Part 14

--Mr. Mayor, I am _il signor_ Geronimo. Here is a letter that Mr. the Chevalier de Beauvaisis, attached to the embassy of Naples, gave me for you upon my departure; it is only nine days ago, added _signor_ Geronimo, with a cheerful air, looking at Mme de Rênal. _Signor_ de Beauvaisis, your cousin, and my good friend, madam, says that you know Italian.

The good humor of the Neapolitan changed this sad evening into a very merry one. Mme de Rênal absolutely insisted on giving him supper. She set her whole household in motion; she wanted at all costs to distract Julien from the label of spy which, twice during that day, he had heard ringing in his ear. _Signor_ Geronimo was a famous singer, a man of good company, and yet very gay, qualities which, in France, are scarcely compatible. He sang after supper a little duettino with Mme de Rênal. He told charming tales. At one in the morning, the children cried out when Julien proposed they go to bed.

--Again that story, said the eldest.

--It is mine, _Signorino_, replied _il signor_ Geronimo. Eight years ago, I was like you a young pupil at the conservatory of Naples, that is to say I was your age; but I had not the honor of being the son of the illustrious mayor of the pretty town of Verrières.

This remark made M. de Rênal sigh; he looked at his wife.

_Signor_ Zingarelli, continued the young singer, overdoing a little his accent which made the children burst out laughing, _signor_ Zingarelli was a most severe master. He is not liked at the conservatory; but he wants one always to act as if one liked him. I got out as often as I could; I went to the little theater of San Carlino, where I heard music of the gods: but, oh heaven! how to come up with the eight sous that the pit ticket costs? Enormous sum, he said, looking at the children, and the children laughed. _Signor_ Giovannone, director of San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen years old: 'This child is a treasure,' said he.

--'Will you that I engage you, my dear friend?' he came to say to me.

--'And what will you give me?'

--'Forty ducats a month.'

Gentlemen, that is a hundred and sixty francs. I thought I saw the heavens open.

--'But how,' said I to Giovannone, 'to obtain that the severe Zingarelli lets me out?'

--'_Lascia fare a me._'

--'Leave it to me!' cried the eldest of the children.

--'Exactly, my young lord. _Signor_ Giovannone he says to me: Caro, first a little bit of contract. I sign: he gives me three ducats. Never had I seen so much money. Then he tells me what I am to do.

The next day, I ask an audience of the terrible _signor_ Zingarelli. His old valet shows me in.

--'What do you want of me, you good-for-nothing?' says Zingarelli.

--'Maestro,' said I to him, 'I repent of my faults; never shall I leave the conservatory by climbing over the iron grating. I shall redouble my application.'

--'If I did not fear spoiling the finest bass voice I ever heard, I would put you in prison on bread and water for fifteen days, you scamp.'

--'Maestro,' I resumed, 'I shall be the model of the whole school, _credete a me_. But I ask you one favor; if anyone comes asking for me to sing outside, refuse me. I beg you, say that you cannot.'

--'And who the devil do you think would ask for a bad rascal such as you? Do I ever permit you to leave the conservatory? Do you mean to mock me? Begone, begone,' said he, trying to give me a kick in the a..., or beware bread and prison.'

An hour later, _signor_ Giovannone arrives at the director's:

--'I come to ask you to make my fortune,' said he to him, 'grant me Geronimo. Let him sing at my theater, and this winter I marry my daughter.'

--'What do you want with that good-for-nothing?' Zingarelli said to him. 'I will not; you shall not have him; and besides, were I to consent, never would he wish to leave the conservatory, he has just sworn it to me.'

--'If it is only his will that is in question,' said Giovannone gravely, pulling my contract from his pocket, 'carta canta! here is his signature.'

Thereupon Zingarelli, furious, rings his bell violently:

--'Let Geronimo be turned out of the conservatory,' he cried, boiling with rage.

So I was turned out, laughing fit to split. That same evening, I sang the air _del Moltiplico_. Punch wants to marry and counts on his fingers the things he will need in his household, and gets muddled at every moment in this reckoning.

--'Ah! would you, Sir, sing us that air,' said Mme de Rênal.

Geronimo sang, and everyone wept with laughing. _Il signor_ Geronimo did not go to bed until two in the morning, leaving this family enchanted with his good manners, his complaisance, and his gaiety.

The next day, M. and Mme de Rênal gave him the letters he needed for the court of France.

Thus, everywhere there is falseness, said Julien. Here is _il signor_ Geronimo going to London with sixty thousand francs in salary. But for the cleverness of the director of San Carlino, his divine voice might perhaps have been known and admired only ten years later... Upon my word, I would rather be a Geronimo than a Rênal. He is not so honored in society, but he has not the sorrow of making awards like that of today, and his life is merry.

