THE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS
A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk
along the high road.—Saint-Réal.
When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy, he noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Rênal since the day before yesterday. The other day, when I took my leave, that woman made me realise the infinite distance which separated us; she treated me like a labourer's son. No doubt she wished to signify her repentance for having allowed me to hold her hand the evening before.
It is, however very pretty, is that hand. What a charm, what a nobility is there in that woman's expression!
The possibility of making a fortune with Fouqué gave a certain facility to Julien's logic. It was not spoilt quite so frequently by the irritation and the keen consciousness of his poverty and low estate in the eyes of the world. Placed as it were on a high promontory, he was able to exercise his judgment, and had a commanding view, so to speak, of both extreme poverty and that competence which he still called wealth. He was far from judging his position really philosophically, but he had enough penetration to feel different after this little journey into the mountain.
He was struck with the extreme uneasiness with which Madame de Rênal listened to the brief account which she had asked for of his journey. Fouqué had had plans of marriage, and unhappy love affairs, and long confidences on this subject had formed the staple of the two friends' conversation. Having found happiness too soon, Fouqué had realised that he was not the only one who was loved. All these accounts had astonished Julien. He had learnt many new things. His solitary life of imagination and suspicion had kept him remote from anything which could enlighten him.
During his absence, life had been nothing for Madame de Rênal but a series of tortures, which, though different, were all unbearable. She was really ill.
"Now mind," said Madame Derville to her when she saw Julien arrive, "you don't go into the garden this evening in your weak state; the damp air will make your complaint twice as bad."
Madame Derville was surprised to see that her friend, who was always scolded by M. de Rênal by reason of the excessive simplicity of her dress, had just got some open-work stockings and some charming little shoes which had come from Paris. For three days Madame de Rênal's only distraction had been to cut out a summer dress of a pretty little material which was very fashionable, and get it made with express speed by Elisa. This dress could scarcely have been finished a few moments before Julien's arrival, but Madame de Rênal put it on immediately. Her friend had no longer any doubt. "She loves," unhappy woman, said Madame Derville to herself. She understood all the strange symptoms of the malady.
She saw her speak to Julien. The most violent blush was succeeded by pallor. Anxiety was depicted in her eyes, which were riveted on those of the young tutor. Madame de Rênal expected every minute that he would give an explanation of his conduct, and announce that he was either going to leave the house or stay there. Julien carefully avoided that subject, and did not even think of it. After terrible struggles, Madame de Rênal eventually dared to say to him in a trembling voice that mirrored all her pa**ion:
"Are you going to leave your pupils to take another place?"
Julien was struck by Madame de Rênal's hesitating voice and look.
"That woman loves me," he said to himself! "But after this temporary moment of weakness, for which her pride is no doubt reproaching her, and as soon as she has ceased fearing that I shall leave, she will be as haughty as ever." This view of their mutual position pa**ed through Julien's mind as rapidly as a flash of lightning. He answered with some hesitation,
"I shall be extremely distressed to leave children who are so nice and so well-born, but perhaps it will be necessary. One has duties to oneself as well."
As he pronounced the expression, "well-born" (it was one of those aristocratic phrases which Julien had recently learnt), he became animated by a profound feeling of antipathy.
"I am not well-born," he said to himself, "in that woman's eyes."
As Madame de Rênal listened to him, she admired his genius and his beauty, and the hinted possibility of his departure pierced her heart. All her friends at Verrières who had come to dine at Vergy during Julien's absence had complimented her almost jealously on the astonishing man whom her husband had had the good fortune to unearth. It was not that they understood anything about the progress of children. The feat of knowing his Bible by heart, and what is more, of knowing it in Latin, had struck the inhabitants of Verrières with an admiration which will last perhaps a century.
Julien, who never spoke to anyone, was ignorant of all this. If Madame de Rênal had possessed the slightest presence of mind, she would have complimented him on the reputation which he had won, and Julien's pride, once satisfied, he would have been sweet and amiable towards her, especially as he thought her new dress charming. Madame de Rênal was also pleased with her pretty dress, and with what Julien had said to her about it, and wanted to walk round the garden. But she soon confessed that she was incapable of walking. She had taken the traveller's arm, and the contact of that arm, far from increasing her strength, deprived her of it completely.
