The Red and the Black/Chapter 70
CHAPTER LXX
TRANQUILITY
It is because I was foolish then that I am wise to-day. Oh thou philosopher who seest nothing except the actual instant. How short-sighted are thy views! Thine eye is not adapted to follow the subterranean work of the passions.—M. Goethe.
This conversation was interrupted by an interrogation followed by a conference with the advocate entrusted with the defence. These moments were the only absolutely unpleasant ones in a life made up of nonchalance and tender reveries.
"There is murder, and murder with premeditation," said Julien to the judge as he had done to the advocate, "I am sorry, gentlemen, he added with a smile, that this reduces your functions to a very small compass."
"After all," said Julien to himself, when he had managed to rid himself of those two persons, "I must really be brave, and apparently braver than those two men. They regard that duel with an unfortunate termination, which I can only seriously bother myself about on the actual day, as the greatest of evils and the arch-terror."
"The fact is that I have known a much greater unhappiness," continued Julien, as he went on philosophising with himself. "I suffered far more acutely during my first journey to Strasbourg, when I thought I was abandoned by Mathilde—and to think that I desired so passionately that same perfect intimacy which to-day leaves me so cold—as a matter of fact I am more happy alone than when that handsome girl shares my solitude."
The advocate, who was a red-tape pedant, thought him mad, and believed, with the public, that it was jealousy which had lead him to take up the pistol. He ventured one day to give Julien to understand that this contention, whether true or false, would be an excellent way of pleading. But the accused man became in a single minute a passionate and drastic individual.
"As you value your life, monsieur," exclaimed Julien, quite beside himself, "mind you never put forward such an abominable lie. The cautious advocate was for a moment afraid of being assassinated."
He was preparing his case because the decisive moment was drawing near. The only topic of conversation in Besançon, and all the department, was the cause celebre. Julien did not know of this circumstance. He had requested his friends never to talk to him about that kind of thing.
On this particular day, Fouqué and Mathilde had tried to inform him of certain rumours which in their view were calculated to give hope. Julien had stopped them at the very first word.
"Leave me my ideal life. Your pettifogging troubles and details of practical life all more or less jar on me and bring me down from my heaven. One dies as best one can: but I wish to chose my own way of thinking about death. What do I care for other people? My relations with other people will be sharply cut short. Be kind enough not to talk to me any more about those people. Seeing the judge and the advocate is more than enough."
"As a matter of fact," he said to himself, "it seems that I am fated to die dreaming. An obscure creature like myself, who is certain to be forgotten within a fortnight, would be very silly, one must admit, to go and play a part. It is nevertheless singular that I never knew so much about the art of enjoying life, as since I have seen its end so near me."
He passed his last day in promenading upon the narrow terrace at the top of the turret, smoking some excellent cigars which Mathilde had had fetched from Holland by a courier. He had no suspicion that his appearance was waited for each day by all the telescopes in the town. His thoughts were at Vergy. He never spoke to Fouqué about madame de Rênal, but his friend told him two or three times that she was rapidly recovering, and these words reverberated in his heart.
While Julien's soul was nearly all the time wholly in the realm of ideas, Mathilde, who, as befits an aristocratic spirit, had occupied herself with concrete things, had managed to make the direct and intimate correspondence between madame de Fervaques and M. de Frilair progress so far that the great word bishopric had been already pronounced. The venerable prelate, who was entrusted with the distribution of the benefices, added in a postscript to one of his niece's letters, "This poor Sorel is only a lunatic. I hope he will be restored to us."
At the sight of these lines, M. de Frilair felt transported. He had no doubts about saving Julien.
"But for this Jacobin law which has ordered the formation of an unending panel of jurymen, and which has no other real object, except to deprive well-born people of all their influence," he said to Mathilde on the eve of the balloting for the thirty-six jurymen of the session, "I would have answered for the verdict. I certainly managed to get the curé N acquitted."
When the names were selected by ballot on the following day, M. de Frilair experienced a genuine pleasure in finding that they contained five members of the Besançon congregation and that amongst those who were strangers to the town were the names of MM. Valenod, de Moirod, de Cholin. I can answer for these eight jurymen he said to Mathilde. The first five are mere machines, Valenod is my agent: Moirod owes me everything: de Cholin is an imbecile who is frightened of everything.
The journal published the names of the jurymen throughout the department, and to her husband's unspeakable terror, madame de Rênal wished to go to Besançon. All that M. de Rênal could prevail on her to promise was that she would not leave her bed so as to avoid the unpleasantness of being called to give evidence. "You do not understand my position," said the former mayor of Verrières. "I am now said to be disloyal and a Liberal. No doubt that scoundrel Valenod and M. de Frilair will get the procureur-general and the judges to do all they can to cause me unpleasantness."
Madame de Rênal found no difficulty in yielding to her husband's orders. "If I appear at the assize court," she said to herself, "I should seem as if I were asking for vengeance." In spite of all the promises she had made to the director of her conscience and to her husband that she would be discreet, she had scarcely arrived at Besançon before she wrote with her own hand to each of the thirty-six jurymen:—
"I shall not appear on the day of the trial, monsieur, because my presence might be prejudicial to M. Sorel's case. I only desire one thing in the world, and that I desire passionately—for him to be saved. Have no doubt about it, the awful idea that I am the cause of an innocent man being led to his death would poison the rest of my life and would no doubt curtail it. How can you condemn him to death while I continue to live? No, there is no doubt about it, society has no right to take away a man's life, and above all, the life of a being like Julien Sorel. Everyone at Verrières knew that there were moments when he was quite distracted. This poor young man has some powerful enemies, but even among his enemies, (and how many has he not got?) who is there who casts any doubt on his admirable talents and his deep knowledge? The man whom you are going to try, monsieur, is not an ordinary person. For a period of nearly eighteen months we all knew him as a devout and well behaved student. Two or three times in the year he was seized by fits of melancholy that went to the point of distraction. The whole town of Verrières, all our neighbours at Vergy, where we live in the fine weather, my whole family, and monsieur the sub-prefect himself will render justice to his exemplary piety. He knows all the Holy Bible by heart. Would a blasphemer have spent years of study in learning the Sacred Book. My sons will have the honour of presenting you with this letter, they are children. Be good enough to question them, monsieur, they will give you all the details concerning this poor young man which are necessary to convince you of how barbarous it would be to condemn him. Far from revenging me, you would be putting me to death.
"What can his enemies argue against this? The wound, which was the result of one of those moments of madness, which my children themselves used to remark in their tutor, is so little dangerous than in less than two months it has allowed me to take the post from Verrières to Besançon. If I learn, monsieur, that you show the slightest hesitation in releasing so innocent a person from the barbarity of the law, I will leave my bed, where I am only kept by my husband's express orders, and I will go and throw myself at your feet. Bring in a verdict, monsieur, that the premeditation has not been made out, and you will not have an innocent man's blood on your head, etc."