Bab Bab 19 · THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING

. THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING

The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real

unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_.

As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la

Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in

four. He read at the bottom of the first page "To His Excellency M.

le Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the

King, etc. etc." It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook.

"Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles

all my life. I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at

the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory. I

communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial

church. I have never missed the paschal duty, even in

'93 of execrable memory. My cook used to keep servants

before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays. I am

universally respected in Verrières, and I venture to

say I deserve to be so. I walk under the canopy in the

processions at the side of the curé and of the mayor. On

great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own

expense.

"I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment

of Verrières, which in one way or another is bound to

be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and

moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De

Cholin."

In the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed "de Moirod"

which began with this line, "I have had the honour, the worthy person

who makes this request."

"So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things,"

said Julien to himself.

Eight days after the passage of the King of ---- through Verrières,

the one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods,

foolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had

had successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole,

the ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who,

hoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was

the absolute indecency of having _foisted_ Julien Sorel, a carpenter's

son, into the Guard of Honour. You should have heard on this point the

rich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl

themselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the

café. That haughty woman, Madame de Rênal, was of course responsible

for this abomination. The reason? The fine eyes and fresh complexion of

the little abbé Sorel explained everything else.

A short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of

the children, caught the fever; Madame de Rênal was suddenly attacked

by an awful remorse. For the first time she reproached herself for her

love with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle

the enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept. Up to

that moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the

greatness of her crime in the eyes of God.

In former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of

the Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with

equal intensity. The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the

more awful in that her fear was quite irrational. Julien found that

the least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the

illness the language of hell. Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of

the little Stanislas.

It soon assumed a serious character. Then incessant remorse deprived

Madame de Rênal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a

gloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to

confess her crime to God and mankind.

"I urge you," said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, "not to

speak to anyone. Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings. If

you still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take

away our Stanislas' fever." But his consolations produced no effect.

He did not know that Madame de Rênal had got it into her head that, in

order to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to

hate Julien, or let her son die. It was because she felt she could not

hate her lover that she was so unhappy.

"Fly from me," she said one day to Julien. "In the name of God leave

this house. It is your presence here which kills my son. God punishes

me," she added in a low voice. "He is just. I admire his fairness.

My crime is awful, and I was living without remorse," she exclaimed.

"That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly

punished."

Julien was profoundly touched. He could see in this neither hypocrisy

nor exaggeration. "She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me,

and all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. I cannot

doubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments

of hers have real greatness. But how could I have inspired such a love,

I who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so

coarse in my manners?"

One night the child was extremely ill. At about two o'clock in the

morning, M. de Rênal came to see it. The child consumed by fever, and

extremely flushed, could not recognise its father. Suddenly Madame de

Rênal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was

going to confess everything and ruin herself for ever.

Fortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Rênal.

"Adieu! Adieu!" he said, going away.

"No, listen to me," cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to

hold him back. "Hear the whole truth. It is I who am killing my son. I

gave him life, and I am taking it back. Heaven is punishing me. In the

eyes of God I am guilty of murder. It is necessary that I should ruin

and humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord."

If M. de Rênal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have

realized everything.

"Romantic nonsense," he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to

embrace his knees. "All that is romantic nonsense! Julien, go and fetch

the doctor at daybreak," and he went back to bed. Madame de Rênal fell

on her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical

gesture.

Julien was astonished.

"So this is what adultery is," he said to himself. "Is it possible

that those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit

so many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true

theory of sin? How droll!"

For twenty minutes after M. de Rênal had gone back to bed, Julien saw

the woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed,

motionless, and almost unconscious. "There," he said to himself, "is

a woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness

simply because she has known me."

"Time moves quickly. What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I

have not got simply myself to consider now. What do I care for men and

their buffooneries? What can I do for her? Leave her? But I should be

leaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief. That automaton

of a husband is more harm to her than good. He is so coarse that he is

bound to speak harshly to her. She may go mad and throw herself out of

the window."