It was night. They had scarcely sat down before Julien, availing himself of his old privilege, dared to bring his lips near his pretty neighbour's arm, and to take her hand. He kept thinking of the boldness which Fouqué had exhibited with his mistresses and not of Madame de Rênal; the word "well-born" was still heavy on his heart. He felt his hand pressed, but experienced no pleasure. So far from his being proud, or even grateful for the sentiment that Madame de Rênal was betraying that evening by only too evident signs, he was almost insensible to her beauty, her elegance, and her freshness. Purity of soul, and the absence of all hateful emotion, doubtless prolong the duration of youth. It is the face which ages first with the majority of women.
Julien sulked all the evening. Up to the present he had only been angry with the social order, but from that time that Fouqué had offered him an ignoble means of obtaining a competency, he was irritated with himself. Julien was so engrossed in his thoughts, that, although from time to time he said a few words to the ladies, he eventually let go Madame de Rênal's hand without noticing it. This action overwhelmed the soul of the poor woman. She saw in it her whole fate.
If she had been certain of Julien's affection, her virtue would possibly have found strength to resist him. But trembling lest she should lose him for ever, she was distracted by her pa**ion to the point of taking again Julien's hand, which he had left in his absent-mindedness leaning on the back of the chair. This action woke up this ambitious youth; he would have liked to have had for witnesses all those proud nobles who had regarded him at meals, when he was at the bottom of the table with the children, with so condescending a smile. "That woman cannot despise me; in that case," he said to himself. "I ought to shew my appreciation of her beauty. I owe it to myself to be her lover." That idea would not have occurred to him before the naive confidences which his friend had made.
The sudden resolution which he had just made formed an agreeable distraction. He kept saying to himself, "I must have one of those two women;" he realised that he would have very much preferred to have paid court to Madame Derville. It was not that she was more agreeable, but that she had always seen him as the tutor distinguished by his knowledge, and not as the journeyman carpenter with his cloth jacket folded under his arm as he had first appeared to Madame de Rênal.
It was precisely as a young workman, blushing up to the whites of his eyes, standing by the door of the house and not daring to ring, that he made the most alluring appeal to Madame de Rênal's imagination.
As he went on reviewing his position, Julien saw that the conquest of Madame Derville, who had probably noticed the taste which Madame de Rênal was manifesting for him, was out of the question. He was thus brought back to the latter lady. "What do I know of the character of that woman?" said Julien to himself. "Only this: before my journey, I used to take her hand, and she used to take it away. To-day, I take my hand away, and she seizes and presses it. A fine opportunity to pay her back all the contempt she had had for me. God knows how many lovers she has had, probably she is only deciding in my favour by reason of the easiness of a**ignations."
Such, alas, is the misfortune of an excessive civilisation. The soul of a young man of twenty, possessed of any education, is a thousand leagues away from that abandon without which love is frequently but the most tedious of duties.
"I owe it all the more to myself," went on the petty vanity of Julien, "to succeed with that woman, by reason of the fact that if I ever make a fortune, and I am reproached by anyone with my menial position as a tutor, I shall then be able to give out that it was love which got me the post."
Julien again took his hand away from Madame de Rênal, and then took her hand again and pressed it. As they went back to the drawing-room about midnight, Madame de Rênal said to him in a whisper.
"You are leaving us, you are going?"
Julien answered with a sigh.
"I absolutely must leave, for I love you pa**ionately. It is wrong ... how wrong indeed for a young priest?" Madame de Rênal leant upon his arm, and with so much abandon that her cheek felt the warmth of Julien's.
The nights of these two persons were quite different. Madame de Rênal was exalted by the ecstacies of the highest moral pleasure. A coquettish young girl, who loves early in life, gets habituated to the trouble of love, and when she reaches the age of real pa**ion, finds the charm of novelty lacking. As Madame de Rênal had never read any novels, all the refinements of her happiness were new to her. No mournful truth came to chill her, not even the spectre of the future. She imagined herself as happy in ten years' time as she was at the present moment. Even the idea of virtue and of her sworn fidelity to M. de Rênal, which had agitated her some days past, now presented itself in vain, and was sent about its business like an importunate visitor. "I will never grant anything to Julien," said Madame de Rênal; "we will live in the future like we have been living for the last month. He shall be a friend."