on
his arm in a manner which was somewhat marked. This horrified him, and
he pushed her violently away and disengaged his arm.

Luckily, M. de Renal did not see this new piece of impertinence; it was
only noticed by Madame Derville. Her friend burst into tears. M. de
Renal now started to chase away by a shower of stones a little peasant
girl who had taken a private path crossing a corner of the orchard.
"Monsieur Julien, restrain yourself, I pray you. Remember that we all
have our moments of temper," said madame Derville rapidly.

Julien looked at her coldly with eyes in which the most supreme
contempt was depicted.

This look astonished Madame Derville, and it would have surprised
her even more if she had appreciated its real expression; she would
have read in it something like a vague hope of the most atrocious
vengeance. It is, no doubt, such moments of humiliation which have made
Robespierres.

"Your Julien is very violent; he frightens me," said Madame Derville to
her friend, in a low voice.

"He is right to be angry," she answered. "What does it matter if
he does pass a morning without speaking to the children, after the
astonishing progress which he has made them make. One must admit that
men are very hard."

For the first time in her life Madame de Renal experienced a kind
of desire for vengeance against her husband. The extreme hatred of
the rich by which Julien was animated was on the point of exploding.
Luckily, M. de Renal called his gardener, and remained occupied
with him in barring by faggots of thorns the private road through
the orchard. Julien did not vouchsafe any answer to the kindly
consideration of which he was the object during all the rest of the
walk. M. de Renal had scarcely gone away before the two friends made
the excuse of being fatigued, and each asked him for an arm.

Walking as he did between these two women whose extreme nervousness
filled their cheeks with a blushing embarrassment, the haughty pallor
and sombre, resolute air of Julien formed a strange contrast. He
despised these women and all tender sentiments.

"What!" he said to himself, "not even an income of five hundred francs
to finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them packing."

And absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous words
of his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to understand,
displeased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a word--feminine.

As the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of endeavouring
to keep the conversation alive, it came about that Madame de Renal
mentioned that her husband had come from Verrieres because he had made
a bargain for the May straw with one of his farmers. (In this district
it is the May straw with which the bed mattresses are filled).

"My husband will not rejoin us," added Madame de Renal; "he will occupy
himself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses with
the help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May straw this
morning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at the second."

Julien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Renal in a singular way,
and soon managed somehow to take her on one side, doubling his pace.
Madame Derville allowed them to get ahead.

"Save my life," said Julien to Madame de Renal; "only you can do it,
for you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess to
you, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the mattress
of my bed."

At these words Madame de Renal in her turn became pale.

"Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room, feel
about without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it
is nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black
cardboard, very glossy."

"Does it contain a portrait?" said Madame de Renal, scarcely able to
hold herself upright.

Julien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded to
exploit it.

"I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to look
at that portrait; it is my secret."

"It is a secret," repeated Madame de Renal in a faint voice.

But though she had been brought up among people who are proud of their
fortune and appreciative of nothing except money, love had already
instilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as she was, it was
with an air of the most simple devotion that Madame de Renal asked
Julien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil her commission.

"So" she said to him as she went away, "it is a little round box of
black cardboard, very glossy."

"Yes, Madame," answered Julien, with that hardness which danger gives
to men.

She ascended the second storey of the chateau as pale as though she had
been going to her death. Her misery was completed by the sensation that
she was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of doing Julien
a service restored her strength.

"I must have that box," she said to herself, as she doubled her pace.

She heard her husband speaking to the valet in Julien's very room.
Happily, they passed into the children's room. She lifted up the
mattress, and plunged her hand into the stuffing so violently that she
bruised her fingers. But, though she was very sensitive to slight pain
of this kind, she was not conscious of it now, for she felt almost
simultaneously the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized it
and disappeared.

She had scarcely recovered from the fear of being surprised by her
husband than the horror with which this box inspired her came within an
ace of positively making her feel ill.

"So Julien is in love, and I hold here the portrait of the woman whom
he loves!"

