Part 1 Chapter 6
DullnessNon so piu cosa son, Cosa facio.
MOZART (Figaro)With the vivacity and grace which came naturally to her when she wasbeyond the reach of male vision, Madame de Renal was coming outthrough the glass door which opened from the drawing-room into thegarden, when she saw, standing by the front door, a young peasant, almost a boy still, extremely pale and showing traces of recent tears. Hewas wearing a clean white shirt and carried under his arm a neat jacketof violet ratteen.
This young peasant's skin was so white, his eyes were so appealing,that the somewhat romantic mind of Madame de Renal conceived theidea at first that he might be a girl in disguise, come to ask some favourof the Mayor. She felt sorry for the poor creature, who had come to astandstill by the front door, and evidently could not summon up courageto ring the bell. Madame de Renal advanced, oblivious for the moment ofthe bitter grief that she felt at the tutor's coming. Julien, who was facingthe door, did not see her approach. He trembled when a pleasant voicesounded close to his ear:
'What have you come for, my boy?'
Julien turned sharply round, and, struck by the charm of Madame deRenal's expression, forgot part of his shyness. A moment later, astounded by her beauty, he forgot everything, even his purpose in coming.
Madame de Renal had repeated her question.
'I have come to be tutor, Madame,' he at length informed her, put toshame by his tears which he dried as best he might.
Madame de Renal remained speechless; they were standing close together, looking at one another. Julien had never seen a person so welldressed as this, let alone a woman with so exquisite a complexion, to speak to him in a gentle tone. Madame de Renal looked at the large tearswhich lingered on the cheeks (so pallid at first and now so rosy) of thisyoung peasant. Presently she burst out laughing, with all the wild hilarity of a girl; she was laughing at herself, and trying in vain to realise thefull extent of her happiness. So this was the tutor whom she had imagined an unwashed and ill-dressed priest, who was coming to scold andwhip her children.
'Why, Sir!' she said to him at length, 'do you know Latin?'
The word 'Sir' came as such a surprise to Julien that he thought for amoment before answering.
'Yes, Ma'am,' he said shyly.
Madame de Renal felt so happy that she ventured to say to Julien:
'You won't scold those poor children too severely?'
'Scold them? I?' asked Julien in amazement. 'Why should I?'
'You will, Sir,' she went on after a brief silence and in a voice that grewmore emotional every moment, 'you will be kind to them, you promiseme?'
To hear himself addressed again as 'Sir', in all seriousness, and by alady so fashionably attired, was more than Julien had ever dreamed of;in all the cloud castles of his boyhood, he had told himself that no fashionable lady would deign to speak to him until he had a smart uniform.
Madame de Renal, for her part, was completely taken in by the beauty ofJulien's complexion, his great dark eyes and his becoming hair whichwas curling more than usual because, to cool himself, he had just dippedhis head in the basin of the public fountain. To her great delight, she discovered an air of girlish shyness in this fatal tutor, whose severity andsavage appearance she had so greatly dreaded for her children's sake. ToMadame de Renal's peace-loving nature the contrast between her fearsand what she now saw before her was a great event. Finally she recovered from her surprise. She was astonished to find herself standinglike this at the door of her house with this young man almost in hisshirtsleeves and so close to her.
'Let us go indoors, Sir,' she said to him with an air of distinctembarrassment.
Never in her life had a purely agreeable sensation so profoundlystirred Madame de Renal; never had so charming an apparition come inthe wake of more disturbing fears. And so those sweet children, whomshe had tended with such care, were not to fall into the hands of a dirty, growling priest. As soon as they were in the hall, she turned to Julienwho was following her shyly. His air of surprise at the sight of so fine ahouse was an additional charm in the eyes of Madame de Renal. Shecould not believe her eyes; what she felt most of all was that the tutorought to be wearing a black coat.
'But is it true, Sir,' she said to him, again coming to a halt, and mortallyafraid lest she might be mistaken, so happy was the belief making her,'do you really know Latin?'
These words hurt Julien's pride and destroyed the enchantment inwhich he had been living for the last quarter of an hour.
'Yes, Ma'am,' he informed her, trying to adopt a chilly air; 'I know Latin as well as M. le cure; indeed, he is sometimes so kind as to say that Iknow it better.'
Madame de Renal felt that Julien had a very wicked air; he hadstopped within arm's length of her. She went nearer to him, andmurmured:
'For the first few days, you won't take the whip to my children, even ifthey don't know their lessons?'
This gentle, almost beseeching tone coming from so fine a lady at oncemade Julien forget what he owed to his reputation as a Latin scholar.
