20 A poetic form based on "the minute description of the qualities of an object" (Oxford Companion to French Literature).
The Red and the Black
get. He thereby relinquished any possibility of taking her hand. They were discussing weighty matters and Julien performed extremely well, aside from intervals of silence during which he sat racking his brain. "Why can't I devise some fine maneuver," he asked himself, "and compel Madame de Rênal to show signs of the undoubted affection that, three days ago, she convinced me she truly felt!" He was totally bewildered by the desperate state into which he had thrown his affairs. Nothing, however, would have embarrassed him more than success. Analyzing matters, back in his room after midnight, his pessimistic perspective led him to believe that Madame Derville was contemptuous of him, and things were probably not much better with Madame de Rênal. In a truly foul mood, and deeply humiliated, Julien could not sleep. He had absolutely no intention of giving up his dodges and devices, or of abandoning his plans and living from day to day alongside Madame de Rênal, happy as a child with the pleasures each day brought him. He wearied his brain, creating complicated schemes; the next moment he found them completely absurd. In a word, by the time the château's clock sounded two in the morning, he was utterly miserable. The bells woke him as the crowing of the cock woke Saint Peter.21 He felt himself on the verge of a horribly painful episode. He had not given a thought to his rude proposal, from the moment he'd made it. How badly it had been received! "I told her I'd be there at two o'clock," he said to himself, rising from his bed. "Maybe I'll be clumsy and gross, the way they think a peasant's son can't help but be—Madame Derville certainly said as much—but at least I won't be weak." He was correct to appreciate his courage: never had he squeezed himself into so painfully tight a position. Opening his door, he shook so violently that his knees gave way beneath him, and he had to support himself against the wall. He wore nothing on his feet. He went to listen at Monsieur de Rênal's door, through which he could hear snoring. He was dreadfully disappointed. Now he had no reason at all not to go on. But, good God, what would he do in there? He had no plan, and even if he had, he was so shaky that he would have had no likelihood of adhering to it. At last, suffering all the pain he might have experienced had he been marched along to a firing squad, he reached the small antechamber that led into Madame de Rênal's room. He opened the door with a trembling hand, making an incredible amount of noise. There was light: a small lamp was burning in front of the fireplace. He hadn't anticipated this fresh bad luck. Seeing him enter, Madame de Rênal quickly leaped out of bed. "Wretch!" she cried. There was a degree of confusion. Julien forgot his useless plans and returned to his natural role: not to please so bewitching a woman seemed to him the greatest of all misfortunes. His only answer to her accusations was to throw himself at her feet, hugging her knees. Since she addressed him in extremely harsh terms, he dissolved in tears. Several hours later, when Julien left Madame de Rênal's room, one might have said, as they say these things in romantic novels, that he had nothing else to desire. In fact, it was the love he had inspired, and the unforeseen effect of her seductive charms, that produced his triumph: nothing in all his inept conniving had brought it about. Still, amid those sweetest of all moments, he remained a victim of his bizarre pride, pretending to be a man accustomed to subjugating women. He made unbelievable attempts to spoil what was lovable. Rather than being mindful of the ecstasies he evoked, and the guilty