Seated on the chair in the ante-chamber of his apartment, Madame
de Renal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her extreme
ignorance, moreover, was useful to her at this juncture; her
astonishment mitigated her grief. Julien seized the box without
thanking her or saying a single word, and ran into his room, where
he lit a fire and immediately burnt it. He was pale and in a state
of collapse. He exaggerated the extent of the danger which he had
undergone.

"Finding Napoleon's portrait," he said to himself, "in the possession
of a man who professes so great a hate for the usurper! Found, too,
by M. de Renal, who is so great an _ultra_, and is now in a state of
irritation, and, to complete my imprudence, lines written in my own
handwriting on the white cardboard behind the portrait, lines, too,
which can leave no doubt on the score of my excessive admiration. And
each of these transports of love is dated. There was one the day before
yesterday."

"All my reputation collapsed and shattered in a moment," said Julien
to himself as he watched the box burn, "and my reputation is my only
asset. It is all I have to live by--and what a life to, by heaven!"

An hour afterwards, this fatigue, together with the pity which he felt
for himself made him inclined to be more tender. He met Madame de Renal
and took her hand, which he kissed with more sincerity than he had
ever done before. She blushed with happiness and almost simultaneously
rebuffed Julien with all the anger of jealousy. Julien's pride which
had been so recently wounded made him act foolishly at this juncture.
He saw in Madame de Renal nothing but a rich woman, he disdainfully let
her hand fall and went away. He went and walked about meditatively in
the garden. Soon a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

"Here I am walking about as serenely as a man who is master of his own
time. I am not bothering about the children! I am exposing myself to M.
de Renal's humiliating remarks, and he will be quite right." He ran to
the children's room. The caresses of the youngest child, whom he loved
very much, somewhat calmed his agony.

"He does not despise me yet," thought Julien. But he soon reproached
himself for this alleviation of his agony as though it were a new
weakness. The children caress me just in the same way in which they
would caress the young hunting-hound which was bought yesterday.

CHAPTER X

A GREAT HEART AND A SMALL FORTUNE

    But passion most disembles, yet betrays,
    Even by its darkness, as the blackest sky
    Foretells the heaviest tempest.
                           _Don Juan_, c. 4, st. 75.

M. De Renal was going through all the rooms in the chateau, and he came
back into the children's room with the servants who were bringing back
the stuffings of the mattresses. The sudden entry of this man had the
effect on Julien of the drop of water which makes the pot overflow.

Looking paler and more sinister than usual, he rushed towards him. M.
de Renal stopped and looked at his servants.

"Monsieur," said Julien to him, "Do you think your children would have
made the progress they have made with me with any other tutor? If you
answer 'No,'" continued Julien so quickly that M. de Renal did not have
time to speak, "how dare you reproach me with neglecting them?"

M. de Renal, who had scarcely recovered from his fright, concluded from
the strange tone he saw this little peasant assume, that he had some
advantageous offer in his pocket, and that he was going to leave him.

The more he spoke the more Julien's anger increased, "I can live
without you, Monsieur," he added.

"I am really sorry to see you so upset," answered M. de Renal
shuddering a little. The servants were ten yards off engaged in making
the beds.

"That is not what I mean, Monsieur," replied Julien quite beside
himself. "Think of the infamous words that you have addressed to me,
and before women too."

M. de Renal understood only too well what Julien was asking, and a
painful conflict tore his soul. It happened that Julien, who was really
mad with rage, cried out,

"I know where to go, Monsieur, when I leave your house."

At these words M. de Renal saw Julien installed with M. Valenod. "Well,
sir," he said at last with a sigh, just as though he had called in
a surgeon to perform the most painful operation, "I accede to your
request. I will give you fifty francs a month. Starting from the day
after to-morrow which is the first of the month."

Julien wanted to laugh, and stood there dumbfounded. All his anger had
vanished.

"I do not despise the brute enough," he said to himself. "I have no
doubt that that is the greatest apology that so base a soul can make."

The children who had listened to this scene with gaping mouths, ran
into the garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was very angry, but
that he was going to have fifty francs a month.

Julien followed them as a matter of habit without even looking at M. de
Renal whom he left in a considerable state of irritation.

