5 In the early nineteenth century, novels were still considered immoral and artistically inferior by political and literary conservatives.
The Red and the Black
Julien was deeply embarrassed. He had been copying line by line, without paying attention to what he was writing, and apparently had forgotten to substitute "Paris" and "Saint-Cloud" for the original's "London" and "Richmond." He began an explanation, and then another, but could not finish either; he felt like laughing wildly. At last, hunting for something to say, he arrived at this idea: "Exalted by so sublime a discussion, dealing with the greatest concerns of the human soul, my own soul, while I was writing to you, might have suffered some distraction." "I'm making an impression," he told himself, "so for the rest of the night I can spare myself any more boredom." He hurriedly left the de Fervaques mansion. Later, looking at the letter he'd been copying, the night before, he quickly spotted the fatal place where the young Russian spoke of London and Richmond. Rereading the letter, Julien was astonished to find it almost tender. It was the contrast between the surface frivolity of his conversation, and the letters' profound, almost apocalyptic sublimity, that made him stand out. The length of his sentences, above all, pleased the marshall's widow: this was not the hopping and jumping style made fashionable by Voltaire, that terribly immoral man! Although our hero did everything he could, striving to eliminate any good sense from his conversation, it still struck notes of antimonarchism and impiety, nor did that escape Madame de Fervaques's notice. Surrounded as she was by eminently moral people, who often passed an entire evening without having a single idea, the lady was deeply impressed by something that seemed novel, though at the same time she considered it her duty to herself to be offended. She termed these radical notions a lack of judgment, bearing the stamp of the era's frivolity. But frequenting drawing rooms like hers is only useful when there's something you want to ask for. The boredom of that meaningless life, as Julien was living it, is surely shared by the reader. These are the barren moors and heaths of our journey. During the time carved out of Julien's life by Madame de Fervaques, Mademoiselle de La Mole had to try not thinking of him. There was a violent struggle in her soul: sometimes she was proud of despising someone so woebegone, but in spite of herself she found his conversation captivating. What especially amazed her was its perfect falsity: every word he said to Madame de Fervaques was either a lie or, at least, a horrific camouflaging of his real thought, with which, on virtually every subject imaginable, Mathilde was completely familiar. She found this Machiavellianism striking. "What depth!" she told herself. "How different from the grandiloquent simpletons, or the vulgar rascals who, like Monsieur Tanbeau, use exactly the same language!" Nevertheless, Julien experienced some frightful days. His daily appearances in Madame de Fervaques's drawing room were dedicated to duties of the most painful sort. His role-playing labors sucked all the strength from his soul. Often, at night, walking across her huge courtyard, only the force of willpower and rationality held him, but just barely, above the pit of despair. "I conquered despair at the seminary," he told himself. "And yet what ghastly things lay in front of me, back then! I'd either make my fortune, or I wouldn't, and in either case I expected to spend the rest of my life, most intimately, in company with those who seemed to me the most untrustworthy and disgusting in the world. The next spring, only eleven brief months later, I may have been the happiest young person of this entire era." But all too often, these fine arguments were useless, in the face of horrid realities. Every day, at lunch and at dinner, he saw Mathilde. After he'd composed uncountable numbers of letters for Monsieur de La Mole, he thought how she was soon to marry Monsieur de
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Boredom
Croisenois. That pleasant young man was already appearing, twice a day, at the de La Mole residence: the jealous eye of a rejected lover did not overlook a single one of his visits. When he'd seen Mademoiselle de La Mole treating her future husband particularly well, Julien would return to his room, unable to keep from loving glances at his pistols. "Ah! How much smarter it would be," he said to himself, "to cut the identifying marks from my clothes and go to some lonely forest, thirty miles from Paris, and end this wretched life! No one would know me, there; my death would be a secret for two weeks—and who would ever think of me, after two weeks!" This was eminently good thinking. Yet the next day, a glimpse of Mathilde's arm, displayed between the sleeve of her dress and her glove, was all it took to plunge our young philosopher into cruel recollection, which all the same linked him, once again, to life. "All right!" he then said to himself. "I'll pursue this Russian diplomacy till it finishes. How will it end? "As far as Madame de Fervaques is concerned, once I've copied out the fifty-third letter, I certainly won't be writing any more. "As for Mathilde, these six weeks of exceedingly painful comedy will produce no change in her anger, or else they'll bring me a moment of reconciliation. Good Lord! I'd die of happiness!" And then he had to stop thinking. After a long reverie, once more he was able to pick up the thread of his thought: "So," he told himself, "I'll win one day of happiness, after which her harshness will start all over, founded as it is, alas! in how little ability I have to please her, and then I'll have nothing to turn to, I'll be destroyed, perhaps forever... "With a character like hers, how could she give me guarantees? Alas, the only answer is that I wouldn't be worth it. My manners will still lack proper elegance, my speech will still be heavy and monotonous. My God! Why am I me?" Chapter Twenty-Nine: Boredom Sacrificing yourself to your passions, fine. But to nonexistent passions? O sad nineteenth century! —Girodet6 Having read the first of Julien's long letters without pleasure, Madame de Fervaques now began to find them interesting. But there was something making her unhappy: "What a shame that Monsieur Sorel is not determined to be a priest! He could then be admitted to a certain intimacy. But wearing that medal, and with his virtually bourgeois clothing, cruel questions might be asked—and how could they be answered?" Her mind did not carry that question any further. "Some wicked friend might imagine things, and even spread a rumor that he was a minor relation, from my father's family, a businessman who got the medal for service in the National Guard." Until she'd met Julien, Madame de Fervaques's greatest pleasure had been to write Marshall Fervaques's widow next to her name. But after Julien's appearance, a social climber's vanity, morbid and quick to take offense, struggled with growing interest. "It would be easy enough," she told herself, "to have him made vicar-general of some diocese near Paris! But plain Monsieur Sorel, still employed as Monsieur de La Mole's little secretary! That is distressing."