Chapter Chapter 25 · THE SEMINARY

. He was within an ace two or three times

of getting himself arrested by the sentinel. He was penetrating into

places which military genius forbids the public to enter, in order to

sell twelve or fifteen francs worth of corn every year.

The height of the walls, the depth of the ditches, the terrible aspect

of the cannons had been engrossing him for several hours when he passed

before the great café on the boulevard. He was motionless with wonder;

it was in vain that he read the word _café_, written in big characters

above the two immense doors. He could not believe his eyes. He made an

effort to overcome his timidity. He dared to enter, and found himself

in a hall twenty or thirty yards long, and with a ceiling at least

twenty feet high. To-day, everything had a fascination for him.

Two games of billiards were in progress. The waiters were crying out

the scores. The players ran round the tables encumbered by spectators.

Clouds of tobacco smoke came from everybody's mouth, and enveloped them

in a blue haze. The high stature of these men, their rounded shoulders,

their heavy gait, their enormous whiskers, the long tailed coats which

covered them, everything combined to attract Julien's attention. These

noble children of the antique Bisontium only spoke at the top of their

voice. They gave themselves terrible martial airs. Julien stood still

and admired them. He kept thinking of the immensity and magnificence

of a great capital like Besançon. He felt absolutely devoid of the

requisite courage to ask one of those haughty looking gentlemen, who

were crying out the billiard scores, for a cup of coffee.

But the young lady at the bar had noticed the charming face of this

young civilian from the country, who had stopped three feet from

the stove with his little parcel under his arm, and was looking at

the fine white plaster bust of the king. This young lady, a big

_Franc-comtoise_, very well made, and dressed with the elegance

suitable to the prestige of the café, had already said two or three

times in a little voice not intended to be heard by any one except

Julien, "Monsieur, Monsieur." Julien's eyes encountered big blue eyes

full of tenderness, and saw that he was the person who was being spoken

to.

He sharply approached the bar and the pretty girl, as though he had

been marching towards the enemy. In this great manœuvre the parcel fell.

What pity will not our provincial inspire in the young lycée scholars

of Paris, who, at the early age of fifteen, know already how to enter

a café with so distinguished an air? But these children who have such

style at fifteen turn commonplace at eighteen. The impassioned timidity

which is met with in the provinces, sometimes manages to master its own

nervousness, and thus trains the will. "I must tell her the truth,"

thought Julien, who was becoming courageous by dint of conquering his

timidity as he approached this pretty girl, who deigned to address him.

"Madame, this is the first time in my life that I have come to

Besançon. I should like to have some bread and a cup of coffee in

return for payment."

The young lady smiled a little, and then blushed. She feared the ironic

attention and the jests of the billiard players might be turned against

this pretty young man. He would be frightened and would not appear

there again.

"Sit here near me," she said to him, showing him a marble table almost

completely hidden by the enormous mahogany counter which extended into

the hall.

The young lady leant over the counter, and had thus an opportunity of

displaying a superb figure. Julien noticed it. All his ideas changed.

The pretty young lady had just placed before him a cup, some sugar, and

a little roll. She hesitated to call a waiter for the coffee, as she

realised that his arrival would put an end to her _tête-à-tête_ with

Julien.

Julien was pensively comparing this blonde and merry beauty with

certain memories which would often thrill him. The thought of the

passion of which he had been the object, nearly freed him from all

his timidity. The pretty young woman had only one moment to save the

situation. She read it in Julien's looks.

"This pipe smoke makes you cough; come and have breakfast to-morrow

before eight o'clock in the morning. I am practically alone then."

"What is your name?" said Julien, with the caressing smile of happy

timidity.

"Amanda Binet."

"Will you allow me to send you within an hour's time a little parcel

about as big as this?"

The beautiful Amanda reflected a little.

"I am watched. What you ask may compromise me. All the same, I will

write my address on a card, which you will put on your parcel. Send it

boldly to me."