One thing astonished Julien: the solitary weeks spent at Verrières, in M. de Rênal's house, had been for him a time of happiness. He had met with disgust and sad thoughts only at the dinners given him in that solitary house; could he not read, write, reflect, undisturbed? At every instant he was not dragged from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying the movements of a base soul, and furthermore in order to deceive it by hypocritical steps or words.

Would happiness be so near me?... The cost of such a life is little; I may at my choice marry Mlle Élisa, or become partner to Fouqué... But the traveler who has just climbed a steep mountain sits at the summit, and finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be happy, if forced to rest always?

The mind of Mme de Rênal had come to fatal thoughts. Despite her resolutions, she had confessed to Julien the whole affair of the award. He will then make me forget all my vows, she thought!

She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save her husband's, had she seen it in peril. She was one of those noble and romantic souls for whom to perceive the possibility of a generous action, and not to do it, is the source of a remorse almost equal to that of the crime committed. Nevertheless there were fatal days when she could not chase away the image of the excess of happiness she would taste, if, suddenly becoming a widow, she could marry Julien.

He loved her sons much more than their father; despite his severe justice, he was adored by them. She felt well that, marrying Julien, she must leave this Vergy whose shades were so dear to her. She saw herself living in Paris, continuing to give her sons that education which was the admiration of all. Her children, she, Julien, all were perfectly happy.

Strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life surely destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, a philosopher would say, it soon brings, among people rich enough not to work, the profound boredom of all tranquil enjoyments. And it is only dry souls, among women, that it does not predispose to love.

The philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Mme de Rênal; but she was not excused at Verrières, and the whole town, without her suspecting it, was occupied only with the scandal of her loves. Because of this great affair, that autumn one was less bored there than usual.

Autumn, and part of winter, passed quickly. They had to leave the woods of Vergy. The good company of Verrières began to be indignant that its anathemas made so little impression on M. de Rênal. In less than eight days, grave persons who compensate for their usual seriousness by the pleasure of filling such missions, gave him the most cruel suspicions, but using the most measured terms.

M. Valenod, who played close, had placed Élisa in a noble and highly considered family where there were five women. Élisa, fearing, she said, not to find a place during the winter, had asked this family for only about two thirds of what she received at the mayor's. Of her own accord, this girl had had the excellent idea of going to confess to the former curate Chélan and at the same time to the new one, in order to tell both of them the detail of Julien's loves.

The day after her arrival, at six in the morning the abbé Chélan sent for Julien:

--'I ask you nothing,' said he to him, 'I beg you and if need be I order you to tell me nothing; I require that within three days you leave for the seminary of Besançon or for the dwelling of your friend Fouqué who is always disposed to make a magnificent place for you. I have foreseen all, arranged all, but you must leave and not return for a year to Verrières.'

Julien answered nothing; he examined whether his honor ought to esteem itself offended by the cares that M. Chélan, who after all was not his father, had taken for him.

--'Tomorrow at this hour, I shall have the honor of seeing you again,' he said at last to the curate.

M. Chélan, who counted on carrying the day by main force over so young a man, spoke much. Wrapped in the most humble attitude and physiognomy, Julien did not open his mouth.

He went out at last, and ran to warn Mme de Rênal, whom he found in despair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain frankness. The natural weakness of his character leaning on the prospect of the Besançon inheritance, had decided him to consider her perfectly innocent. He had just confessed to her the strange state in which he found the public opinion of Verrières. The public was wrong, it was misled by envious people, but what to do?

Mme de Rênal had an instant the illusion that Julien might accept M. Valenod's offers, and stay at Verrières. But she was no longer that simple and timid woman of the previous year; her fatal passion, her remorse had enlightened her. She soon had the grief of proving to herself, while listening to her husband, that a separation at least momentary had become indispensable. Far from me Julien will fall back into his plans of ambition so natural when one has nothing. And I, great God! am so rich! and so uselessly for my happiness! He will forget me. Amiable as he is, he will be loved, he will love. Ah! unhappy... Of what can I complain? Heaven is just, I had not the merit to make the crime cease, it takes from me my judgment. It depended only on me to win Élisa with money, nothing was easier. I did not take the trouble to reflect a moment, the foolish imaginations of love absorbed all my time. I perish.

Julien was struck by one thing: in learning the terrible news of his departure from Mme de Rênal, he found no selfish objection. She was obviously making efforts not to weep.

--'We need firmness, my friend.'

She cut a lock of her hair.

