Part 2

She was a naïve soul, who had never even risen to the point of judging her husband, or of admitting to herself that he bored her. She took for granted, without putting it into words, that between husband and wife there could be no sweeter relations. She loved M. de Rênal especially when he spoke to her of his plans for their children, one of whom he destined for the sword, the second for the magistracy, and the third for the Church. On the whole, she found M. de Rênal far less boring than all the men she knew.

This conjugal judgment was reasonable. The mayor of Verrières owed his reputation for wit, and above all for good breeding, to some half-dozen jokes which he had inherited from an uncle. The old Captain de Rênal had served before the Revolution in the infantry regiment of the Duke of Orléans, and, when he went to Paris, was admitted to the salons of the prince. There he had seen Mme de Montesson, the famous Mme de Genlis, M. Ducrest, the inventor of the Palais-Royal. These personages reappeared all too often in M. de Rênal's anecdotes. But little by little this recollection of matters so delicate to relate had become a labour for him, and for some time past he repeated his anecdotes relating to the house of Orléans only on great occasions. As, moreover, he was extremely polite, except when money was spoken of, he was, with reason, considered the most aristocratic figure in Verrières.

CHAPTER IV

A FATHER AND A SON

E sarà mia colpa, Se cosi è?

MACHIAVELLI

My wife really has a great deal of sense! said the mayor of Verrières to himself, at six o'clock the next morning, as he went down to Father Sorel's sawmill. Although I told her so, to preserve the superiority that belongs to me, I had not thought that if I do not take this little abbé Sorel, who they say knows Latin like an angel, the director of the poorhouse, that restless soul, might very well have the same idea as myself and carry him off from me. With what an air of self-sufficiency he would speak of the tutor of his children!... Once this tutor is mine, will he wear the cassock?

M. de Rênal was absorbed in this doubt, when he saw in the distance a peasant, a man of nearly six feet, who, from the first light of day, seemed very busy measuring logs of wood deposited along the Doubs, on the towing-path. The peasant did not appear at all pleased to see M. le maire approaching; for these logs obstructed the path, and had been placed there in contravention of the regulations.

It was Father Sorel, for it was he, and he was very much surprised, and still more pleased, at the singular proposal M. de Rênal made to him regarding his son Julien. He listened to it none the less with that air of discontented melancholy and disinterestedness which the cunning of the inhabitants of these mountains knows so well how to assume. Slaves during the period of Spanish domination, they still retain this trait of the physiognomy of the Egyptian fellah.

Sorel's reply was at first but the long recitation of all the formulas of respect which he knew by heart. While he repeated these vain words, with an awkward smile which increased the air of falseness and almost of roguery natural to his countenance, the active mind of the old peasant sought to discover what reason could induce a man so considerable to take his good-for-nothing son into his house. He was very dissatisfied with Julien, and it was for him that M. de Rênal offered him the unexpected wage of three hundred francs a year, with food and even clothing. This last pretension, which Father Sorel had had the genius to put forward suddenly, had been granted likewise by M. de Rênal.

This demand struck the mayor. Since Sorel is not ravished and overwhelmed by my proposal, as naturally he ought to be, it is clear, said he to himself, that offers have been made to him from another quarter, and from whom can they come, if not from Valenod? It was in vain that M. de Rênal pressed Sorel to conclude on the spot: the cunning of the old peasant obstinately refused; he wished, he said, to consult his son, as if, in the provinces, a rich father consulted a son who had nothing, otherwise than for form's sake.

A water-saw consists of a shed at the edge of a stream. The roof is supported by a timber frame resting on four great wooden posts. At eight or ten feet in height, in the middle of the shed, one sees a saw which rises and falls, while a very simple mechanism pushes a piece of wood against this saw. It is a wheel set in motion by the stream which works this double mechanism, that of the saw which rises and falls, and that which gently pushes the piece of wood toward the saw, which cuts it into planks.

As he approached his works, Father Sorel called Julien in his stentorian voice; no one answered. He saw only his eldest sons, species of giants who, armed with heavy axes, squared the trunks of fir, which they were about to carry to the saw. Quite occupied in exactly following the black mark traced upon the piece of wood, each blow of their axe separated enormous shavings from it. They did not hear their father's voice. The latter directed his steps toward the shed; on entering, he sought vainly for Julien at the place he ought to have occupied, beside the saw. He caught sight of him five or six feet higher up, astride one of the pieces of the roofing. Instead of attentively supervising the action of the whole mechanism, Julien was reading. Nothing was more antipathetic to old Sorel; he might perhaps have pardoned Julien his slender build, little suited to labour of strength, and so different from that of his elder brothers; but this mania for reading was odious to him, he himself did not know how to read.

