Chương Chương 9 · AN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY

. AN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY

M. Guérin's Dido, a charming sketch!--_Strombeck_.

His expression was singular when he saw Madame de Rênal the next

day; he watched her like an enemy with whom he would have to fight a

duel. These looks, which were so different from those of the previous

evening, made Madame de Rênal lose her head; she had been kind to him

and he appeared angry. She could not take her eyes off his.

Madame Derville's presence allowed Julien to devote less time to

conversation, and more time to thinking about what he had in his mind.

His one object all this day was to fortify himself by reading the

inspired book that gave strength to his soul.

He considerably curtailed the children's lessons, and when Madame de

Rênal's presence had effectually brought him back to the pursuit of his

ambition, he decided that she absolutely must allow her hand to rest in

his that evening.

The setting of the sun which brought the crucial moment nearer and

nearer made Julien's heart beat in a strange way. Night came. He

noticed with a joy, which took an immense weight off his heart, that

it was going to be very dark. The sky, which was laden with big clouds

that had been brought along by a sultry wind, seemed to herald a storm.

The two friends went for their walk very late. All they did that night

struck Julien as strange. They were enjoying that hour which seems to

give certain refined souls an increased pleasure in loving.

At last they sat down, Madame de Rênal beside Julien, and Madame

Derville near her friend. Engrossed as he was by the attempt which

he was going to make, Julien could think of nothing to say. The

conversation languished.

"Shall I be as nervous and miserable over my first duel?" said Julien

to himself; for he was too suspicious both of himself and of others,

not to realise his own mental state.

In his mortal anguish, he would have preferred any danger whatsoever.

How many times did he not wish some matter to crop up which would

necessitate Madame de Rênal going into the house and leaving the

garden! The violent strain on Julien's nerves was too great for his

voice not to be considerably changed; soon Madame de Rênal's voice

became nervous as well, but Julien did not notice it. The awful battle

raging between duty and timidity was too painful, for him to be in a

position to observe anything outside himself. A quarter to ten had

just struck on the château clock without his having ventured anything.

Julien was indignant at his own cowardice, and said to himself, "at

the exact moment when ten o'clock strikes, I will perform what I have

resolved to do all through the day, or I will go up to my room and blow

out my brains."

After a final moment of expectation and anxiety, during which Julien

was rendered almost beside himself by his excessive emotion, ten

o'clock struck from the clock over his head. Each stroke of the fatal

clock reverberated in his bosom, and caused an almost physical pang.

Finally, when the last stroke of ten was still reverberating, he

stretched out his hand and took Madame de Rênal's, who immediately

withdrew it. Julien, scarcely knowing what he was doing, seized it

again. In spite of his own excitement, he could not help being struck

by the icy coldness of the hand which he was taking; he pressed it

convulsively; a last effort was made to take it away, but in the end

the hand remained in his.

His soul was inundated with happiness, not that he loved Madame de

Rênal, but an awful torture had just ended. He thought it necessary

to say something, to avoid Madame Derville noticing anything. His

voice was now strong and ringing. Madame de Rênal's, on the contrary,

betrayed so much emotion that her friend thought she was ill, and

suggested her going in. Julien scented danger, "if Madame de Rênal goes

back to the salon, I shall relapse into the awful state in which I have

been all day. I have held the hand far too short a time for it really

to count as the scoring of an actual advantage."

At the moment when Madame Derville was repeating her suggestion to

go back to the salon, Julien squeezed vigorously the hand that was

abandoned to him.

Madame de Rênal, who had started to get up, sat down again and said in

a faint voice,

"I feel a little ill, as a matter of fact, but the open air is doing me

good."

These words confirmed Julien's happiness, which at the present moment

was extreme; he spoke, he forgot to pose, and appeared the most

charming man in the world to the two friends who were listening to him.

Nevertheless, there was a slight lack of courage in all this eloquence

which had suddenly come upon him. He was mortally afraid that Madame

Derville would get tired of the wind before the storm, which was

beginning to rise, and want to go back alone into the salon. He would

then have remained _tête-à-tête_ with Madame de Rênal. He had had,

almost by accident that blind courage which is sufficient for action;

but he felt that it was out of his power to speak the simplest word to

Madame de Rênal. He was certain that, however slight her reproaches

might be, he would nevertheless be worsted, and that the advantage he

had just won would be destroyed.

Luckily for him on this evening, his moving and emphatic speeches found

favour with Madame Derville, who very often found him as clumsy as a

child and not at all amusing. As for Madame de Rênal, with her hand in

Julien's, she did not have a thought; she simply allowed herself to go

on living.