"My name is Julien Sorel," said the young man. "I have neither

relatives nor acquaintances at Besançon."

"Ah, I understand," she said joyfully. "You come to study law."

"Alas, no," answered Julien, "I am being sent to the Seminary."

The most complete discouragement damped Amanda's features. She called

a waiter. She had courage now. The waiter poured out some coffee for

Julien without looking at him.

Amanda was receiving money at the counter. Julien was proud of having

dared to speak: a dispute was going on at one of the billiard tables.

The cries and the protests of the players resounded over the immense

hall, and made a din which astonished Julien. Amanda was dreamy, and

kept her eyes lowered.

"If you like, Mademoiselle," he said to her suddenly with assurance, "I

will say that I am your cousin."

This little air of authority pleased Amanda. "He's not a mere nobody,"

she thought. She spoke to him very quickly, without looking at him,

because her eye was occupied in seeing if anybody was coming near the

counter.

"I come from Genlis, near Dijon. Say that you are also from Genlis and

are my mother's cousin."

"I shall not fail to do so."

"All the gentlemen who go to the Seminary pass here before the café

every Thursday in the summer at five o'clock."

"If you think of me when I am passing, have a bunch of violets in your

hand."

Amanda looked at him with an astonished air. This look changed Julien's

courage into audacity. Nevertheless, he reddened considerably, as he

said to her. "I feel that I love you with the most violent love."

"Speak in lower tones," she said to him with a frightened air.

Julien was trying to recollect phrases out of a volume of the _Nouvelle

Héloise_ which he had found at Vergy. His memory served him in good

stead. For ten minutes he recited the _Nouvelle Héloise_ to the

delighted Mademoiselle Amanda. He was happy on the strength of his own

bravery, when suddenly the beautiful Franc-comtoise assumed an icy

air. One of her lovers had appeared at the café door. He approached

the bar, whistling, and swaggering his shoulders. He looked at Julien.

The latter's imagination, which always indulged in extremes, suddenly

brimmed over with ideas of a duel. He paled greatly, put down his

cup, assumed an assured demeanour, and considered his rival very

attentively. As this rival lowered his head, while he familiarly poured

out on the counter a glass of brandy for himself, Amanda ordered Julien

with a look to lower his eyes. He obeyed, and for two minutes kept

motionless in his place, pale, resolute, and only thinking of what was

going to happen. He was truly happy at this moment. The rival had been

astonished by Julien's eyes. Gulping down his glass of brandy, he said

a few words to Amanda, placed his two hands in the pockets of his big

tail coat, and approached the billiard table, whistling, and looking at

Julien. The latter got up transported with rage, but he did not know

what to do in order to be offensive. He put down his little parcel, and

walked towards the billiard table with all the swagger he could muster.

It was in vain that prudence said to him, "but your ecclesiastical

career will be ruined by a duel immediately on top of your arrival at

Besançon."

"What does it matter. It shall never be said that I let an insolent

fellow go scot free."

Amanda saw his courage. It contrasted prettily with the simplicity of

his manners. She instantly preferred him to the big young man with the

tail coat. She got up, and while appearing to be following with her eye

somebody who was passing in the street, she went and quickly placed

herself between him and the billiard table.

"Take care not to look askance at that gentleman. He is my

brother-in-law."

"What does it matter? He looked at me."

"Do you want to make me unhappy? No doubt he looked at you, why it may

be he is going to speak to you. I told him that you were a relative of

my mother, and that you had arrived from Genlis. He is a Franc-contois,

and has never gone beyond Dôleon the Burgundy Road, so say what you

like and fear nothing."

Julien was still hesitating. Her barmaid's imagination furnished her

with an abundance of lies, and she quickly added.

"No doubt he looked at you, but it was at a moment when he was asking

me who you were. He is a man who is boorish with everyone. He did not

mean to insult you."

Julien's eye followed the pretended brother-in-law. He saw him buy a

ticket for the pool, which they were playing at the further of the

two billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice shouting out in a

threatening tone, "My turn to play."