It was in vain that he called Julien two or three times. The attention the young man gave to his book! far more than the noise of the saw prevented him from hearing his father's terrible voice. At last, despite his age, the latter sprang lightly onto the tree subjected to the action of the saw, and from there onto the transverse beam which supported the roof. A violent blow sent flying into the stream the book Julien was holding; a second blow, equally violent, given on the head, in the form of a cuff, made him lose his balance. He was about to fall twelve or fifteen feet lower, amid the levers of the machine in motion, which would have broken him, but his father held him back with his left hand, as he fell.

'Well, lazy fellow! will you never stop reading your cursed books, while you are on watch at the saw? Read them in the evening, when you go to waste your time at the curé's, that's all very well.'

Julien, though stunned by the force of the blow, and all bloody, drew near to his official post, beside the saw. He had tears in his eyes, less from physical pain than from the loss of his beloved book.

'Come down, you brute, I want to speak to you.'

The noise of the machine again prevented Julien from hearing this order. His father, who had come down, not wishing to take the trouble to climb back onto the mechanism, went to look for a long pole used for knocking down walnuts, and struck him on the shoulder with it. Scarcely was Julien on the ground, than old Sorel, driving him roughly before him, pushed him toward the house. God knows what he is going to do to me! said the young man to himself. As he passed, he looked sadly at the stream where his book had fallen; it was the one of all he loved most, the Memorial of Saint Helena.

He had flushed cheeks and downcast eyes. He was a young man of eighteen to nineteen years, slight in appearance, with irregular but delicate features, and an aquiline nose. Large black eyes, which, in moments of calm, announced reflection and fire, were animated at this instant with the expression of the fiercest hatred. Dark chestnut hair, set very low, gave him a small forehead, and, in moments of anger, a spiteful air. Among the innumerable varieties of the human countenance, there is perhaps none which has distinguished itself by a more striking speciality. A slender and well-made figure announced more of lightness than of strength. From his earliest youth his extremely pensive air and great paleness had given his father the idea that he would not live, or that he would live to be a burden to his family. Object of the contempt of all in the house, he hated his brothers and his father; in the games of Sunday, on the public square, he was always beaten.

It was not a year since his pretty face began to win him a few friendly voices among the young girls. Despised by everyone as a weak being, Julien had adored the old surgeon-major who one day dared to speak to the mayor about the plane-trees.

This surgeon sometimes paid Father Sorel for his son's day, and taught him Latin and history—that is to say, what he knew of history, the campaign of 1796 in Italy. On his death, he had bequeathed him his Legion of Honour cross, the arrears of his half-pay, and thirty or forty volumes, of which the most precious had just made the leap into the public stream, diverted by the credit of M. le maire.

Scarcely entered into the house, Julien felt his shoulder arrested by his father's powerful hand; he trembled, expecting some blows.

'Answer me without lying,' cried the harsh voice of the old peasant in his ear, while his hand turned him about as the hand of a child turns a lead soldier. Julien's great black eyes, full of tears, found themselves face to face with the little grey and malicious eyes of the old carpenter, who seemed to wish to read to the bottom of his soul.

CHAPTER V

A NEGOTIATION

Cunctando restituit rem.

ENNIUS.

'Answer me without lying, if you can, you hound of a reader, whence do you know Mme de Rênal, when have you spoken to her?'

'I have never spoken to her,' answered Julien; 'I have never seen that lady except at church.'

'But you will have looked at her, you shameless knave?'

'Never! You know that at church I see only God,' added Julien, with a little hypocritical air, well suited, according to him, to ward off the return of the cuffs.

'There is nevertheless something underneath all this,' replied the cunning peasant, and he was silent for an instant; 'but I shall learn nothing from you, you cursed sneak. In fact, I am going to be rid of you, and my saw will be none the worse for it. You have won over M. le curé or some other who has procured you a fine place. Go make your bundle, and I will take you to M. de Rênal, where you will be tutor to the children.'

'What shall I have for that?'

'Food, clothing, and three hundred francs in wages.'

'I will not be a domestic.'

'Animal, who speaks to you of being a domestic? would I wish my son to be a domestic?'

'But, with whom shall I eat?'

This question disconcerted old Sorel; he felt that in speaking he might commit some imprudence; he flew into a passion against Julien, whom he overwhelmed with insults, accusing him of gluttony, and left him to go and consult his other sons.

Julien saw them soon after, each leaning on his axe and holding counsel. After looking at them for a long time, Julien, unable to guess anything, went to place himself on the other side of the saw, to avoid being taken by surprise. He wished to think maturely upon this unforeseen announcement which changed his fate, but he felt incapable of prudence; his imagination was wholly taken up with picturing to himself what he should see in the fine house of M. de Rênal.

