3 Or Rue du Bac, one of the main roads in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Chapter Three: The First Steps
Julien made those who heard him feel so comfortable about his mishap that, when dinner was over, and the general conversation had taken a different direction, Mademoiselle Mathilde put more questions to her brother about the unlucky occasion. Her questions were elaborate, and took a very long time to deal with. Julien several times made eye contact with her and did not hesitate, though he had not been directly queried, to give her plain replies, and all three of them, in the end, were laughing, just like three young villagers in the woods. The next day, Julien attended two theology classes, and returned, in order to transcribe twenty letters. He found seated very near him, in the library, a young man carefully but shabbily dressed, and a face stamped with envy. The marquis came in. "What are you doing here, Monsieur Tanbeau?" he said to the newcomer, his voice harsh. "I was thinking..." began the young man, smiling unpleasantly. "No, sir, you were not thinking. This is clearly a test of some sort, but a very unfortunate one." Young Tanbeau got up, furious, and disappeared. He was the academician's nephew, the man who was Madame de La Mole's friend, and planned to take up literary work. The academician had arranged for the marquis to hire him as a secretary. He'd been working in an isolated room and, having learned of the favors granted to Julien, wanted to share them. That morning he had come and set up his writing desk in the library. At four o'clock, after some hesitation, Julien ventured to go to Count Norbert. The latter, already mounted, was embarrassed but perfectly polite. "I imagine," he said to Julien, "you'll soon be going to riding school and, after a few weeks, I'll be delighted to go riding with you." "I wanted to thank you, most gratefully, for all the kindness you've shown me. Believe me, sir," added Julien most seriously, "I am deeply aware of how much I owe you. If your horse was not injured by my clumsiness yesterday, and is available, I should like to ride him today." "My dear Sorel, of course, but at your risk. Let's pretend I've given you all the necessary reasons against it, as prudence requires. The fact is, it's already four o'clock and we have no time to lose." Once they were mounted: "What do I need to do, to keep from falling?" Julien asked the young count. "A great deal," replied Norbert, roaring with laughter. "Among other things, hold yourself farther back." Julien went at a brisk trot. They were in Louis XVI Square. "Ah, you foolhardy youngster," said Norbert. "There are too many vehicles, and they're driven by such reckless fellows! Once you fall to the ground, they'll ride right over you. They have no interest in pulling up short and damaging their horses' mouths." Twenty times, Norbert saw Julien almost fall, but they returned without an accident. As they came in, the young count said to his sister: "Let me introduce you to a bold daredevil." At dinner, speaking to his father, at one end of the table, he did full justice to Julien's bravery. That was all one could praise about his horsemanship. The young count had overheard, that morning, stable hands grooming horses in the courtyard and having great fun over Julien's fall, mocking him outrageously. For all their great kindness, Julien soon felt totally isolated in the middle of this family. All their customs struck him as peculiar, and he was deficient in virtually everything. His blunders were the joy and delight of all the valets.
The Red and the Black
Father Pirard had gone to take up his parish duties. "If Julien is a slender reed, let him perish. If he has the courage, let him figure this business out, all by himself," he thought. Chapter Four: The De La Mole Mansion What's he doing here? Is he happy here? Does he think they'll ever like him? —Ronsard4 If everything seemed peculiar to Julien, in the de La Moles' splendid drawing rooms, this pale, black-robed young man seemed, in turn, extremely peculiar to those who bothered noticing him. Madame de La Mole suggested to her husband that, on days when they had important people to dinner, Julien should be sent away on errands. "I wish to carry the experiment to its completion," replied the marquis. "Father Pirard assures me that we're wrong to crush the self-respect of those we allow into our household. You can only push against something that pushes back, etc. The young man is unseemly only because his is not a face with which we are familiar. For the rest, he's deaf and dumb." "In order to properly locate myself, here," Julien thought, "I need to keep a written record of the names and the natures of the people I find in these drawing rooms." He set on the first line five or six friends of the house, people who, just in case, had been paying him court, thinking he was the marquis's latest whim. They were poor wretches, more or less servile and colorless. But it must be said, in praise of this class of people (to be found, these days, in all aristocratic drawing rooms), that they were not deferential to everyone. Some of them would allow the marquis to browbeat them, but would rebel against a single harsh word if addressed to them by Madame de la Mole. The masters of the house suffered, at bottom, from too much pride and too much boredom; they were too accustomed to insulting others, in order to relieve their own boredom, to expect their visitors to be genuine friends. Still, except on rainy days, and at moments of truly fierce boredom, which did not occur very often, they were always perfectly polite. If these five or six flatterers, who showed Julien such paternal friendship, were to desert the de La Mole house, the marquise would have been left vulnerable to long periods of solitude, and, to women of her social rank, solitude is ghastly. It is, indeed, the very symbol of disgrace. The marquis was exactly right for his wife; he made sure her drawing room was sufficiently garrisoned. Not however with people of their own rank: he viewed his new associates as insufficiently noble to be received as friends, nor sufficiently amusing to be admitted to his home as inferiors. Julien did not decipher these puzzles until a good deal later. The government's political decisions, much discussed among wealthy bourgeois families, were never broached by those in the marquis's social class, except in serious emergencies. And still, despite this century's reigning boredom, the need for amusement is such that, even on days when the de La Moles invited people for dinner, the marquis had barely left the room when everyone hurried away. In the marquis's dining room, provided that you did not makes jokes about God, or priests, or the king, or those holding government posts, or artists patronized by the court, or all established ideas and institutions—provided that you did not