--'I know not what I shall do,' said she to him, 'but if I die, promise me never to forget my children. From far or near, try to make them honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles will be slaughtered, their father may emigrate because of that peasant killed on a roof. Watch over the family... Give me your hand. Farewell, my friend! These are the last moments. This great sacrifice made, I hope that in public I shall have the courage to think of my reputation.'

Julien expected despair. The simplicity of these farewells touched him.

--'No, I do not receive your farewells thus. I shall leave; they wish it; you wish it yourself. But, three days after my departure, I shall return to see you by night.'

The existence of Mme de Rênal was changed. Julien loved her then, since of his own accord he had found the idea of seeing her again! Her awful grief turned into one of the liveliest movements of joy she had felt in her life. All became easy to her. The certainty of seeing her friend again was, to those last moments, all that was tearing about them. From that instant, the conduct, as the physiognomy, of Mme de Rênal was noble, firm and perfectly proper.

M. de Rênal soon came in; he was beside himself. He spoke at last to his wife of the anonymous letter received two months before.

--'I want to carry it to the Casino, show to all that it is from that infamous Valenod, whom I picked from the beggar's pouch, to make one of the richest bourgeois of Verrières. I shall shame him publicly, and then fight with him. This is too much.'

I might be a widow, great God! thought Mme de Rênal. But almost at the same instant, she said to herself: If I do not prevent this duel, as certainly I can, I shall be the murderess of my husband.

Never had she managed her vanity with so much address. In less than two hours she made him see, and always by reasons found by himself, that he must show more friendship than ever to M. Valenod, and even take Élisa back into the house. Mme de Rênal needed courage to decide to see again that girl cause of all her misfortunes. But this idea came from Julien.

At last, after being put on the track three or four times, M. de Rênal arrived alone at the financially very painful idea, that what would be most unpleasant for him would be that Julien, in the midst of the effervescence and talk of all Verrières, should remain there as tutor to M. Valenod's children. Julien's evident interest was to accept the offers of the director of the poorhouse. It mattered, on the contrary, to the glory of M. de Rênal, that Julien leave Verrières to enter the seminary of Besançon or that of Dijon. But how to decide him to it, and then how would he live?

M. de Rênal, seeing the imminence of the sacrifice of money, was more in despair than his wife. For her, after that conversation, she was in the position of a man of heart who, weary of life, has taken a dose of stramonium; he acts only by springs, so to speak, and takes interest in nothing more. Thus it came to Louis XIV dying, to say: _When I was king._ Admirable word!

The next day, at early morn, M. de Rênal received an anonymous letter. This one was of the most insulting style. The coarsest words applicable to his situation appeared in it at every line. It was the work of some subordinate envier. This letter brought him back to the thought of fighting with M. Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as ideas of immediate execution. He went out alone, and went to the gunsmith to take pistols which he had loaded.

In fact, said he to himself, the severe administration of the emperor Napoleon were to return to the world, I at least have no paltry tricks to reproach myself with. I have at most closed my eyes; but I have good letters in my office which authorize me thereto.

Mme de Rênal was frightened by her husband's cold anger; it recalled to her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had such trouble repelling. She shut herself up with him. For several hours she spoke to him in vain; the new anonymous letter decided him. At last she managed to transform the courage of giving a slap to M. Valenod into that of offering six hundred francs to Julien, for a year of his pension in a seminary. M. de Rênal, cursing a thousand times the day he had the fatal idea of taking a tutor into his house, forgot the anonymous letter.

He consoled himself a little with an idea he did not tell his wife: with address and availing himself of the romantic ideas of the young man, he hoped to engage him, for a smaller sum, to refuse M. Valenod's offers.

Mme de Rênal had much more trouble proving to Julien that, making to her husband's conventions the sacrifice of a place of eight hundred francs which the director of the poorhouse publicly offered him, he could without shame accept a compensation.

--'But,' Julien always said, 'never have I had, even for an instant, the project of accepting those offers. You have too much accustomed me to elegant life; the coarseness of those people would kill me.'

Cruel necessity, with its hand of iron, bent Julien's will. His pride offered him the illusion of accepting only as a loan the sum offered by the mayor of Verrières, and of giving him a note payable in five years with interest.

Mme de Rênal always had some thousands of francs hidden in the little grotto of the mountain.

She offered them to him trembling, and feeling too well that she would be refused with anger.

--'Will you,' Julien said to her, 'render the memory of our loves abominable?'

At last Julien left Verrières. M. de Rênal was very happy at the fatal moment to accept money from him; this sacrifice proved too much for Julien. He refused flatly. M. de Rênal sprang to his neck with tears in his eyes. Julien having asked him for a certificate of good conduct, he found not in his enthusiasm terms magnificent enough to exalt his behavior. Our hero had five louis of savings and counted on asking a like sum of Fouqué.