He passed sharply before Madame Amanda, and took a step towards the

billiard table. Amanda seized him by the arm.

"Come and pay me first," she said to him.

"That is right," thought Julien. "She is frightened that I shall leave

without paying." Amanda was as agitated as he was, and very red. She

gave him the change as slowly as she could, while she repeated to him,

in a low voice,

"Leave the café this instant, or I shall love you no more, and yet I do

love you very much."

Julien did go out, but slowly. "Am I not in duty bound," he repeated

to himself, "to go and stare at that coarse person in my turn?" This

uncertainty kept him on the boulevard in the front of the café for an

hour; he kept looking if his man was coming out. He did not come out,

and Julien went away.

He had only been at Besançon some hours, and already he had overcome

one pang of remorse. The old surgeon-major had formerly given him some

fencing lessons, in spite of his gout. That was all the science which

Julien could enlist in the service of his anger. But this embarrassment

would have been nothing if he had only known how to vent his temper

otherwise than by the giving of a blow, for if it had come to a matter

of fisticuffs, his enormous rival would have beaten him and then

cleared out.

"There is not much difference between a seminary and a prison," said

Julien to himself, "for a poor devil like me, without protectors and

without money. I must leave my civilian clothes in some inn, where I

can put my black suit on again. If I ever manage to get out of the

seminary for a few hours, I shall be able to see Mdlle. Amanda again in

my lay clothes." This reasoning was all very fine. Though Julien passed

in front of all the inns, he did not dare to enter a single one.

Finally, as he was passing again before the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs, his

anxious eyes encountered those of a big woman, still fairly young, with

a high colour, and a gay and happy air. He approached her and told his

story.

"Certainly, my pretty little abbé," said the hostess of the

Ambassadeurs to him, "I will keep your lay clothes for you, and I will

even have them regularly brushed. In weather like this, it is not good

to leave a suit of cloth without touching it." She took a key, and

conducted him herself to a room, and advised him to make out a note of

what he was leaving.

"Good heavens. How well you look like that, M. the abbé Sorel," said

the big woman to him when he came down to the kitchen. I will go and

get a good dinner served up to you, and she added in a low voice, "It

will only cost twenty sous instead of the fifty which everybody else

pays, for one must really take care of your little purse strings."

"I have ten louis," Julien replied with certain pride.

"Oh, great heavens," answered the good hostess in alarm. "Don't talk

so loud, there are quite a lot of bad characters in Besançon. They'll

steal all that from you in less than no time, and above all, never go

into the cafés, they are filled with bad characters."

"Indeed," said Julien, to whom those words gave food for thought.

"Don't go anywhere else, except to my place. I will make coffee for

you. Remember that you will always find a friend here, and a good

dinner for twenty sous. So now you understand, I hope. Go and sit down

at table, I will serve you myself."

"I shan't be able to eat," said Julien to her. "I am too upset. I am

going to enter the seminary, as I leave you." The good woman, would not

allow him to leave before she had filled his pockets with provisions.

Finally Julien took his road towards the terrible place. The hostess

was standing at the threshold, and showed him the way.

Chapter 25. THE SEMINARY

Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at eighty-five

centimes. Three hundred and thirty-six suppers at fifty

centimes. Chocolate to those who are entitled to it. How

much profit can be made on the contract?--_Valenod of

Besançon_.

He saw in the distance the iron gilt cross on the door. He approached

slowly. His legs seemed to give way beneath him. "So here is this hell

upon earth which I shall be unable to leave."

Finally he made up his mind to ring. The noise of the bell reverberated

as though through a solitude. At the end of ten minutes a pale man,

clothed in black, came and opened the door. Julien looked at him, and

immediately lowered his eyes. This porter had a singular physiognomy.

