The Red and the Black/Chapter 75
CHAPTER LXXV
"I cannot play such a trick on that poor abbé Chas-Bernard, as to summon him," he said to Fouqué: "it would prevent him from dining for three whole days.—But try and find some Jansenist who is a friend of M. Pirard."
Fouqué was impatiently waiting for this suggestion. Julien acquitted himself becomingly of all the duty a man owes to provincial opinion. Thanks to M. the abbé de Frilair, and in spite of his bad choice of a confessor, Julien enjoyed in his cell the protection of the priestly congregation; with a little more diplomacy he might have managed to escape. But the bad air of the cell produced its effect, and his strength of mind diminished. But this only intensified his happiness at madame de Rênal's return.
"My first duty is towards you, my dear," she said as she embraced him; "I have run away from Verrières."
Julien felt no petty vanity in his relations with her, and told her all his weaknesses. She was good and charming to him.
In the evening she had scarcely left the prison before she made the priest, who had clung on to Julien like a veritable prey, go to her aunt's: as his only object was to win prestige among the young women who belonged to good Besançon society, madame de Rênal easily prevailed upon him to go and perform a novena at the abbey of Bray-le-Haut.
No words can do justice to the madness and extravagance of Julien's love.
By means of gold, and by using and abusing the influence of her aunt, who was devout, rich and well-known, madame de Rênal managed to see him twice a day.
At this news, Mathilde's jealousy reached a pitch of positive madness. M. de Frilair had confessed to her that all his influence did not go so far as to admit of flouting the conventions by allowing her to see her sweetheart more than once every day. Mathilde had madame de Rênal followed so as to know the smallest thing she did. M. de Frilair exhausted all the resources of an extremely clever intellect in order to prove to her that Julien was unworthy of her.
Plunged though she was in all these torments, she only loved him the more, and made a horrible scene nearly every day.
Julien wished, with all his might, to behave to the very end like an honourable man towards this poor young girl whom he had so strangely compromised, but the reckless love which he felt for madame de Rênal swept him away at every single minute. When he could not manage to persuade Mathilde of the innocence of her rival's visits by all his thin excuses, he would say to himself: "at any rate the end of the drama ought to be quite near. The very fact of not being able to lie better will be an excuse for me."
Mademoiselle de La Mole learnt of the death of the marquis de Croisenois. The rich M. de Thaler had indulged in some unpleasant remarks concerning Mathilde's disappearance: M. de Croisenois went and asked him to recant them: M. de Thaler showed him some anonymous letters which had been sent to him, and which were full of details so artfully put together that the poor marquis could not help catching a glimpse of the truth.
M. de Thaler indulged in some jests which were devoid of all taste. Maddened by anger and unhappiness, M. de Croisenois demanded such unqualified satisfaction, that the millionaire preferred to fight a duel. Stupidity triumphed, and one of the most lovable of men met with his death before he was twenty-four.
This death produced a strange and morbid impression on Julien's demoralised soul.
"Poor Croisenois," he said to Mathilde, "really behaved very reasonably and very honourably towards us; he had ample ground for hating me and picking a quarrel with me, by reason of your indiscretion in your mother's salon; for the hatred which follows on contempt is usually frenzied."
M. de Croisenois' death changed all Julien's ideas concerning Mathilde's future. He spent several days in proving to her that she ought to accept the hand of M. de Luz. "He is a nervous man, not too much of a Jesuit, and will doubtless be a candidate," he said to her. "He has a more sinister and persevering ambition than poor Croisenois, and as there has never been a dukedom in his family, he will be only too glad to marry Julien Sorel's widow."
"A widow, though, who scorns the grand passions," answered Mathilde coldly, "for she has lived long enough to see her lover prefer to her after six months another woman who was the origin of all their unhappiness."
"You are unjust! Madame de Rênal's visits will furnish my advocate at Paris, who is endeavouring to procure my pardon, with the subject matter for some sensational phrases; he will depict the murderer honoured by the attention of his victim. That may produce an impression, and perhaps some day or other, you will see me provide the plot of some melodrama or other, etc., etc."