Madame de Renal's face was close to his own, he could smell the perfume of a woman's summer attire, so astounding a thing to a poor peasant. Julien blushed deeply, and said with a sigh and in a faint voice:
'Fear nothing, Ma'am, I shall obey you in every respect.'
It was at this moment only, when her anxiety for her children wascompletely banished, that Madame de Renal was struck by Julien's extreme good looks. The almost feminine cast of his features and his air ofembarrassment did not seem in the least absurd to a woman who wasextremely timid herself. The manly air which is generally considered essential to masculine beauty would have frightened her.
'How old are you, Sir?' she asked Julien.
'I shall soon be nineteen.'
'My eldest son is eleven,' went on Madame de Renal, completely reassured; 'he will be almost a companion for you, you can talk to him seriously. His father tried to beat him once, the child was ill for a wholeweek, and yet it was quite a gentle blow.'
'How different from me,' thought Julien. 'Only yesterday my fatherwas thrashing me. How fortunate these rich people are!'
Madame de Renal had by this time arrived at the stage of remarkingthe most trivial changes in the state of the tutor's mind; she mistook thisenvious impulse for shyness, and tried to give him fresh courage.
'What is your name, Sir?' she asked him with an accent and a grace thecharm of which Julien could feel without knowing whence it sprang.
'They call me Julien Sorel, Ma'am; I am trembling as I enter a strangehouse for the first time in my life; I have need of your protection, andshall require you to forgive me many things at first. I have never been toCollege, I was too poor; I have never talked to any other men, except mycousin the Surgeon-Major, a Member of the Legion of Honour, and theReverend Father Chelan. He will give you a good account of me. Mybrothers have always beaten me, do not listen to them if they speak evilof me to you; pardon my faults, Ma'am, I shall never have any evilintention.'
Julien plucked up his courage again during this long speech; he wasstudying Madame de Renal. Such is the effect of perfect grace when it isnatural to the character, particularly when she whom it adorns has nothought of being graceful. Julien, who knew all that was to be knownabout feminine beauty, would have sworn at that moment that she wasno more than twenty. The bold idea at once occurred to him of kissingher hand. Next, this idea frightened him; a moment later, he said to himself: 'It would be cowardly on my part not to carry out an action whichmay be of use to me, and diminish the scorn which this fine lady probably feels for a poor workman, only just taken from the sawbench.' Perhaps Julien was somewhat encouraged by the words 'good-looking boy'
which for the last six months he had been used to hearing on Sundays onthe lips of various girls. While he debated thus with himself, Madame deRenal offered him a few suggestions as to how he should begin to handleher children. The violence of Julien's effort to control himself made himturn quite pale again; he said, with an air of constraint:
'Never, Ma'am, will I beat your children; I swear it before God.'
And so saying he ventured to take Madame de Renal's hand and carryit to his lips. She was astonished at this action, and, on thinking it over,shocked. As the weather was very warm, her arm was completely bareunder her shawl, and Julien's action in raising her hand to his lips haduncovered it to the shoulder. A minute later she scolded herself; she feltthat she had not been quickly enough offended.
M. de Renal, who had heard the sound of voices, came out of hisstudy; with the same majestic and fatherly air that he assumed when hewas conducting marriages in the Town Hall, he said to Julien:
'It is essential that I speak to you before the children see you.'
He ushered Julien into one of the rooms and detained his wife, whowas going to leave them together. Having shut the door, M. de Renalseated himself with gravity.
'The cure has told me that you were an honest fellow, everyone in thishouse will treat you with respect, and if I am satisfied I shall help you toset up for yourself later on. I wish you to cease to see anything of eitheryour family or your friends, their tone would not be suited to my children. Here are thirty-six francs for the first month; but I must have yourword that you will not give a penny of this money to your father.'
M. de Renal was annoyed with the old man, who, in this business, hadproved more subtle than he himself.
'And now, Sir, for by my orders everyone in this house is to addressyou as Sir, and you will be conscious of the advantage of entering a well-ordered household; now, Sir, it is not proper that the children should seeyou in a jacket. Have the servants seen him?' M. de Renal asked his wife.
'No, dear,' she replied with an air of deep thought.
'Good. Put on this,' he said to the astonished young man, handing himone of his own frock coats. 'And now let us go to M. Durand, theclothier.'
More than an hour later, when M. de Renal returned with the new tutor dressed all in black, he found his wife still seated in the same place.
She felt soothed by Julien's presence; as she studied his appearance sheforgot to feel afraid. Julien was not giving her a thought; for all his mistrust of destiny and of mankind, his heart at that moment was just like achild's; he seemed to have lived whole years since the moment when,three hours earlier, he stood trembling in the church. He noticed Madame de Renal's frigid manner, and gathered that she was angry becausehe had ventured to kiss her hand. But the sense of pride that he derivedfrom the contact of garments so different from those which he was accustomed to wear caused him so much excitement, and he was so anxious toconceal his joy that all his gestures were more or less abrupt and foolish.