The green projecting pupils of his eyes were as round as those of a

cat. The straight lines of his eyebrows betokened the impossibility of

any sympathy. His thin lips came round in a semicircle over projecting

teeth. None the less, his physiognomy did not so much betoken crime

as rather that perfect callousness which is so much more terrifying

to the young. The one sentiment which Julien's rapid gaze surmised in

this long and devout face was a profound contempt for every topic of

conversation which did not deal with things celestial. Julien raised

his eyes with an effort, and in a voice rendered quavering by the

beating of his heart explained that he desired to speak to M. Pirard,

the director of the Seminary. Without saying a word the man in black

signed to him to follow. They ascended two stories by a large staircase

with a wooden rail, whose warped stairs inclined to the side opposite

the wall, and seemed on the point of falling. A little door with a

big cemetery cross of white wood painted black at the top was opened

with difficulty, and the porter made him enter a dark low room, whose

whitewashed walls were decorated with two big pictures blackened by

age. In this room Julien was left alone. He was overwhelmed. His heart

was beating violently. He would have been happy to have ventured to

cry. A silence of death reigned over the whole house.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, which seemed a whole day to him,

the sinister looking porter reappeared on the threshold of a door at

the other end of the room, and without vouchsafing a word, signed to

him to advance. He entered into a room even larger than the first,

and very badly lighted. The walls also were whitened, but there was

no furniture. Only in a corner near the door Julien saw as he passed

a white wooden bed, two straw chairs, and a little pinewood armchair

without any cushions. He perceived at the other end of the room, near a

small window with yellow panes decorated with badly kept flower vases,

a man seated at a table, and covered with a dilapidated cassock. He

appeared to be in a temper, and took one after the other a number of

little squares of paper, which he arranged on his table after he had

written some words on them. He did not notice Julien's presence. The

latter did not move, but kept standing near the centre of the room in

the place where the porter, who had gone out and shut the door, had

left him.

Ten minutes passed in this way: the badly dressed man kept on writing

all the time. Julien's emotion and terror were so great that he thought

he was on the point of falling. A philosopher would have said, possibly

wrongly, "It is a violent impression made by ugliness on a soul

intended by nature to love the beautiful."

The man who was writing lifted up his head. Julien only perceived it

after a moment had passed, and even after seeing it, he still remained

motionless, as though struck dead by the terrible look of which he

was the victim. Julien's troubled eyes just managed to make out a

long face, all covered with red blotches except the forehead, which

manifested a mortal pallor. Two little black eyes, calculated to

terrify the most courageous, shone between these red cheeks and that

white forehead. The vast area of his forehead was bounded by thick,

flat, jet black hair.

"Will you come near, yes or no?" said the man at last, impatiently.

Julien advanced with an uneasy step, and at last, paler than he had

ever been in his life and on the point of falling, stopped three paces

from the little white wooden table which was covered with the squares

of paper.

"Nearer," said the man.

Julien advanced still further, holding out his hand, as though trying

to lean on something.

"Your name?"

"Julien Sorel."

"You are certainly very late," said the man to him, as he rivetted

again on him that terrible gaze.

Julien could not endure this look. Holding out his hand as though to

support himself, he fell all his length along the floor.

The man rang. Julien had only lost the use of his eyes and the power of

movement. He heard steps approaching.

He was lifted up and placed on the little armchair of white wood. He

heard the terrible man saying to the porter,

"He has had an epileptic fit apparently, and this is the finishing

touch."

When Julien was able to open his eyes, the man with the red face was

going on with his writing. The porter had disappeared. "I must have

courage," said our hero to himself, "and above all, hide what I feel."

He felt violently sick. "If anything happens to me, God knows what they

will think of me."

Finally the man stopped writing and looked sideways at Julien.

"Are you in a fit state to answer me?"

"Yes, sir," said Julien in an enfeebled voice.

"Ah, that's fortunate."

The man in black had half got up, and was looking impatiently for a

letter in the drawer of his pinewood table, which opened with a grind.