'I must renounce all that,' said he to himself, 'rather than let myself be reduced to eating with the servants. My father will wish to force me to it; rather die. I have fifteen francs eight sous in savings; I shall escape tonight; in two days, by cross-roads where I fear no gendarme, I am at Besançon; there I shall enlist as a soldier, and, if need be, cross into Switzerland. But then no more advancement, no more ambition for me, no more that fine estate of priest which leads to everything.'

This horror of eating with the servants was not natural to Julien; he would have done, to arrive at fortune, things far more painful. He drew this repugnance from the Confessions of Rousseau. It was the only book by the aid of which his imagination figured to itself the world. The collection of the bulletins of the great army and the Memorial of Saint Helena completed his Koran. He would have let himself be killed for these three works. Never did he believe in any other. According to a word of the old surgeon-major, he regarded all the other books in the world as lying, and written by knaves to gain advancement.

With a soul of fire, Julien had one of those astonishing memories so often united with stupidity. To win over the old curé Chélan, on whom he clearly saw his future fate depended, he had learned by heart the whole of the New Testament in Latin; he also knew M. de Maistre's book The Pope, and believed in the one as little as in the other.

As by mutual agreement, Sorel and his son avoided speaking to each other that day. At nightfall, Julien went to take his theology lesson at the curé's, but he did not judge it prudent to say anything to him of the strange proposal that had been made to his father. Perhaps it is a trap, said he to himself; I must pretend to have forgotten it.

Early the next morning, M. de Rênal sent for old Sorel, who, after keeping him waiting an hour or two, finally arrived, making from the door a hundred excuses, intermingled with as many reverences. By dint of running through all sorts of objections, Sorel understood that his son would eat with the master and mistress of the house, and on days when there was company, alone in a separate room with the children. Ever more disposed to haggle as he perceived a real eagerness in M. le maire, and besides filled with distrust and astonishment, Sorel asked to see the room where his son would sleep. It was a large room furnished very neatly, but into which they were already busy transporting the beds of the three children.

This circumstance was a ray of light to the old peasant; he at once asked with assurance to see the suit of clothes that would be given to his son. M. de Rênal opened his desk and took out a hundred francs.

'With this money, your son will go to M. Durand, the draper, and order a complete black suit.'

'And even if I were to take him away from you,' said the peasant, who had suddenly forgotten his reverential manners, 'this black suit would remain his?'

'Undoubtedly.'

'Oh! well,' said Sorel, in a drawling tone, 'there remains then only to agree on one thing, the money you will give him.'

'What! cried M. de Rênal indignantly, we have been agreed since yesterday: I give three hundred francs; I think that is a great deal, and perhaps too much.'

'That was your offer, I do not deny it,' said old Sorel, speaking still more slowly, and, by an effort of genius which will astonish only those who do not know the Franche-Comté peasants, he added, looking fixedly at M. de Rênal: 'We find better elsewhere.'

At these words, the mayor's face was overthrown. He recovered himself, however, and, after a learned conversation of two full hours, in which not a word was spoken at random, the cunning of the peasant prevailed over the cunning of the rich man, who has no need of it to live. All the numerous articles, which were to regulate Julien's new existence, were settled; not only were his wages fixed at four hundred francs, but they had to be paid in advance, on the first of each month.

'Well, I shall give him thirty-five francs,' said M. de Rênal.

'To make the round sum, a rich and generous man like our mayor,' said the peasant in a coaxing voice, 'will surely go as far as thirty-six francs.'

'So be it,' said M. de Rênal, 'but let us finish. This time, anger gave him the tone of firmness. The peasant saw that he must cease to advance. Then, in his turn, M. de Rênal made progress. Never would he consent to hand over the first month of thirty-six francs to old Sorel, very eager to receive it for his son. M. de Rênal came to think that he should be obliged to relate to his wife the part he had played in this whole negotiation.

'Give me back the hundred francs I gave you,' he said with ill-humour. 'M. Durand owes me something. I shall go with your son to order the black cloth.'

After this act of vigour, Sorel prudently returned to his respectful formulas; they took a good quarter of an hour. At last, seeing that there was decidedly nothing more to gain, he withdrew. His final reverence ended with these words:

'I am going to send my son to the château.'

This was how the administered of M. le maire called his house when they wished to please him.

Back at his works, Sorel sought his son in vain. Suspecting what might happen, Julien had gone out in the middle of the night. He had wished to put in safety his books and his Legion of Honour cross. He had transported the whole to the house of a young timber-merchant, his friend, named Fouqué, who dwelt in the high mountain which dominates Verrières.

When he reappeared:

'God knows, you cursed lazy fellow,' said his father to him, 'whether you will ever have enough honour to pay me the price of your food, which I have advanced for so many years! Take your rags, and go to M. le maire.'

