Chapter Chapter 11 · AN EVENING

. 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 Verrières. As

Julien left the curé 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

Rênal. 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withdrawn in a manner which indicated displeasure.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 Rênal 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 Rênal should abandon her hand to him.

M. de Rênal was talking politics with vehemence; two or three

commercial men in Verrières 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 Rênal. 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 Rênal 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 Rênal 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 Rênal. 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 Rênal 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 naïve 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 Verrières,

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 Fouqué. If he refuses me I will threaten to give

him notice, but he will yield the point."

Madame de Rênal 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 Verrières, with a placard to explain her adultery

to the populace.

Madame de Rênal 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 Rênal 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 Rênal 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 Rênal made the

virtuous resolution to treat Julien with absolute coldness when she saw

him again.