He found it, sat down slowly, and looking again at Julien in a manner

calculated to suck out of him the little life which he still possessed,

said,

"You have been recommended to me by M. Chélan. He was the best curé in

the diocese; he was an upright man if there ever was one, and my friend

for thirty years."

"Oh. It's to M. Pirard then that I have the honour of speaking?" said

Julien in a dying voice.

"Apparently," replied the director of the seminary, as he looked at him

disagreeably.

The glitter of his little eyes doubled and was followed by an

involuntary movement of the muscles of the corner of the mouth. It

was the physiognomy of the tiger savouring in advance the pleasure of

devouring its prey.

"Chélan's letter is short," he said, as though speaking to himself.

"_Intelligenti pauca_. In the present time it is impossible to write

too little." He read aloud:--

"I recommend to you Julien Sorel of this parish, whom

I baptized nearly twenty years ago, the son of a rich

carpenter who gives him nothing. Julien will be a

remarkable worker in the vineyard of the Lord. He lacks

neither memory nor intelligence; he has some faculty

for reflection. Will he persevere in his calling? Is he

sincere?"

"Sincere," repeated the abbé Pirard with an astonished air, looking at

Julien. But the abbé's look was already less devoid of all humanity.

"Sincere," he repeated, lowering his voice, and resuming his reading:--

"I ask you for a stipend for Julien Sorel. He will earn

it by passing the necessary examinations. I have taught

him a little theology, that old and good theology of the

Bossuets, the Arnaults, and the Fleury's. If the person

does not suit you, send him back to me. The director

of the workhouse, whom you know well, offers him eight

hundred to be tutor to his children. My inner self is

tranquil, thanks to God. I am accustoming myself to the

terrible blow, 'Vale et me ama.'"

The abbé Pirard, speaking more slowly as he read the signature,

pronounced with a sigh the word, "Chélan."

"He is tranquil," he said, "in fact his righteousness deserves such a

recompense. May God grant it to me in such a case." He looked up to

heaven and made the sign of the cross. At the sight of that sacred sign

Julien felt an alleviation of the profound horror which had frozen him

since his entry into the house.

"I have here three hundred and twenty-one aspirants for the most holy

state," said the abbé Pirard at last, in a tone, which though severe,

was not malicious; "only seven or eight have been recommended to me by

such men as the abbé Chélan; so you will be the ninth of these among

the three hundred and twenty-one. But my protection means neither

favour nor weakness, it means doubled care, and doubled severity

against vice. Go and lock that door."

Julian made an effort to walk, and managed not to fall. He noticed that

a little window near the entrance door looked out on to the country.

He saw the trees; that sight did him as much good as the sight of old

friends.

"'Loquerisne linquam latinam?'" (Do you speak Latin?) said the abbé

Pirard to him as he came back.

"'Ita, pater optime,'" (Yes, excellent Father) answered Julien,

recovering himself a little. But it was certain that nobody in the

world had ever appeared to him less excellent than had M. Pirard for

the last half hour.

The conversation continued in Latin. The expression in the abbé's eyes

softened. Julien regained some self-possession. "How weak I am," he

thought, "to let myself be imposed on by these appearances of virtue.

The man is probably nothing more than a rascal, like M. Maslon," and

Julien congratulated himself on having hidden nearly all his money in

his boots.

The abbé Pirard examined Julien in theology; he was surprised at

the extent of his knowledge, but his astonishment increased when he

questioned him in particular on sacred scriptures. But when it came to

questions of the doctrines of the Fathers, he perceived that Julien

scarcely even knew the names of Saint Jerome, Saint Augustin, Saint

Bonaventure, Saint Basile, etc., etc.

"As a matter of fact," thought the abbé Pirard, "this is simply that

fatal tendency to Protestantism for which I have always reproached

Chélan. A profound, and only too profound knowledge of the Holy

Scriptures."

(Julien had just started speaking to him, without being questioned on

the point, about the real time when Genesis, the Pentateuch, etc., has

been written).