He was much moved. But at a league from Verrières, where he left so much love, he thought no more than of the happiness of seeing a capital, a great war city like Besançon.

During this short absence of three days, Mme de Rênal was deceived by one of the cruellest deceptions of love. Her life was tolerable; there was between her and extreme unhappiness that last interview she was to have with Julien. She counted the hours, the minutes that separated her from it. At last, during the night of the third day, she heard from afar the agreed signal. After crossing a thousand dangers, Julien appeared before her.

From that moment, she had but one thought: it is for the last time that I see him. Far from responding to her friend's eagerness, she was like a corpse barely animated. If she forced herself to tell him she loved him, it was with an awkward air that proved almost the contrary. Nothing could distract her from the cruel idea of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien believed for an instant he was already forgotten. His words stung in this sense were met only with silent flowing tears, and almost convulsive hand-clasps.

--'But, great God! how do you wish me to believe you,' Julien answered the cold protests of his friend, 'you would show a hundred times more sincere friendship to Mme Derville, to a mere acquaintance.'

Mme de Rênal, petrified, knew not what to answer.

--'It is impossible to be more unhappy... I hope I am going to die... I feel my heart freezing...'

Such were the longest replies he could obtain from her.

When the approach of day made departure necessary, Mme de Rênal's tears ceased altogether. She saw him tie a rope knotted to the window without a word, without returning his kisses. In vain Julien said to her:

--'We are arrived at the state you so much wished. Henceforth you will live without remorse. At the least indisposition of your children, you will not see them in the tomb.'

--'I am sorry you cannot embrace Stanislas,' she said to him coldly.

Julien ended by being profoundly struck by the loveless embraces of this living corpse; he could think of nothing else for several leagues. His soul was wounded, and before crossing the mountain, as long as he could see the steeple of the church of Verrières, often he turned back.

CHAPTER XXIV

A CAPITAL

What noise, what busy people! what ideas for the future in a head of twenty years! what distraction for love!

BARNAVE.

At last he caught sight, on a distant mountain, of black walls; it was the citadel of Besançon. What a difference for me, said he sighing, if I arrived in this noble war city, to be sub-lieutenant in one of the regiments charged with defending it!

Besançon is not only one of the prettiest cities of France, it abounds in men of heart and wit. But Julien was only a little peasant and had no means of approaching the distinguished men.

He had taken at Fouqué's a bourgeois suit, and it is in this costume that he crossed the drawbridges. Full of the history of the siege of 1674, he wanted to see, before shutting himself up in the seminary, the ramparts and the citadel. Two or three times, he was on the point of getting himself arrested by the sentinels; he penetrated into places which military genius forbids to the public, in order to sell for twelve or fifteen francs of hay every year.

The height of the walls, the depth of the moats, the terrible air of the cannons had occupied him for several hours, when he passed before the great café on the boulevard. He remained motionless with admiration; though he read the word café, written in large characters above the two immense doors, he could not believe his eyes. He made an effort over his timidity; he dared enter, and found himself in a room thirty or forty paces long, and whose ceiling is raised at least twenty feet. That day, all was enchantment for him.

Two billiard games were going on. The waiters cried the points, the players ran around the billiards encumbered with spectators. Streams of tobacco smoke, issuing from the mouth of all, enveloped them in a blue cloud. The tall stature of these men, their rounded shoulders, their heavy gait, their enormous side-whiskers, the long redingotes that covered them, all attracted Julien's attention. These noble children of ancient Bisontium spoke only crying, they gave themselves the airs of terrible warriors. Julien admired immobile; he thought of the immensity and magnificence of a great capital such as Besançon. He felt by no means the courage to ask a cup of coffee of one of these gentlemen with haughty look, who cried the billiard points.

But the young lady at the counter had noticed the charming figure of this young country bourgeois, who, stopped three paces from the stove, and his little packet under his arm, was considering the bust of the king, in fine white plaster. This young lady, a tall Franc-comtoise, very well made, and dressed as is fitting to set off a café, had already said twice, in a little voice that sought to be heard only by Julien:

--'Sir! sir!'

Julien met large very tender blue eyes, and saw that it was to him she spoke.

He approached briskly the counter and the pretty girl, as he would have marched against the enemy. In this great movement, his packet fell.

What pity our provincial is going to inspire in the young lycéens of Paris who, at fifteen, already know how to enter a café with so distinguished an air! But these children, so well trained at fifteen, at eighteen turn common. The passionate timidity one meets in the provinces is sometimes overcome, and then it teaches one to will. In approaching this young girl so beautiful, who deigned address him, I must tell her the truth, thought Julien, who became courageous to the point of vanquished timidity.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”