Part 11

--And the chambermaid added with a sigh, Mr. Julien took no trouble to make this conquest, he did not depart from his habitual coldness toward madame.

Élisa had only had certainties in the country, but she believed this intrigue dated from much further back.

--It is no doubt for that reason, she added with spite, that in the past he refused to marry me. And I, imbecile, who went to consult Mme de Rênal! who there begged her to speak to the tutor!

That very evening, M. de Rênal received from the town, with his newspaper, a long anonymous letter which informed him in the greatest detail of what was passing in his house. Julien saw him turn pale as he read this letter written on bluish paper, and cast wicked glances at him. For the whole evening, the mayor did not recover from his agitation; in vain did Julien court him by asking for explanations on the genealogy of the best families of Burgundy.

CHAPTER XX

THE ANONYMOUS LETTERS

Do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood.

TEMPEST.

As they left the salon around midnight, Julien had time to say to his friend:

--Let us not see each other this evening, your husband has suspicions; I would swear that this long letter he was reading with sighs is an anonymous letter.

Fortunately Julien locked himself in his room. Mme de Rênal had the foolish idea that this warning was but a pretext for not seeing her. She lost her head completely, and at the usual hour came to his door. Julien, who heard noise in the corridor, blew out his lamp instantly. Efforts were being made to open his door—was it Mme de Rênal? was it a jealous husband?

The next morning very early, the cook who protected Julien brought him a book on the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: _Guardate alla pagina 130_.

Julien trembled at the imprudence, sought page one hundred thirty and there found attached, with a pin, the following letter written in haste, bathed in tears and with not the slightest orthography. Usually Mme de Rênal wrote it very well; he was touched by this detail and forgot a little the frightful imprudence.

You did not wish to receive me last night? There are moments when I think I have never read to the bottom of your soul. Your glances frighten me. I am afraid of you. Great God! can it be you never loved me? In that case, let my husband discover our love, and let him shut me up in an eternal prison, in the country, far from my children. Perhaps God wills it so. I shall soon die. But you will be a monster.

Do you not love me, are you weary of my follies, of my remorse, impious one? Will you ruin me? I give you an easy means. Go, show this letter throughout Verrières, or rather show it to M. Valenod alone. Tell him I love you; but no, utter not such blasphemy; tell him I adore you, that life began for me only the day I saw you; that in the maddest moments of my youth, I had never even dreamed the happiness I owe you; that I have sacrificed my life to you, that I sacrifice my soul to you. You know I sacrifice far more to you.

But does that man know aught of sacrifices? Tell him, tell him to anger him, that I defy all the wicked, and that there is no longer but one misfortune in the world for me, that of seeing changed the only man who binds me to life. What happiness for me to lose it, to offer it in sacrifice, and to fear no more for my children!

Doubt it not, dear friend, if there is an anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who for six years has pursued me with his loud voice, the account of his leaps on horseback, his vanity, and the eternal enumeration of all his advantages.

Is there an anonymous letter? wicked one, that is what I wished to discuss with you; but no, you did well. Holding you in my arms, perhaps for the last time, never could I have discussed coldly, as I do being alone. From this moment, our happiness will no longer be so easy. Will that be a vexation to you? Yes, on the days when you shall have received from M. Fouqué no amusing book. The sacrifice is made; tomorrow, whether there be or be not an anonymous letter, I too shall tell my husband that I received an anonymous letter and that he must instantly make you a golden bridge, find some honest pretext, and without delay send you back to your family.

Alas, dear friend, we shall be separated fifteen days, a month perhaps! Go, I do you justice, you will suffer as much as I. But after all this is the only means to parry the effect of this anonymous letter; it is not the first my husband has received, and about me still. Alas! how I laughed at them!

The whole aim of my conduct is to make my husband think the letter comes from M. Valenod; I doubt not he is the author. If you leave the house, fail not to go establish yourself at Verrières. I shall so arrange that my husband has the idea of spending fifteen days there, to prove to fools there is no coldness between him and me. Once at Verrières, make friends with everyone, even with the liberals. I know all those ladies will seek you out.

Do not go and get angry with M. Valenod, nor cut off his ears, as you said one day; show him on the contrary all your good graces. The essential thing is that at Verrières they believe you are going into the Valenod household, or any other, for the education of the children.