"If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess

everything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to

bring him, he will create a scandal. She may confess everything (great

God) to that scoundrel of an abbé who makes the illness of a child

of six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a

purpose either. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she

knows of the man; she only sees the priest."

"Go away," said Madame de Rênal suddenly to him, opening her eyes.

"I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most

use to you," answered Julien. "I have never loved you so much, my dear

angel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore

you as you deserve to be adored. What would become of me far from you,

and with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have

done? But don't let my suffering come into the matter. I will go--yes,

my love! But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be

incessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything.

You will ruin yourself. Remember that he will hound you out of his

house in disgrace. Besançon will talk of the scandal. You will be said

to be absolutely in the wrong. You will never lift up your head again

after that shame."

"That's what I ask," she cried, standing up. "I shall suffer, so much

the better."

"But you will also make him unhappy through that awful scandal."

"But I shall be humiliating myself, throwing myself into the mire, and

by those means, perhaps, I shall save my son. Such a humiliation in the

eyes of all is perhaps to be regarded as a public penitence. So far as

my weak judgment goes, is it not the greatest sacrifice that I can make

to God?--perhaps He will deign to accept my humiliation, and to leave

me my son. Show me another sacrifice which is more painful and I will

rush to it."

"Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Do you wish me to retire to the

Trappist Monastery? The austerity of that life may appease your God.

Oh, heaven, why cannot I take Stanislas's illness upon myself?"

"Ah, do you love him then," said Madame de Rênal, getting up and

throwing herself in his arms.

At the same time she repelled him with horror.

"I believe you! I believe you! Oh, my one friend," she cried falling on

her knees again. "Why are you not the father of Stanislas? In that case

it would not be a terrible sin to love you more than your son."

"Won't you allow me to stay and love you henceforth like a brother? It

is the only rational atonement. It may appease the wrath of the Most

High."

"Am I," she cried, getting up and taking Julien's head between her two

hands, and holding it some distance from her. "Am I to love you as if

you were a brother? Is it in my power to love you like that?" Julien

melted into tears.

"I will obey you," he said, falling at her feet. "I will obey you in

whatever you order me. That is all there is left for me to do. My mind

is struck with blindness. I do not see any course to take. If I leave

you you will tell your husband everything. You will ruin yourself

and him as well. He will never be nominated deputy after incurring

such ridicule. If I stay, you will think I am the cause of your son's

death, and you will die of grief. Do you wish to try the effect of my

departure. If you wish, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you

for eight days. I will pass them in any retreat you like. In the abbey

of Bray-le-Haut, for instance. But swear that you will say nothing to

your husband during my absence. Remember that if you speak I shall

never be able to come back."

She promised and he left, but was called back at the end of two days.

"It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to

my husband if you are not constantly there to enjoin me to silence by

your looks. Every hour of this abominable life seems to last a day."

Finally heaven had pity on this unfortunate mother. Little by little

Stanislas got out of danger. But the ice was broken. Her reason had

realised the extent of her sin. She could not recover her equilibrium

again. Her pangs of remorse remained, and were what they ought to have

been in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell: hell when she

did not see Julien; heaven when she was at his feet.

"I do not deceive myself any more," she would say to him, even during

the moments when she dared to surrender herself to his full love. "I

am damned, irrevocably damned. You are young, heaven may forgive you,

but I, I am damned. I know it by a certain sign. I am afraid, who would

not be afraid at the sight of hell? but at the bottom of my heart I

do not repent at all. I would commit my sin over again if I had the

opportunity. If heaven will only forbear to punish me in this world and

through my children, I shall have more than I deserve. But you, at any

rate, my Julien," she would cry at other moments, "are you happy? Do

you think I love you enough?"