The hours spent under this great pine tree, planted by by Charles the

Bold according to the local tradition, were a real period of happiness.

She listened with delight to the soughing of the wind in the thick

foliage of the pine tree and to the noise of some stray drops which

were beginning to fall upon the leaves which were lowest down. Julien

failed to notice one circumstance which, if he had, would have quickly

reassured him; Madame de Rênal, who had been obliged to take away her

hand, because she had got up to help her cousin to pick up a flower-pot

which the wind had knocked over at her feet, had scarcely sat down

again before she gave him her hand with scarcely any difficulty and as

though it had already been a pre-arranged thing between them.

Midnight had struck a long time ago; it was at last necessary to leave

the garden; they separated. Madame de Rênal swept away as she was, by

the happiness of loving, was so completely ignorant of the world that

she scarcely reproached herself at all. Her happiness deprived her of

her sleep. A leaden sleep overwhelmed Julien who was mortally fatigued

by the battle which timidity and pride had waged in his heart all

through the day.

He was called at five o'clock on the following day and scarcely gave

Madame de Rênal a single thought.

He had accomplished his duty, and a heroic duty too. The consciousness

of this filled him with happiness; he locked himself in his room, and

abandoned himself with quite a new pleasure to reading exploits of his

hero.

When the breakfast bell sounded, the reading of the Bulletins of the

Great Army had made him forget all his advantages of the previous day.

He said to himself flippantly, as he went down to the salon, "I must

tell that woman that I am in love with her." Instead of those looks

brimful of pleasure which he was expecting to meet, he found the stern

visage of M. de Rênal, who had arrived from Verrières two hours ago,

and did not conceal his dissatisfaction at Julien's having passed the

whole morning without attending to the children. Nothing could have

been more sordid than this self-important man when he was in a bad

temper and thought that he could safely show it.

Each harsh word of her husband pierced Madame de Rênal's heart.

As for Julien, he was so plunged in his ecstasy, and still so engrossed

by the great events which had been passing before his eyes for several

hours, that he had some difficulty at first in bringing his attention

sufficiently down to listen to the harsh remarks which M. de Rênal was

addressing to him. He said to him at last, rather abruptly,

"I was ill."

The tone of this answer would have stung a much less sensitive man than

the mayor of Verrières. He half thought of answering Julien by turning

him out of the house straight away. He was only restrained by the

maxim which he had prescribed for himself, of never hurrying unduly in

business matters.

"The young fool," he said to himself shortly afterwards, "has won a

kind of reputation in my house. That man Valenod may take him into his

family, or he may quite well marry Elisa, and in either case, he will

be able to have the laugh of me in his heart."

In spite of the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Rênal's

dissatisfaction did not fail to vent itself any the less by a string

of coarse insults which gradually irritated Julien. Madame de Rênal

was on the point of bursting into tears. Breakfast was scarcely over,

when she asked Julien to give her his arm for a walk. She leaned on him

affectionately. Julien could only answer all that Madame de Rênal said

to him by whispering.

"_That's what rich people are like!_"

M. de Rênal was walking quite close to them; his presence increased

Julien's anger. He suddenly noticed that Madame de Rênal was leaning on

his arm in a manner which was somewhat marked. This horrified him, and

he pushed her violently away and disengaged his arm.

Luckily, M. de Rênal did not see this new piece of impertinence; it was

only noticed by Madame Derville. Her friend burst into tears. M. de

Rênal now started to chase away by a shower of stones a little peasant

girl who had taken a private path crossing a corner of the orchard.

"Monsieur Julien, restrain yourself, I pray you. Remember that we all

have our moments of temper," said madame Derville rapidly.

Julien looked at her coldly with eyes in which the most supreme

contempt was depicted.

This look astonished Madame Derville, and it would have surprised

her even more if she had appreciated its real expression; she would

have read in it something like a vague hope of the most atrocious

vengeance. It is, no doubt, such moments of humiliation which have made

Robespierres.

"Your Julien is very violent; he frightens me," said Madame Derville to

her friend, in a low voice.

"He is right to be angry," she answered. "What does it matter if

he does pass a morning without speaking to the children, after the

astonishing progress which he has made them make. One must admit that

men are very hard."

For the first time in her life Madame de Rênal experienced a kind

of desire for vengeance against her husband. The extreme hatred of

the rich by which Julien was animated was on the point of exploding.

Luckily, M. de Rênal called his gardener, and remained occupied

with him in barring by faggots of thorns the private road through

the orchard. Julien did not vouchsafe any answer to the kindly

consideration of which he was the object during all the rest of the

walk. M. de Rênal had scarcely gone away before the two friends made

the excuse of being fatigued, and each asked him for an arm.