That is what my husband will never suffer. Should he resolve upon it, well! at least you will dwell at Verrières, and I shall see you sometimes. My children, who love you so, will come see you. Great God! I feel I love my children better, because they love you. What remorse! how shall all this end?... I wander... In short you understand your conduct; be gentle, polite, not contemptuous with these coarse persons, I beg you on my knees: they are going to be the arbiters of our fate. Doubt not one instant that my husband will conform toward you to what public opinion shall prescribe him.

It is you who are to furnish me the anonymous letter; arm yourself with patience and a pair of scissors. Cut from a book the words you shall see; then paste them, with mouth-glue, on the sheet of bluish paper I send you; it comes to me from M. Valenod. Expect a search in your rooms; burn the pages of the book you shall have mutilated. If you do not find the words ready-made, have the patience to form them letter by letter. To spare your trouble, I made the anonymous letter too short. Alas! if you no longer love me, as I fear, how long mine must seem to you!

ANONYMOUS LETTER

«MADAME,

»All your little maneuvers are known, but the persons who have interest in repressing them are warned. By a remnant of friendship for you, I urge you to detach yourself totally from the little peasant. If you are wise enough for that, your husband will believe the warning he received deceives him, and he will be left in his error. Reflect that I have your secret; tremble, unhappy one; it is needful at this hour to _walk straight_ before me.»

»As soon as you have finished pasting the words composing this letter (did you recognize the ways of speaking of the director?) go out in the house, I shall meet you.

»I shall go into the village, and return with a troubled face; I shall indeed be much troubled. Great God! what do I hazard, and all because you thought to guess an anonymous letter. In short, with a distraught face, I shall give my husband this letter which a stranger shall have delivered me. You, go walk on the path of the great woods with the children, and return not until dinner hour.

»From the top of the rocks, you can see the tower of Colombier. If our affairs go well, I shall place a white handkerchief there; in the contrary case, there will be nothing.

»Your heart, ungrateful one, will it not find the means to tell me you love me, before departing for this walk? Whatever may happen, be sure of one thing: I shall not survive by a day our definitive separation. Ah, bad mother! Those are two empty words I just wrote there, dear Julien. I do not feel them; I can think only of you at this moment, I wrote them only not to be blamed by you. Now that I see myself at the point of losing you, what good to dissimulate? Yes! let my soul seem atrocious to you, but let me not lie before the man I adore! I have already deceived too much in my life. Go, I forgive you if you no longer love me. I have not time to reread my letter. It is little to my eyes to pay with life for the happy days I have just passed in your arms. You know they will cost me more.»

CHAPTER XXI

DIALOGUE WITH A MASTER

Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we, For such as we are made of, such we be.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

It was with a child's pleasure that for an hour Julien assembled words. As he left his room, he met his pupils and their mother; she took the letter with a simplicity and courage whose calm frightened him.

--Is the mouth-glue dry enough? she said to him.

Is this the woman whom remorse rendered so mad? he thought. What are her designs at this moment? He was too proud to ask her; but, perhaps never had she pleased him more.

--If this turns ill, she added, with the same coldness, they will take all from me. Bury this deposit in some place in the mountain; it may one day be my only resource.

She gave him a glass case, in red morocco, filled with gold and some diamonds.

--Leave now, she said to him.

She embraced the children, and twice the youngest. Julien remained motionless. She left him with a rapid step and without looking at him.

Since the instant he had opened the anonymous letter, the existence of M. de Rênal had been awful. He had not been so agitated since a duel he had nearly had in 1816, and, to do him justice, then the prospect of receiving a ball had rendered him less unhappy. He examined the letter in every direction: Is this not a woman's handwriting? he said to himself. In that case, what woman wrote it? He passed in review all those he knew at Verrières, without being able to fix his suspicions. A man? could a man have dictated this letter? who is this man? Here alike uncertainty; he was envied and no doubt hated by most of those he knew. I must consult my wife, he said by habit, rising from the armchair where he was plunged.

Scarcely risen:

--Great God! he said, striking his head, it is of her above all that I must mistrust; she is my enemy at this moment. And with anger, tears came to his eyes.

By a just compensation of the dryness of heart which makes all the practical wisdom of the province, the two men whom at this moment M. de Rênal most dreaded were his two most intimate friends.

