1 The Precursor: a newspaper published in Lyons.
The Red and the Black
To his great surprise, Julien perceived that he was not as hated as before: he had anticipated, in fact, that hatred for him would be doubled. His secret wish that no one speak to him, which had earned him many enemies, was no longer perceived as a sign of ridiculous arrogance. To the coarse peasants who surrounded him, this was now a proper feeling of self- worth. Hatred faded quite significantly, especially among the youngest of his classmates, who had now become his students; he treated them with great civility. Little by little he even acquired supporters; it became bad taste to refer to him as Martin Luther. What does it accomplish, mentioning his friends, his enemies? It's all incredibly ugly, and uglier still because the picture is entirely true. Yet for ordinary people, these men are the only teachers of morality they possess—and without those men, what would happen to ordinary people? Can the newspaper ever replace the parish priest? Now that Julien had achieved his new dignity, Father Pirard was careful never to speak to him unless others were present. This was sensible conduct for the master, as it was for the disciple, but above all it was proof. As a harsh Jansenist, Father Pirard's fixed principle was: Do you think someone is deserving? Then put obstacles between him and everything he desires, everything he tries to do. If he is truly deserving, he'll surely know how to overcome or transform those obstacles. It was hunting season. Fouqué conceived the notion of sending the seminary a stag and a wild boar, in the name of Julien's parents. The dead animals were placed in the corridor between the kitchen and the dining room. This was to let everyone see them when they went to eat. They were all very curious. Dead as he was, the wild boar frightened the youngest of the seminarians: they reached out and touched his tusks. For a whole week, no one talked of anything else. This gift, putting Julien's family into a social category that had to be respected, was a mortal blow to jealousy. His became a superiority consecrated by wealth. Chazel and the most distinguished among his classmates made overtures, almost as if they were upset because he had not warned them of his parents' riches, thus allowing them to seem deficient in the respect due to wealth. Military conscription was enacted; as a seminary student, Julien was exempted. This strongly affected him. "There goes forever the moment when, had it been twenty years earlier, I might have begun an heroic life!" He was walking alone, in the seminary garden, and overheard a conversation between two masons working on one of the cloister's walls. "Well, I've got to go, we got ourselves a new conscription." "In that other one's2 day, hey, it was great! A mason could get to be an officer, even a general. It happened." "Just look at it now! There's only poor folks going. Those what's worth something, they stay home." "You're born poor, you stay poor, and that's that." "Hey, is it really true, like they say, the other one's dead?" a third mason asked. "It's the stuffed shirts who say that, believe me! He scared them." "What a difference for workingmen, in his day! And I hear his own generals turned traitor on him! There's traitors for you!"