A furious and impotent jealousy, a prolonged and hopeless unhappiness (for even supposing Julien was saved, how was she to win back his heart?), coupled with her shame and anguish at loving this unfaithful lover more than ever had plunged mademoiselle de la Mole into a gloomy silence, from which all the careful assiduity of M. de Frilair was as little able to draw her as the rugged frankness of Fouqué.
As for Julien, except in those moments which were taken up by Mathilde's presence, he lived on love with scarcely a thought for the future.
"In former days," Julien said to her, "when I might have been so happy, during our walks in the wood of Vergy, a frenzied ambition swept my soul into the realms of imagination. Instead of pressing to my heart that charming arm which is so near my lips, the thoughts of my future took me away from you; I was engaged in countless combats which I should have to sustain in order to lay the foundations of a colossal fortune. No, I should have died without knowing what happiness was if you had not come to see me in this prison."
Two episodes ruffled this tranquil life. Julien's confessor, Jansenist though he was, was not proof against an intrigue of the Jesuits, and became their tool without knowing it.
He came to tell him one day that unless he meant to fall into the awful sin of suicide, he ought to take every possible step to procure his pardon. Consequently, as the clergy have a great deal of influence with the minister of Justice at Paris, an easy means presented itself; he ought to become converted with all publicity.
"With publicity," repeated Julien. "Ha, Ha! I have caught you at it—I have caught you as well, my father, playing a part like any missionary."
"Your youth," replied the Jansenist gravely, "the interesting appearance which Providence has given you, the still unsolved mystery of the motive for your crime, the heroic steps which mademoiselle de la Mole has so freely taken on your behalf, everything, up to the surprising affection which your victim manifests towards you, has contributed to make you the hero of the young women of Besançon. They have forgotten everything, even politics, on your account. Your conversion will reverberate in their hearts and will leave behind it a deep impression. You can be of considerable use to religion, and I was about to hesitate for the trivial reason that in a similar circumstance the Jesuits would follow a similar course. But if I did, even in the one case which has escaped their greedy clutches they would still be exercising their mischief. The tears which your conversation will cause to be shed will annul the poisonous effect of ten editions of Voltaire's works."
"And what will be left for me," answered Julien, coldly, "if I despise myself? I have been ambitious; I do not mean to blame myself in any way. Further, I have acted in accordance with the code of the age. Now I am living from day to day. But I should make myself very unhappy if I were to yield to what the locality would regard as a piece of cowardice.…"
Madame de Rênal was responsible for the other episode which affected Julien in quite another way. Some intriguing woman friend or other had managed to persuade this naïve and timid soul that it was her duty to leave for St. Cloud, and go and throw herself at the feet of King Charles X.
She had made the sacrifice of separating from Julien, and after a strain as great as that, she no longer thought anything of the unpleasantness of making an exhibition of herself, though in former times she would have thought that worse than death.
"I will go to the king. I will confess freely that you are my lover. The life of a man, and of a man like Julien, too, ought to prevail over every consideration. I will tell him that it was because of jealousy that you made an attempt upon my life. There are numerous instances of poor young people who have been saved in such a case by the clemency of the jury or of the king."
"I will leave off seeing you; I will shut myself up in my prison," exclaimed Julien, "and you can be quite certain that if you do not promise me to take no step which will make a public exhibition of us both, I will kill myself in despair the day afterwards. This idea of going to Paris is not your own. Tell me the name of the intriguing woman who suggested it to you.
"Let us be happy during the small number of days of this short life. Let us hide our existence; my crime was only too self-evident. Mademoiselle de la Mole enjoys all possible influence at Paris. Take it from me that she has done all that is humanly possible. Here in the provinces I have all the men of wealth and prestige against me. Your conduct will still further aggravate those rich and essentially moderate people to whom life comes so easy.… Let us not give the Maslons, the Valenods, and the thousand other people who are worth more than they, anything to laugh about."