Walking as he did between these two women whose extreme nervousness

filled their cheeks with a blushing embarrassment, the haughty pallor

and sombre, resolute air of Julien formed a strange contrast. He

despised these women and all tender sentiments.

"What!" he said to himself, "not even an income of five hundred francs

to finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them packing."

And absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous words

of his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to understand,

displeased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a word--feminine.

As the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of endeavouring

to keep the conversation alive, it came about that Madame de Rênal

mentioned that her husband had come from Verrières because he had made

a bargain for the May straw with one of his farmers. (In this district

it is the May straw with which the bed mattresses are filled).

"My husband will not rejoin us," added Madame de Rênal; "he will occupy

himself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses with

the help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May straw this

morning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at the second."

Julien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Rênal in a singular way,

and soon managed somehow to take her on one side, doubling his pace.

Madame Derville allowed them to get ahead.

"Save my life," said Julien to Madame de Rênal; "only you can do it,

for you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess to

you, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the mattress

of my bed."

At these words Madame de Rênal in her turn became pale.

"Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room, feel

about without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it

is nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black

cardboard, very glossy."

"Does it contain a portrait?" said Madame de Rênal, scarcely able to

hold herself upright.

Julien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded to

exploit it.

"I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to look

at that portrait; it is my secret."

"It is a secret," repeated Madame de Rênal in a faint voice.

But though she had been brought up among people who are proud of their

fortune and appreciative of nothing except money, love had already

instilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as she was, it was

with an air of the most simple devotion that Madame de Rênal asked

Julien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil her commission.

"So" she said to him as she went away, "it is a little round box of

black cardboard, very glossy."

"Yes, Madame," answered Julien, with that hardness which danger gives

to men.

She ascended the second storey of the château as pale as though she had

been going to her death. Her misery was completed by the sensation that

she was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of doing Julien

a service restored her strength.

"I must have that box," she said to herself, as she doubled her pace.

She heard her husband speaking to the valet in Julien's very room.

Happily, they passed into the children's room. She lifted up the

mattress, and plunged her hand into the stuffing so violently that she

bruised her fingers. But, though she was very sensitive to slight pain

of this kind, she was not conscious of it now, for she felt almost

simultaneously the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized it

and disappeared.

She had scarcely recovered from the fear of being surprised by her

husband than the horror with which this box inspired her came within an

ace of positively making her feel ill.

"So Julien is in love, and I hold here the portrait of the woman whom

he loves!"

Seated on the chair in the ante-chamber of his apartment, Madame

de Rênal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her extreme

ignorance, moreover, was useful to her at this juncture; her

astonishment mitigated her grief. Julien seized the box without

thanking her or saying a single word, and ran into his room, where

he lit a fire and immediately burnt it. He was pale and in a state

of collapse. He exaggerated the extent of the danger which he had

undergone.

"Finding Napoleon's portrait," he said to himself, "in the possession

of a man who professes so great a hate for the usurper! Found, too,

by M. de Rênal, who is so great an _ultra_, and is now in a state of

irritation, and, to complete my imprudence, lines written in my own

handwriting on the white cardboard behind the portrait, lines, too,

which can leave no doubt on the score of my excessive admiration. And

each of these transports of love is dated. There was one the day before

yesterday."

"All my reputation collapsed and shattered in a moment," said Julien

to himself as he watched the box burn, "and my reputation is my only

asset. It is all I have to live by--and what a life to, by heaven!"

An hour afterwards, this fatigue, together with the pity which he felt

for himself made him inclined to be more tender. He met Madame de Rênal

and took her hand, which he kissed with more sincerity than he had

ever done before. She blushed with happiness and almost simultaneously

rebuffed Julien with all the anger of jealousy. Julien's pride which

had been so recently wounded made him act foolishly at this juncture.

He saw in Madame de Rênal nothing but a rich woman, he disdainfully let

her hand fall and went away. He went and walked about meditatively in

the garden. Soon a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

"Here I am walking about as serenely as a man who is master of his own

time. I am not bothering about the children! I am exposing myself to M.

de Rênal's humiliating remarks, and he will be quite right." He ran to

the children's room. The caresses of the youngest child, whom he loved

very much, somewhat calmed his agony.

"He does not despise me yet," thought Julien. But he soon reproached

himself for this alleviation of his agony as though it were a new

weakness. The children caress me just in the same way in which they

would caress the young hunting-hound which was bought yesterday.