บทที่ บทที่ 14 · THE ENGLISH SCISSORS

. THE ENGLISH SCISSORS

A young girl of sixteen had a pink complexion, and yet

used red rouge.--_Polidori_.

Fouqué's offer had, as a matter of fact, taken away all Julien's

happiness; he could not make up his mind to any definite course. "Alas!

perhaps I am lacking in character. I should have been a bad soldier of

Napoleon. At least," he added, "my little intrigue with the mistress of

the house will distract me a little."

Happily for him, even in this little subordinate incident, his inner

emotions quite failed to correspond with his flippant words. He was

frightened of Madame de Rênal because of her pretty dress. In his

eyes, that dress was a vanguard of Paris. His pride refused to leave

anything to chance and the inspiration of the moment. He made himself

a very minute plan of campaign, moulded on the confidences of Fouqué,

and a little that he had read about love in the Bible. As he was very

nervous, though he did not admit it to himself, he wrote down this plan.

Madame de Rênal was alone with him for a moment in the drawing-room on

the following morning.

"Have you no other name except Julien," she said.

Our hero was at a loss to answer so nattering a question. This

circumstance had not been anticipated in his plan. If he had not been

stupid enough to have made a plan, Julien's quick wit would have served

him well, and the surprise would only have intensified the quickness of

his perception.

He was clumsy, and exaggerated his clumsiness, Madame de Rênal quickly

forgave him. She attributed it to a charming frankness. And an air of

frankness was the very thing which in her view was just lacking in this

man who was acknowledged to have so much genius.

"That little tutor of yours inspires me with a great deal of

suspicion," said Madame Derville to her sometimes. "I think he looks as

if he were always thinking, and he never acts without calculation. He

is a sly fox."

Julien remained profoundly humiliated by the misfortune of not having

known what answer to make to Madame de Rênal.

"A man like I am ought to make up for this check!" and seizing the

moment when they were passing from one room to another, he thought it

was his duty to give Madame de Rênal a kiss.

Nothing could have been less tactful, nothing less agreeable, and

nothing more imprudent both for him and for her. They were within

an inch of being noticed. Madame de Rênal thought him mad. She was

frightened, and above all, shocked. This stupidity reminded her of M.

Valenod.

"What would happen to me," she said to herself, "if I were alone with

him?" All her virtue returned, because her love was waning.

She so arranged it that one of her children always remained with her.

Julien found the day very tedious, and passed it entirely in clumsily

putting into operation his plan of seduction. He did not look at Madame

de Rênal on a single occasion without that look having a reason, but

nevertheless he was not sufficiently stupid to fail to see that he was

not succeeding at all in being amiable, and was succeeding even less in

being fascinating.

Madame de Rênal did not recover from her astonishment at finding him

so awkward and at the same time so bold. "It is the timidity of love

in men of intellect," she said to herself with an inexpressible joy.

"Could it be possible that he had never been loved by my rival?"

After breakfast Madame de Rênal went back to the drawing-room to

receive the visit of M. Charcot de Maugiron, the sub-prefect of Bray.

She was working at a little frame of fancy-work some distance from the

ground. Madame Derville was at her side; that was how she was placed

when our hero thought it suitable to advance his boot in the full

light and press the pretty foot of Madame de Rênal, whose open-work

stockings, and pretty Paris shoe were evidently attracting the looks of

the gallant sub-prefect.

Madame de Rênal was very much afraid, and let fall her scissors, her

ball of wool and her needles, so that Julien's movement could be passed

for a clumsy effort, intended to prevent the fall of the scissors,

which presumably he had seen slide. Fortunately, these little scissors

of English steel were broken, and Madame de Rênal did not spare her

regrets that Julien had not succeeded in getting nearer to her. "You

noticed them falling before I did--you could have prevented it,

instead, all your zealousness only succeeding in giving me a very big

kick." All this took in the sub-perfect, but not Madame Derville. "That

pretty boy has very silly manners," she thought. The social code of a

provincial capital never forgives this kind of lapse.

Madame de Rênal found an opportunity of saying to Julien, "Be prudent,

I order you."

Julien appreciated his own clumsiness. He was upset. He deliberated

with himself for a long time, in order to ascertain whether or not he

ought to be angry at the expression "I order you." He was silly enough

to think she might have said "I order you," if it were some question

concerning the children's education, but in answering my love she puts

me on an equality. It is impossible to love without equality ... and

all his mind ran riot in making common-places on equality. He angrily

repeated to himself that verse of Corneille which Madame Derville had

taught him some days before.

"L'amour

les égalités, et ne les cherche pas."

Julien who had never had a mistress in his whole life, but yet insisted

on playing the rôle of a Don Juan, made a shocking fool of himself all

day. He had only one sensible idea. Bored with himself and Madame de

Rênal, he viewed with apprehension the advance of the evening when he

would have to sit by her side in the darkness of the garden. He told M.

de Rênal that he was going to Verrières to see the curé. He left after

dinner, and only came back in the night.

At Verrières Julien found M. Chélan occupied in moving. He had just

been deprived of his living; the curate Maslon was replacing him.

Julien helped the good curé, and it occurred to him to write to Fouqué

that the irresistible mission which he felt for the holy ministry had

previously prevented him from accepting his kind offer, but that he had

just seen an instance of injustice, and that perhaps it would be safer

not to enter into Holy Orders.

Julien congratulated himself on his subtlety in exploiting the

dismissal of the curé of Verrières so as to leave himself a loop-hole

for returning to commerce in the event of a gloomy prudence routing the

spirit of heroism from his mind.