"That makes one hundred and sixty-eight francs," said the mayor to
himself, "that M. Valenod has cost me. I must absolutely speak a few
strong words to him about his contract to provide for the foundlings."

A minute afterwards Julien found himself opposite M. de Renal.

"I want to speak to M. Chelan on a matter of conscience. I have the
honour to inform you that I shall be absent some hours."

"Why, my dear Julien," said M. de Renal smiling with the falsest
expression possible, "take the whole day, and to-morrow too if you
like, my good friend. Take the gardener's horse to go to Verrieres."

"He is on the very point," said M. de Renal to himself, "of giving an
answer to Valenod. He has promised me nothing, but I must let this
hot-headed young man have time to cool down."

Julien quickly went away, and went up into the great forest, through
which one can manage to get from Vergy to Verrieres. He did not wish
to arrive at M. Chelan's at once. Far from wishing to cramp himself in
a new pose of hypocrisy he needed to see clear in his own soul, and to
give audience to the crowd of sentiments which were agitating him.

"I have won a battle," he said to himself, as soon as he saw that he
was well in the forest, and far from all human gaze. "So I have won a
battle."

This expression shed a rosy light on his situation, and restored him to
some serenity.

"Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month, M. de Renal must be
precious afraid, but what of?"

This meditation about what could have put fear into the heart of that
happy, powerful man against whom he had been boiling with rage only
an hour back, completed the restoration to serenity of Julien's soul.
He was almost able to enjoy for a moment the delightful beauty of the
woods amidst which he was walking. Enormous blocks of bare rocks had
fallen down long ago in the middle of the forest by the mountain side.
Great cedars towered almost as high as these rocks whose shade caused a
delicious freshness within three yards of places where the heat of the
sun's rays would have made it impossible to rest.

Julien took breath for a moment in the shade of these great rocks,
and then he began again to climb. Traversing a narrow path that was
scarcely marked, and was only used by the goat herds, he soon found
himself standing upon an immense rock with the complete certainty of
being far away from all mankind. This physical position made him smile.
It symbolised to him the position he was burning to attain in the moral
sphere. The pure air of these lovely mountains filled his soul with
serenity and even with joy. The mayor of Verrieres still continued to
typify in his eyes all the wealth and all the arrogance of the earth;
but Julien felt that the hatred that had just thrilled him had nothing
personal about it in spite of all the violence which he had manifested.
If he had left off seeing M. de Renal he would in eight days have
forgotten him, his castle, his dogs, his children and all his family.
"I forced him, I don't know how, to make the greatest sacrifice. What?
more than fifty crowns a year, and only a minute before I managed to
extricate myself from the greatest danger; so there are two victories
in one day. The second one is devoid of merit, I must find out the why
and the wherefore. But these laborious researches are for to-morrow."

Standing up on his great rock, Julien looked at the sky which was all
afire with an August sun. The grasshoppers sang in the field about the
rock; when they held their peace there was universal silence around
him. He saw twenty leagues of country at his feet. He noticed from
time to time some hawk, which launching off from the great rocks over
his head was describing in silence its immense circles. Julien's eye
followed the bird of prey mechanically. Its tranquil powerful movements
struck him. He envied that strength, that isolation.

"Would Napoleon's destiny be one day his?"

CHAPTER XI

AN EVENING

    Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,
    And tremulously gently her small hand
    Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
    A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland,
    And slight, so very slight that to the mind,
    'Twas but a doubt.
                        _Don Juan_, c. I. st, 71.

It was necessary, however, to put in an appearance at Verrieres. As
Julien left the cure house he was fortunate enough to meet M. Valenod,
whom he hastened to tell of the increase in his salary.

On returning to Vergy, Julien waited till night had fallen before going
down into the garden. His soul was fatigued by the great number of
violent emotions which had agitated him during the day. "What shall I
say to them?" he reflected anxiously, as he thought about the ladies.
He was far from realising that his soul was just in a mood to discuss
those trivial circumstances which usually monopolise all feminine
interests. Julien was often unintelligible to Madame Derville, and even
to her friend, and he in his turn only half understood all that they
said to him. Such was the effect of the force and, if I may venture to
use such language, the greatness of the transports of passion which
overwhelmed the soul of this ambitious youth. In this singular being it
was storm nearly every day.