"To what does this never-ending reasoning over the Holy Scriptures lead

to?" thought the abbé Pirard, "if not to self-examination, that is to

say, the most awful Protestantism. And by the side of this imprudent

knowledge, nothing about the Fathers to compensate for that tendency."

But the astonishment of the director of the seminary was quite

unbounded when having questioned Julien about the authority of the

Pope, and expecting to hear the maxims of the ancient Gallican Church,

the young man recited to him the whole book of M. de Maistre "Strange

man, that Chélan," thought the abbé Pirard. "Did he show him the book

simply to teach him to make fun of it?"

It was in vain that he questioned Julien and endeavoured to guess if

he seriously believed in the doctrine of M. de Maistre. The young man

only answered what he had learnt by heart. From this moment Julien was

really happy. He felt that he was master of himself. After a very long

examination, it seemed to him that M. Pirard's severity towards him was

only affected. Indeed, the director of the seminary would have embraced

Julien in the name of logic, for he found so much clearness, precision

and lucidity in his answers, had it not been for the principles of

austere gravity towards his theology pupils which he had inculcated in

himself for the last fifteen years.

"Here we have a bold and healthy mind," he said to himself, "but corpus

debile" (the body is weak).

"Do you often fall like that?" he said to Julien in French, pointing

with his finger to the floor.

"It's the first time in my life. The porter's face unnerved me," added

Julien, blushing like a child. The abbé Pirard almost smiled.

"That's the result of vain worldly pomp. You are apparently accustomed

to smiling faces, those veritable theatres of falsehood. Truth is

austere, Monsieur, but is not our task down here also austere? You must

be careful that your conscience guards against that weakness of yours,

too much sensibility to vain external graces."

"If you had not been recommended to me," said the abbé Pirard, resuming

the Latin language with an obvious pleasure, "If you had not been

recommended by a man, by the abbé Chélan, I would talk to you the vain

language of that world, to which it would appear you are only too well

accustomed. I would tell you that the full stipend which you solicit

is the most difficult thing in the world to obtain. But the fifty-six

years which the abbé Chélan has spent in apostolic work have stood him

in poor stead if he cannot dispose of a stipend at the seminary."

After these words, the abbé Pirard recommended Julien not to enter any

secret society or congregation without his consent.

"I give you my word of honour," said Julien, with all an honest man's

expansion of heart. The director of the seminary smiled for the first

time.

"That expression is not used here," he said to him. "It is too

reminiscent of that vain honour of worldly people, which leads them to

so many errors and often to so many crimes. You owe me obedience by

virtue of paragraph seventeen of the bull Unam Eccesiam of St. Pius the

Fifth. I am your ecclesiastical superior. To hear in this house, my

dear son, is to obey. How much money, have you?"

("So here we are," said Julien to himself, "that was the reason of the

'my very dear son')."

"Thirty-five francs, my father."

"Write out carefully how you use that money. You will have to give me

an account of it."

This painful audience had lasted three hours. Julien summoned the

porter.

"Go and install Julien Sorel in cell No. 103," said the abbé Pirard to

the man.

As a great favour he let Julien have a place all to himself. "Carry his

box there," he added.

Julien lowered his eyes, and recognised his box just in front of him.

He had been looking at it for three hours and had not recognised it.

As he arrived at No. 103, which was a little room eight feet square on

the top story of the house, Julien noticed that it looked out on to the

ramparts, and he perceived beyond them the pretty plain which the Doubs

divides from the town.

"What a charming view!" exclaimed Julien. In speaking like this he did

not feel what the words actually expressed. The violent sensations

which he had experienced during the short time that he had been at

Besançon had absolutely exhausted his strength. He sat down near the

window on the one wooden chair in the cell, and fell at once into a

profound sleep. He did not hear either the supper bell or the bell for

benediction. They had forgotten him. When the first rays of the sun

woke him up the following morning, he found himself lying on the floor.