The Red and the Black. Marie-Henri Beyle

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СКАЧАТЬ the good resolutions which she owed to the awful night she had just passed. It was not now a question of resisting that charming lover, but of losing him for ever.

      It was necessary to appear at breakfast. To complete her anguish, M. de Rênal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien's departure. The mayor of Verrières had noticed something unusual in the firm tone in which he had asked for a holiday.

      "That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else's offer up his sleeve, but that somebody else, even though it's M. Valenod, is bound to be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs, which the annual salary now tots up to. He must have asked yesterday at Verrières for a period of three days to think it over, and our little gentleman runs off to the mountains this morning so as not to be obliged to give me an answer. Think of having to reckon with a wretched workman who puts on airs, but that's what we've come to."

      "If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien, thinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?" said Madame de Rênal to herself. "Yes, that is all decided." In order to be able at any rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering madame Derville's questions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to bed.

      "That's what women are," repeated M. de Rênal, "there is always something out of order in those complicated machines," and he went off jeering.

      While Madame de Rênal was a prey to all the poignancy of the terrible passion in which chance had involved her, Julien went merrily on his way, surrounded by the most beautiful views that mountain scenery can offer. He had to cross the great chain north of Vergy. The path which he followed rose gradually among the big beech woods, and ran into infinite spirals on the slope of the high mountain which forms the northern boundary of the Doubs valley. Soon the traveller's view, as he passed over the lower slopes bounding the course of the Doubs towards the south, extends as far as ​the fertile plains of Burgundy and Beaujolais. However insensible was the soul of this ambitious youth to this kind of beauty, he could not help stopping from time to time to look at a spectacle at once so vast and so impressive.

      Finally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which he had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at the solitary valley where lived his friend Fouqué, the young wood merchant. Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any other human being. Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks which crowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off anyone coming near him. He discovered a little grotto in the middle of the almost vertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it, and was soon ensconced in this retreat. "Here," he said, "with eyes brilliant with joy, men cannot hurt me." It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure of writing down those thoughts of his which were so dangerous to him everywhere else. A square stone served him for a desk; his pen flew. He saw nothing of what was around him. He noticed at last that the sun was setting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.

      "Why shouldn't I pass the night here?" he said to himself. "I have bread, and I am free." He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of that great word. The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in his not being free, even at Fouqué's. Leaning his head on his two hands, Julien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever been in his life, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his freedom. Without realising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight become successively extinguished. Surrounded by this immense obscurity, his soul wandered into the contemplation of what he imagined that he would one day meet in Paris. First it was a woman, much more beautiful and possessed of a much more refined temperament than anything he could have found in the provinces. He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from her for some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to deserve to be loved still more.

      A young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of Paris society, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if we assume him possessed of Julien's imagination, have been brought back to himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great deeds would have disappeared from ou ​his ken together with hope of achieving them and have been succeeded by the platitude. "If one leave one's mistress one runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or three times a day." But the young peasant saw nothing but the lack of opportunity between himself and the most heroic feats.

      But a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two leagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which Fouqué lived. Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and carefully burnt all that he had written. He quite astonished his friend when he knocked at his door at one o'clock in the morning. He found Fouqué engaged in making up his accounts. He was a young man of high stature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a neverending nose, and a large fund of good nature concealed beneath this repulsive appearance.

      "Have you quarelled with M. de Rênal then that you turn up unexpectedly like this?" Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the events of the previous day.

      "Stay with me," said Fouqué to him. "I see that you know M. de Rênal, M. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the curé Chélan. You have understood the subtleties of the character of those people. So there you are then, quite qualified to attend auctions. You know arithmetic better than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot in my business. The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the fear of taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from undertaking excellent business. It's scarcely a month since I put Michaud de Saint-Amand, whom I haven't seen for six years, and whom I ran across at the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six thousand francs. Why shouldn't it have been you who made those six thousand francs, or at any rate three thousand. For if I had had you with me that day, I would have raised the bidding for that lot of timber and everybody else would soon have run away. Be my partner.

      This offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams. Fouqué showed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the supper which the two friends prepared themselves like the Homeric heroes (for Fouqué lived alone) and proved to him all the advantages offered by his timber business. Fouqué had the highest opinion of the gifts and character of Julien.

      ​When, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood, he said to himself: "It is true I can make some thousands of francs here and then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or of a priest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France. The little hoard that I shall have amassed will remove all petty difficulties. In the solitude of this mountain I shall have dissipated to some extent my awful ignorance of so many of the things which make up the life of all those men of fashion. But Fouqué has given up all thoughts of marriage, and at the same time keeps telling me that solitude makes him unhappy. It is clear that if he takes a partner who has no capital to put into his business, he does so in the hopes of getting a companion who will never leave him."

      "Shall I deceive my friend," exclaimed Julien petulantly. This being who found hypocrisy and complete callousness his ordinary means of self-preservation could not, on this occasion, endure the idea of the slightest lack of delicate feeling towards a man whom he loved.

      But suddenly Julien was happy. He had a reason for a refusal. What! Shall I be coward enough to waste seven or eight years. I shall get to twenty-eight in that way! But at that age Bonaparte had achieved his greatest feats. When I shall have made in obscurity a little money by frequenting timber sales, and earning the good graces of some rascally under-strappers who will guarantee that I shall still have the sacred fire with which one makes a name for oneself?

      The following morning, Julien with considerable sangfroid, said in answer to the good Fouqué, who regarded the matter of the partnership as settled, that his vocation for the holy ministry of the altars would not permit him to accept it. Fouqué did not return to the subject.

      "But just think," he repeated to him, "I'll make you my partner, or if you prefer it, I'll give you four thousand francs a year, and you want to return to that M. de Rênal of СКАЧАТЬ