As he entered the garden this evening, Julien was inclined to take an
interest in what the pretty cousins were thinking. They were waiting
for him impatiently. He took his accustomed seat next to Madame de
Renal. The darkness soon became profound. He attempted to take hold of
a white hand which he had seen some time near him, as it leant on the
back of a chair. Some hesitation was shewn, but eventually the hand was
withdrawn in a manner which indicated displeasure. Julien was inclined
to give up the attempt as a bad job, and to continue his conversation
quite gaily, when he heard M. de Renal approaching.

The coarse words he had uttered in the morning were still ringing in
Julien's ears. "Would not taking possession of his wife's hand in his
very presence," he said to himself, "be a good way of scoring off that
creature who has all that life can give him. Yes! I will do it. I, the
very man for whom he has evidenced so great a contempt."

From that moment the tranquillity which was so alien to Julien's real
character quickly disappeared. He was obsessed by an anxious desire
that Madame de Renal should abandon her hand to him.

M. de Renal was talking politics with vehemence; two or three
commercial men in Verrieres had been growing distinctly richer than he
was, and were going to annoy him over the elections. Madame Derville
was listening to him. Irritated by these tirades, Julien brought his
chair nearer Madame de Renal. All his movements were concealed by the
darkness. He dared to put his hand very near to the pretty arm which
was left uncovered by the dress. He was troubled and had lost control
of his mind. He brought his face near to that pretty arm and dared to
put his lips on it.

Madame de Renal shuddered. Her husband was four paces away. She
hastened to give her hand to Julien, and at the same time to push him
back a little. As M. de Renal was continuing his insults against those
ne'er-do-wells and Jacobins who were growing so rich, Julien covered
the hand which had been abandoned to him with kisses, which were either
really passionate or at any rate seemed so to Madame de Renal. But
the poor woman had already had the proofs on that same fatal day that
the man whom she adored, without owning it to herself, loved another!
During the whole time Julien had been absent she had been the prey to
an extreme unhappiness which had made her reflect.

"What," she said to herself, "Am I going to love, am I going to be in
love? Am I, a married woman, going to fall in love? But," she said to
herself, "I have never felt for my husband this dark madness, which
never permits of my keeping Julien out of my thoughts. After all, he
is only a child who is full of respect for me. This madness will be
fleeting. In what way do the sentiments which I may have for this young
man concern my husband? M. de Renal would be bored by the conversations
which I have with Julien on imaginative subjects. As for him, he simply
thinks of his business. I am not taking anything away from him to give
to Julien."

No hypocrisy had sullied the purity of that naive soul, now swept away
by a passion such as it had never felt before. She deceived herself,
but without knowing it. But none the less, a certain instinct of virtue
was alarmed. Such were the combats which were agitating her when
Julien appeared in the garden. She heard him speak and almost at the
same moment she saw him sit down by her side. Her soul was as it were
transported by this charming happiness which had for the last fortnight
surprised her even more than it had allured. Everything was novel for
her. None the less, she said to herself after some moments, "the mere
presence of Julien is quite enough to blot out all his wrongs." She was
frightened; it was then that she took away her hand.

His passionate kisses, the like of which she had never received before,
made her forget that perhaps he loved another woman. Soon he was no
longer guilty in her eyes. The cessation of that poignant pain which
suspicion had engendered and the presence of a happiness that she had
never even dreamt of, gave her ecstasies of love and of mad gaiety.
The evening was charming for everyone, except the mayor of Verrieres,
who was unable to forget his _parvenu_ manufacturers. Julien left off
thinking about his black ambition, or about those plans of his which
were so difficult to accomplish. For the first time in his life he was
led away by the power of beauty. Lost in a sweetly vague reverie, quite
alien to his character, and softly pressing that hand, which he thought
ideally pretty, he half listened to the rustle of the leaves of the
pine trees, swept by the light night breeze, and to the dogs of the
mill on the Doubs, who barked in the distance.