After those, I have perhaps ten friends, and he passed them in review, estimating as he went the degree of consolation he might draw from each. From all! from all! he cried with rage, my dreadful adventure will give the extremest pleasure! Fortunately, he believed himself much envied, not without reason. Besides his superb town house, which the king of *** had just honored forever by sleeping in it, he had very well arranged his château of Vergy. The facade was painted white, and the windows furnished with fine green shutters. He was for an instant consoled by the idea of this magnificence. The fact is that this château was seen from three or four leagues distance, to the great detriment of all the country houses or so-called châteaux of the neighborhood, which had been left the humble gray color given by time.

M. de Rênal could count on the tears and pity of one of his friends, the churchwarden of the parish, but he was an imbecile who wept at everything. This man was however his only resource.

What misfortune is comparable to mine! he cried with rage; what isolation!

Is it possible, said this truly pitiable man, is it possible that, in my misfortune, I have not a friend to ask counsel of, for my reason wanders, I feel it! Ah! Falcoz! Ah! Ducros! he cried with bitterness. These were the names of two childhood friends whom he had estranged by his haughtiness in 1814. They were not noble, and he had wished to change the tone of equality on which they had lived since childhood.

One of them, Falcoz, a man of wit and heart, paper merchant at Verrières, had bought a printing house in the chief town of the department and started a newspaper. The congregation had resolved to ruin him: his newspaper had been condemned, his printer's license had been taken from him. In these sad circumstances, he tried to write to M. de Rênal for the first time in ten years. The mayor of Verrières thought fit to reply as an old Roman: If the king's minister did me the honor to consult me, I should say: Ruin without pity all the provincial printers and put printing in monopoly like tobacco. This letter to an intimate friend, which all Verrières admired at the time, M. de Rênal recalled the terms with horror. Who would have told me that with my rank, my fortune, my crosses, I should one day regret it! It was in these transports of anger, now against himself, now against all around him, that he passed an awful night; but, fortunately, the idea of spying on his wife did not occur to him.

I am used to Louise, he said to himself, she knows all my affairs; I should be free to marry tomorrow and not find her equal. Then he delighted in the idea that his wife was innocent; this way of seeing did not put him in need of showing character, and suited him much better; how many calumniated women have we not seen!

But what! he suddenly cried walking with a convulsive step; shall I suffer as if I were a man of naught, a barefoot, whom she mocks with her lover? Must all Verrières make warm throats over my mildness? What was not said of Charmier (he was a notoriously cuckolded husband of the country)? When he is named, is not the smile on all lips? He is good advocate, who ever speaks of his talent for speech? Ah, Charmier, they say! the Charmier of Bernard, thus is he designated—the name of the man who is his opprobrium.

Thanks to heaven, said M. de Rênal at other moments, I have no daughter, and the way I shall punish the mother will not harm the establishment of my children; I can surprise this little peasant with my wife and kill them both, in which case the tragic of the adventure will perhaps remove the ridiculous. This idea smiled on him; he followed it in all its details. The penal code is for me, and, whatever happens, our congregation and my jury friends will save me. He examined his hunting knife which was very sharp; but the idea of blood frightened him.

I can beat this insolent tutor and chase him; but what an outcry in Verrières and even in the whole department! After the condemnation of Falcoz's newspaper, when its chief editor left prison, I helped have him lose his six-hundred-franc place. They say this scribbler dares show himself again in Besançon, he can tympanize me with skill and in a way impossible to bring before the courts. Bring him before the courts... The insolent will insinuate in a thousand ways that he spoke true. A well-born man, who holds his rank as I do, is hated by all plebeians. I shall see myself in those awful Paris newspapers, O my God! what an abyss! to see the ancient name of Rênal plunged in the mire of ridicule... If I ever travel, I must change name—what! abandon this name which is my glory and my strength. What height of misery!

If I do not kill my wife, and chase her with ignominy, she has her aunt at Besançon, who will give her hand to hand all her fortune. My wife will go live at Paris with Julien, it will be known at Verrières, and I shall still be taken for a dupe. This unhappy man noticed then by the pallor of his lamp that day began to appear. He went to seek a little fresh air in the garden. At this moment he was almost resolved to make no outcry, by this idea above all that an outcry would fill with joy his good friends of Verrières.

The walk in the garden calmed him a little. No, he cried, I shall not deprive myself of my wife, she is too useful to me. He figured with horror what his house would be without his wife; he had for only relative the marquise de R..., old, imbecile and wicked.