Julien came to find the bad air of the cell unbearable. Fortunately, nature was rejoicing in a fine sunshine on the day when they announced to him that he would have to die, and he was in a courageous vein. He found walking in the open air as delicious a sensation as the navigator, who has been at sea for a long time, finds walking on the ground. "Come on, everything is going all right," he said to himself. "I am not lacking in courage."
His head had never looked so poetical as at that moment when it was on the point of falling. The sweet minutes which he had formerly spent in the woods of Vergy crowded back upon his mind with extreme force.
Everything went off simply, decorously, and without any affectation on his part.
Two days before he had said to Fouqué: "I cannot guarantee not to show some emotion. This dense, squalid cell gives me fits of fever in which I do not recognise mystlf, but fear? no! I shall not be seen to flinch."
He had made his arrangements in advance for Fouqué to take Mathilde and madame de Rênal away on the morning of his last day.
"Drive them away in the same carriage," he had said. "Do you see that the posthorses do not leave off galloping. They will either fall into each other's arms, or manifest towards each other a mortal hatred. In either case the poor women will have something to distract them a little from their awful grief."
Julien had made madame de Rênal swear that she would live to look after Mathilde's son.
"Who knows? Perhaps we have still some sensations after our death," he had said one day to Fouqué. "I should like to rest, for rest is the right word, in that little grotto in the great mountain which dominates Verrières. Many a time, as I have told you, I have spent the night alone in that grotto, and as my gaze would plunge far and wide over the richest provinces of France, ambition would inflame my heart. In those days it was my passion.… Anyway, I hold that grotto dear, and one cannot dispute that its situation might well arouse the desires of the philosopher's soul… Well, you know! those good priests of Besançon will make money out of everything. If you know how to manage it, they will sell you my mortal remains."
Fouqué succeeded in this melancholy business. He was passing the night alone in his room by his friend's body when, to his great surprise, he saw Mathilde come in. A few hours before he had left her ten leagues from Besançon. Her face and eyes looked distraught.
"I want to see him," she said.
Fouqué had not the courage either to speak or get up. He pointed with his finger to a big blue cloak on the floor; there was wrapped in it all that remained of Julien.
She threw herself on her knees. The memory of Boniface de la Mole, and of Marguerite of Navarre gave her, no doubt, a superhuman courage. Her trembling hands undid the cloak. Fouqué turned away his eyes.
He heard Mathilde walking feverishly about the room. She lit several candles. When Fouqué could bring himself to look at her, she had placed Julien's head on a little marble table in front of her, and was kissing it on the forehead.
Mathilde followed her lover to the tomb which he had chosen. A great number of priests convoyed the bier, and, alone in her draped carriage, without anyone knowing it, she carried on her knees the head of the man whom she had loved so much.
When they arrived in this way at the most elevated peak of the high mountains of the Jura, twenty priests celebrated the service of the dead in the middle of the night in this little grotto, which was magnificently illuminated by a countless number of wax candles. Attracted by this strange and singular ceremony, all the inhabitants of the little mountain villages which the funeral had passed through, followed it.
Mathilde appeared in their midst in long mourning garments, and had several thousands of five-franc pieces thrown to them at the end of the service.
When she was left alone with Fouqué, she insisted on burying her lover's head with her own hands. Fouqué nearly went mad with grief.
Mathilde took care that this wild grotto should be decorated with marble monuments that had been sculpted in Italy at great expense.
Madame de Rênal kept her promise. She did not try to make any attempt upon her life; but she died embracing her children, three days after Julien.
The End.
The inconvenience of the reign of public opinion is that though, of course, it secures liberty, it meddles with what it has nothing to do with—private life, for example. Hence the gloominess of America and England. In order to avoid infringing on private life, the author has invented a little town—Verrières, and when he had need of a bishop, a jury, an assize court, he placed all this in Besançon, where he has never been.