But this emotion was one of pleasure and not passion. As he entered his
room, he only thought of one happiness, that of taking up again his
favourite book. When one is twenty the idea of the world and the figure
to be cut in it dominate everything.

He soon, however, laid down the book. As the result of thinking of the
victories of Napoleon, he had seen a new element in his own victory.
"Yes," he said to himself, "I have won a battle. I must exploit it. I
must crush the pride of that proud gentleman while he is in retreat.
That would be real Napoleon. I must ask him for three days' holiday to
go and see my friend Fouque. If he refuses me I will threaten to give
him notice, but he will yield the point."

Madame de Renal could not sleep a wink. It seemed as though, until this
moment, she had never lived. She was unable to distract her thoughts
from the happiness of feeling Julian cover her hand with his burning
kisses.

Suddenly the awful word adultery came into her mind. All the
loathesomeness with which the vilest debauchery can invest sensual love
presented itself to her imagination. These ideas essayed to pollute the
divinely tender image which she was fashioning of Julien, and of the
happiness of loving him. The future began to be painted in terrible
colours. She began to regard herself as contemptible.

That moment was awful. Her soul was arriving in unknown countries.
During the evening she had tasted a novel happiness. Now she found
herself suddenly plunged in an atrocious unhappiness. She had never
had any idea of such sufferings; they troubled her reason. She thought
for a moment of confessing to her husband that she was apprehensive
of loving Julien. It would be an opportunity of speaking of him.
Fortunately her memory threw up a maxim which her aunt had once given
her on the eve of her marriage. The maxim dealt with the danger of
making confidences to a husband, for a husband is after all a master.
She wrung her hands in the excess of her grief. She was driven this way
and that by clashing and painful ideas. At one moment she feared that
she was not loved. The next the awful idea of crime tortured her, as
much as if she had to be exposed in the pillory on the following day in
the public square of Verrieres, with a placard to explain her adultery
to the populace.

Madame de Renal had no experience of life. Even in the full possession
of her faculties, and when fully exercising her reason, she would never
have appreciated any distinction between being guilty in the eyes of
God, and finding herself publicly overwhelmed with the crudest marks of
universal contempt.

When the awful idea of adultery, and of all the disgrace which in her
view that crime brought in its train, left her some rest, she began to
dream of the sweetness of living innocently with Julien as in the days
that had gone by.

She found herself confronted with the horrible idea that Julien loved
another woman. She still saw his pallor when he had feared to lose
her portrait, or to compromise her by exposing it to view. For the
first time she had caught fear on that tranquil and noble visage. He
had never shewn such emotion to her or her children. This additional
anguish reached the maximum of unhappiness which the human soul is
capable of enduring. Unconsciously, Madame de Renal uttered cries which
woke up her maid. Suddenly she saw the brightness of a light appear
near her bed, and recognized Elisa. "Is it you he loves?" she exclaimed
in her delirium.

Fortunately, the maid was so astonished by the terrible trouble in
which she found her mistress that she paid no attention to this
singular expression. Madame de Renal appreciated her imprudence.
"I have the fever," she said to her, "and I think I am a little
delirious." Completely woken up by the necessity of controlling
herself, she became less unhappy. Reason regained that supreme control
which the semi-somnolent state had taken away. To free herself from her
maid's continual stare, she ordered her maid to read the paper, and
it was as she listened to the monotonous voice of this girl, reading
a long article from the _Quotidienne_ that Madame de Renal made the
virtuous resolution to treat Julien with absolute coldness when she saw
him again.