The suspiciousness and morbid pride of Julien, who needed, above all,

a self-sacrificing love, altogether vanished when he saw at every hour

of the day so great and indisputable a sacrifice. He adored Madame

de Rênal. "It makes no difference her being noble, and my being a

labourer's son. She loves me.... she does not regard me as a valet

charged with the functions of a lover." That fear once dismissed,

Julien fell into all the madness of love, into all its deadly

uncertainties.

"At any rate," she would cry, seeing his doubts of her love, "let me

feel quite happy during the three days we still have together. Let us

make haste; perhaps to-morrow will be too late. If heaven strikes me

through my children, it will be in vain that I shall try only to live

to love you, and to be blind to the fact that it is my crime which has

killed them. I could not survive that blow. Even if I wished I could

not; I should go mad."

"Ah, if only I could take your sin on myself as you so generously

offered to take Stanislas' burning fever!"

This great moral crisis changed the character of the sentiment

which united Julien and his mistress. His love was no longer simply

admiration for her beauty, and the pride of possessing her.

Henceforth their happiness was of a quite superior character. The flame

which consumed them was more intense. They had transports filled with

madness. Judged by the worldly standard their happiness would have

appeared intensified. But they no longer found that delicious serenity,

that cloudless happiness, that facile joy of the first period of their

love, when Madame de Rênal's only fear was that Julien did not love her

enough. Their happiness had at times the complexion of crime.

In their happiest and apparently their most tranquil moments, Madame

de Rênal would suddenly cry out, "Oh, great God, I see hell," as she

pressed Julien's hand with a convulsive grasp. "What horrible tortures!

I have well deserved them." She grasped him and hung on to him like ivy

onto a wall.

Julien would try in vain to calm that agitated soul. She would take his

hand, cover it with kisses. Then, relapsing into a gloomy reverie, she

would say, "Hell itself would be a blessing for me. I should still have

some days to pass with him on this earth, but hell on earth, the death

of my children. Still, perhaps my crime will be forgiven me at that

price. Oh, great God, do not grant me my pardon at so great a price.

These poor children have in no way transgressed against You. I, I am

the only culprit. I love a man who is not my husband."

Julien subsequently saw Madame de Rênal attain what were apparently

moments of tranquillity. She was endeavouring to control herself;

she did not wish to poison the life of the man she loved. They found

the days pass with the rapidity of lightning amid these alternating

moods of love, remorse, and voluptuousness. Julien lost the habit of

reflecting.

Mademoiselle Elisa went to attend to a little lawsuit which she had at

Verrières. She found Valenod very piqued against Julien. She hated the

tutor and would often speak about him.

"You will ruin me, Monsieur, if I tell the truth," she said one day to

Valenod. "All masters have an understanding amongst themselves with

regard to matters of importance. There are certain disclosures which

poor servants are never forgiven."

After these stereotyped phrases, which his curiosity managed to cut

short, Monsieur Valenod received some information extremely mortifying

to his self-conceit.

This woman, who was the most distinguished in the district, the woman

on whom he had lavished so much attention in the last six years, and

made no secret of it, more was the pity, this woman who was so proud,

whose disdain had put him to the blush times without number, had just

taken for her lover a little workman masquerading as a tutor. And to

fill the cup of his jealousy, Madame de Rênal adored that lover.

"And," added the housemaid with a sigh, "Julien did not put himself out

at all to make his conquest, his manner was as cold as ever, even with

Madame."

Elisa had only become certain in the country, but she believed that

this intrigue dated from much further back. "That is no doubt the

reason," she added spitefully, "why he refused to marry me. And to

think what a fool I was when I went to consult Madame de Rênal and

begged her to speak to the tutor."

The very same evening, M. de Rênal received from the town, together

with his paper, a long anonymous letter which apprised him in the

greatest detail of what was taking place in his house. Julien saw him

pale as he read this letter written on blue paper, and look at him

with a malicious expression. During all that evening the mayor failed

to throw off his trouble. It was in vain that Julien paid him court by

asking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in

Burgundy.