Julien, astonished at not being beaten, hastened to depart. But scarcely out of sight of his terrible father, he slackened his pace. He judged that it would be useful to his hypocrisy to make a station at the church.

Does this word surprise you? Before arriving at this horrible word, the soul of the young peasant had had much ground to cover.

From his earliest childhood, the sight of certain dragoons of the 6th, with their long white cloaks, and their heads covered with helmets with long black plumes, who returned from Italy and whom Julien saw tying their horses to the barred window of his father's house, made him mad for the military state. Later, he listened with transport to the tales of the battles of the bridge of Lodi, of Arcole, of Rivoli, which the old surgeon-major told him. He noticed the inflamed glances the old man cast upon his cross.

[*] The author was a sub-lieutenant in the 6th dragoons in 1800.

But when Julien was fourteen, they began to build at Verrières a church, which may be called magnificent for so small a town. There were above all four marble columns whose sight struck Julien; they became celebrated in the country, by the mortal hatred they aroused between the justice of the peace and the young vicar, sent from Besançon, who passed for the spy of the congregation. The justice of the peace was on the point of losing his place, at least such was the common opinion. Had he not dared to have a difference with a priest, who, almost every fortnight, went to Besançon, where he saw, it was said, Monseigneur the bishop?

Meanwhile, the justice of the peace, father of a numerous family, gave several sentences which seemed unjust; all were given against those of the inhabitants who read the Constitutionnel. The good party triumphed. It was true that it was only a matter of sums of three or five francs; but one of these small fines had to be paid by a nail-maker, godfather of Julien. In his anger this man cried: What a change! and to think that, for more than twenty years, the justice of the peace passed for such an honest man! The surgeon-major, friend of Julien, was dead.

Suddenly Julien ceased to speak of Napoleon; he announced the project of making himself a priest, and he was seen constantly, in his father's sawmill, occupied in learning by heart a Latin bible which the curé had lent him. This good old man, astonished at his progress, passed whole evenings teaching him theology. Julien showed before him only pious sentiments. Who could have guessed that this girlish face, so pale and so gentle, hid the unshakable resolution to expose himself to a thousand deaths rather than not make his fortune?

For Julien, to make his fortune was first to leave Verrières; he abhorred his native place. All that he saw there froze his imagination.

From his earliest childhood, he had had moments of exaltation. Then he thought with delight that one day he should be presented to the pretty women of Paris; he should know how to attract their attention by some brilliant action. Why should he not be loved by one of them, as Bonaparte, still poor, had been loved by the brilliant Mme de Beauharnais? For many years, Julien perhaps did not pass an hour of his life without saying to himself that Bonaparte, an obscure and penniless lieutenant, had made himself master of the world with his sword. This idea consoled him for his misfortunes, which he believed great, and redoubled his joy when he had any.

The building of the church and the sentences of the justice of the peace enlightened him all at once; an idea which came to him made him like one mad for some weeks, and at last seized him with the omnipotence of the first idea which a passionate soul believes it has invented.

When Bonaparte made himself spoken of, France was afraid of being invaded; military merit was necessary and in fashion. Today, we see priests, of forty years, have a hundred thousand francs in salary, that is to say three times as much as the famous divisional generals of Napoleon. They need men to second them. There is that justice of the peace, such a good head, such an honest man until now, so old, who dishonours himself for fear of displeasing a young vicar of thirty. One must be a priest.

Once, in the midst of his new piety—it was already two years that Julien had studied theology—he was betrayed by a sudden irruption of the fire which devoured his soul. It was at M. Chélan's, at a dinner of priests to which the good curé had presented him as a prodigy of learning; it happened to him to praise Napoleon with fury. He bound his right arm against his chest, pretended to have dislocated his arm in moving a fir trunk, and carried it for two months in that constrained position. After this afflictive penance, he pardoned himself. Such was the young man of nineteen years, but slight in appearance, and to whom one would have given at most seventeen, who, carrying a small packet under his arm, entered the magnificent church of Verrières.

He found it dark and solitary. On the occasion of a feast, all the windows of the edifice had been covered with crimson cloth. There resulted, in the rays of the sun, a dazzling effect of light, of the most imposing and most religious character. Julien trembled. Alone in the church, he established himself in the pew which had the finest appearance. It bore the arms of M. de Rênal.

On the prayer-desk, Julien noticed a printed scrap of paper, spread there as if to be read. He cast his eyes upon it and saw:

'Details of the execution and last moments of Louis Jenrel, executed at Besançon, the...'

The paper was torn. On the back one read the first two words of a line; they were: 'The first step.'

'Who could have put this paper there?' said Julien. 'Poor wretch,' he added with a sigh, 'his name ends like mine...' and he crumpled the paper.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”