An idea of great sense appeared to him, but the execution demanded a force of character far superior to the little the poor man had. If I keep my wife, he said to himself, I know myself, one day, in a moment when she will vex me, I shall reproach her fault. She is proud, we shall quarrel, and all this will happen before she has inherited from her aunt. Then, how they will mock me! my wife loves her children, all will end by coming to them. But I, I shall be the fable of Verrières. What! they will say, he could not even avenge himself on his wife! Would it not be better to keep to suspicions and verify nothing? Then I tie my hands, I cannot afterward reproach her with anything.

An instant after, M. de Rênal, seized again by wounded vanity, laboriously recalled all the means cited at the billiard of the Casino or Noble Club of Verrières, when some fine talker interrupts the game to amuse himself at the expense of a cuckolded husband. How, in this instant, those jests seemed cruel to him!

God! that my wife were dead! then I should be unassailable to ridicule. Why am I not a widower! I should go spend six months in Paris in the best societies. After this moment of happiness given by the idea of widowhood, his imagination returned to the means of ascertaining the truth. Would he spread at midnight, after all were abed, a light layer of sand before Julien's door? The next morning, at daybreak, he would see the impression of steps.

But this means is good for nothing, he suddenly cried with rage, that knave Élisa would notice it, and it would soon be known in the house that I am jealous.

In another tale told at the Casino, a husband had assured himself of his mishap by attaching with a little wax a hair which closed like a seal the door of his wife and that of the gallant.

After so many hours of uncertainty, this means of clearing his fate seemed decidedly the best, and he thought to use it, when at the turn of an alley he met this woman he could have wished dead.

She returned from the village. She had gone to hear mass in the church of Vergy. A tradition very uncertain in the eyes of the cold philosopher, but in which she believed, pretends that the little church now used was the chapel of the castle of the sire de Vergy. This idea obsessed Mme de Rênal all the time she counted to spend praying in this church. She constantly figured her husband killing Julien in the hunt, as by accident, and then in the evening making her eat his heart.

My fate, she said to herself, depends on what he shall think in listening to me. After this fatal quarter-hour, perhaps I shall find no more occasion to speak to him. He is not a being wise and directed by reason. I could then, with my weak reason, foresee what he will do or say. He will decide our common fate, he has the power. But this fate is in my skill, in the art of directing the ideas of this fanciful man, whom his anger renders blind, and prevents seeing half of things. Great God! I need talent, coolness; where to find them?

She recovered calm as by enchantment on entering the garden and seeing her husband from afar. Her hair and clothes in disorder announced he had not slept.

She gave him a letter uncached but folded. He, without opening it, looked at his wife with mad eyes.

--Here is an abomination, she said to him, which a man of evil look, who pretends to know you and owe you gratitude, gave me as I passed behind the notary's garden. I demand one thing of you, which is that you send back to his family, and without delay, this M. Julien.

Mme de Rênal hastened to say this word, perhaps a little before the moment, to rid herself of the awful perspective of having to say it.

She was seized with joy seeing that which she caused her husband. At the fixity of the look he attached to her, she understood Julien had guessed right. Instead of afflicting herself at this very real misfortune, what genius, she thought, what perfect tact! and in a young man still without any experience! To what will he not arrive later? Alas! then his successes will make him forget me.

This little act of admiration for the man she adored restored her wholly from her trouble.

She applauded her step. I was not unworthy of Julien, she said to herself, with a sweet and intimate voluptuousness.

Without saying a word, for fear of engaging himself, M. de Rênal examined the second anonymous letter composed, if the reader remembers, of printed words pasted on a bluish paper. They mock me in every way, said M. de Rênal overwhelmed with fatigue.

Still new insults to examine, and always because of my wife! He was on the point of overwhelming her with the grossest insults, the perspective of the Besançon inheritance stopped him with great difficulty. Devoured with need to blame something, he crumpled the paper of this second anonymous letter, and set to walking with great steps; he needed to move away from his wife. Some instants after, he returned to her, and calmer.

--It is a question of taking a course and sending Julien away, she said to him at once; he is after all but the son of a workman. You will indemnify him with some crowns, and besides he is learned and will easily find a place, for example at M. Valenod's or at the sub-prefect of Maugiron's who have children. Thus you will do him no harm...

--You speak there like a fool that you are, cried M. de Rênal in a terrible voice. What good sense can be expected of a woman? Never do you pay attention to what is reasonable, how should you know anything? Your nonchalance, your laziness give you activity only for the hunt of butterflies—weak beings and that we are unhappy to have in our families...

“Stories of the world, in your language.”