Julien timidly walks over to the Renal home. Moved by Julien's weak frame and pale complexion, Mme. de Renal's "romantic disposition" makes her feel immediate pity for Julien. Their first encounter is tender and innocent, especially since Mme. de Renal initially thinks that Julien is a young woman. Julien is not used to being treated so well by an aristocrat and the two instantly take a liking to each other. He promises not to harm her children and, realizing that he has an advantage, kisses her hand. Mme. de Renal is shocked but does not scold Julien. He continues to make a good impression by reciting portions of the Bible in Latin from memory. M. de Renal's self-esteem is aroused by Julien's intelligence and he parades the whole town through his house to witness how great his children's tutor is. The Renals and their children accept Julien as a fixture in their home, but he continues to loathe "high society" in private. Elisa, Mme. de Renal's maid, falls in love with Julien, and it is through her maid's eyes that Mme. de Renal begins to have feelings for Julien as well. Raised in a convent, Mme. de Renal had never known love and thought that all men were like her husband and M. Valenod, only concerned with hatred and money. Convinced that Mme. de Renal is only out to humiliate him, Julien acts very cold around her. He also rejects Elisa's offer of marriage. M. Chelan urges Julien to reconsider, recognizing the Julien's lack of true devotion to the Church. He does not call Julien a hypocrite, but Julien is ashamed that someone actually loves him. After a few days, however, Julien perfects "the language of sly and prudent hypocrisy," refusing to reveal his true ambitions to the priest. Jealous of Elisa, Mme. de Renal begins to fall in love with Julien and is overjoyed when he refuses Elisa. She blushes in his presence, buys him gifts, and starts to pay more attention to her physical appearance. The Renals move out to the countryside for the spring, and Julien decides to seduce Mme. de Renal. He does not love her, but convinces himself that it would be cowardly not to hold her hand as they sit in the garden. Considering it his military "duty," Julien grabs hold of her hand--and Mme. de Renal does not resist him. The next day Julien ignores the children and further humiliates M. de Renal by securing a raise. Julien's moment of glory is short-lived. After discovering that M. de Renal is changing the bed straw, he begs Mme. de Renal to remove a portrait from under his mattress. Afraid that it is a portrait of the woman he loves, Mme. de Renal chooses not to look at what turns out to be a portrait of Napoleon. Julien is furious at himself for his near blunder. Had M. de Renal seen the portrait, Julien's hypocrisy would have been evident. That evening, Julien redoubles his efforts, passionately kissing Mme. de Renal. Invisible in the darkness of night, Julien is able to achieve this "victory" directly in front of M. de Renal.

Commentary The beginning part of this section emphasizes Mme. de Renal's purity and innocence. Unlike her husband, she is unconcerned with social rank and class, immediately calling Julien, "Sir." Stendhal's correlation of Mme. de Renal's beauty with her strong sense of morality is a hallmark of nineteenth-century romantic fiction. Despite this tenderness on the part of Stendhal, his description of Mme. de Renal's youth in a convent and the ease with which she falls in love with Julien also evokes the irony of many Enlightenment writers, especially Voltaire. Stendhal also introduces an important theme in this section: triangular desire. Elisa falls in love with Julien, while Mme. de Renal jealously falls in love because of Elisa. Julien desires Mme. de Renal, but only because she represents a conquest that he compares to military glory. Together they form a love triangle, one of many that Stendhal employs throughout the novel. For Stendhal, the love triangle meant that one could only fall in love through an intermediary figure. Indeed, Stendhal thought of himself as a scientist of love, attempting to reduce love to different formulas, levels, and stages, much like a mathematician. He often distinguished four types of love: passion- love, physical-love, vanity-love, and stylish-love. This devotion to understanding the psychology of love and its abstract analysis was a major influence for later Realist writers such as Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola. From the moment he enters the Renal home, Julien thinks of himself as Napoleon and Mme. de Renal as a battle to be won--not about love. Each advance represents an incremental increase in the intensity of their relationship but also a feeling of pride for Julien. Kissing Mme. de Renal's hand is a victory, but more importantly, an attack against the aristocracy: he is humiliating M. de Renal by seducing his wife. Julien thinks incessantly about adhering to Napoleon's military "style" and fulfilling "the destiny of Napoleon." Stendhal reinforces this symbolic closeness with the image of an eagle circling above Julien's head. The metaphor is twofold: the eagle is both the symbol of Napoleon and military glory, and a bird circling his prey. In effect, Julien's adoration of Napoleon gets him into serious trouble. M. de Renal almost discovers Julien's portrait of Napoleon, covered with inscriptions of praise written by Julien himself. After Mme. de Renal returns it to him, Julien immediately burns the portrait, establishing his conviction to succeed in French society at any cost.