Madame de Renal gazed at him with eyes of astonishment.
'A little gravity, Sir,' M. de Renal told him, 'if you wish to be respectedby my children and my servants.'
'Sir,' replied Julien, 'I am uncomfortable in these new clothes; I, ahumble peasant, have never worn any but short jackets; with your permission, I shall retire to my bedroom.'
'What think you of this new acquisition?' M. de Renal asked his wife.
With an almost instinctive impulse, of which she herself certainly wasnot aware, Madame de Renal concealed the truth from her husband.
'I am by no means as enchanted as you are with this little peasant;your kindness will turn him into an impertinent rascal whom you will beobliged to send packing within a month.'
'Very well! We shall send him packing; he will have cost me a hundredfrancs or so, and Verrieres will have grown used to seeing a tutor withM. de Renal's children. That point I should not have gained if I had letJulien remain in the clothes of a working man. When I dismiss him, Ishall of course keep the black suit which I have just ordered from theclothier. He shall have nothing but the coat I found ready made at thetailor's, which he is now wearing.'
The hour which Julien spent in his room seemed like a second to Madame de Renal. The children, who had been told of their new tutor's arrival, overwhelmed their mother with questions. Finally Julien appeared.
He was another man. It would have been straining the word to say thathe was grave; he was gravity incarnate. He was introduced to the children, and spoke to them with an air that surprised M. de Renal himself.
'I am here, young gentlemen,' he told them at the end of his address,'to teach you Latin. You know what is meant by repeating a lesson. Hereis the Holy Bible,' he said, and showed them a tiny volume in 32mo,bound in black. 'It is in particular the story of Our Lord Jesus Christ, thatis the part which is called the New Testament. I shall often make you repeat lessons; now you must make me repeat mine.'
Adolphe, the eldest boy, had taken the book.
'Open it where you please,' Julien went on, 'and tell me the first wordof a paragraph. I shall repeat by heart the sacred text, the rule of conductfor us all, until you stop me.'
Adolphe opened the book, read a word, and Julien repeated the wholepage as easily as though he were speaking French. M. de Renal looked athis wife with an air of triumph. The children, seeing their parents'
amazement, opened their eyes wide. A servant came to the door of thedrawing-room, Julien went on speaking in Latin. The servant at firststood motionless and then vanished. Presently the lady's maid and the cook appeared in the doorway; by this time Adolphe had opened thebook at eight different places, and Julien continued to repeat the wordswith the same ease.
'Eh, what a bonny little priest,' the cook, a good and truly devout girl,said aloud.
M. de Renal's self-esteem was troubled; so far from having anythought of examining the tutor, he was engaged in ransacking hismemory for a few words of Latin; at last, he managed to quote a line ofHorace. Julien knew no Latin apart from the Bible. He replied with afrown:
'The sacred ministry to which I intend to devote myself has forbiddenme to read so profane a poet.'
M. de Renal repeated a fair number of alleged lines of Horace. He explained to his children what Horace was; but the children, overcomewith admiration, paid little attention to what he was saying. They werewatching Julien.
The servants being still at the door, Julien felt it incumbent upon himto prolong the test.
'And now,' he said to the youngest boy, 'Master Stanislas Xavier toomust set me a passage from the Holy Book.'
Little Stanislas, swelling with pride, read out to the best of his abilitythe opening words of a paragraph, and Julien repeated the whole page.
That nothing might be wanting to complete M. de Renal's triumph, whileJulien was reciting, there entered M. Valenod, the possessor of fine Norman horses, and M. Charcot de Maugiron, Sub-Prefect of the district.
This scene earned for Julien the title 'Sir'; the servants themselves darednot withhold it from him.
That evening, the whole of Verrieres flocked to M. de Renal's to beholdthe marvel. Julien answered them all with an air of gloom which keptthem at a distance. His fame spread so rapidly through the town that,shortly afterwards, M. de Renal, afraid of losing him, suggested his signing a contract for two years.
'No, Sir,' Julien replied coldly, 'if you chose to dismiss me I should beobliged to go. A contract which binds me without putting you under anyobligation is unfair, I must decline.'
Julien managed so skilfully that, less than a month after his coming tothe house, M. de Renal himself respected him. The cure having quarrelled with MM. de Renal and Valenod, there was no one who could betray Julien's former passion for Napoleon, of whom he was careful tospeak with horror.
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