but after all he was noble and created to fill a superior station, whereas M. Valenod’s father had not left him an income of six hundred livres. He had been obliged to pass from the stage of being pitied for the shabby apple-green coat in which everybody remembered him in his younger days to that of being envied for his Norman horses, his gold chains, the clothes he ordered from Paris, in short, all his present prosperity.
In the welter of this world so new to Julien he thought he had discovered an honest man; this was a geometrician, was named Gros and was reckoned a Jacobin. Julien, having made a vow never to say anything except what he himself believed to be false, was obliged to make a show of being suspicious of M. Gros. He received from Vergy large packets of exercises. He was advised to see much of his father, and complied with this painful necessity. In a word, he was quite redeeming his reputation, when one morning he was greatly surprised to find himself awakened by a pair of hands which were clapped over his eyes.
It was Madame de Renal who had come in to town and, running upstairs four steps at a time and leaving her children occupied with a favourite rabbit that they had brought with them, had reached Julien’s room a minute in advance of them. The moment was delicious but all too brief: Madame de Renal had vanished when the children arrived with the rabbit, which they wanted to show to their friend. Julien welcomed them all, including the rabbit. He seemed to be once more one of a family party; he felt that he loved these children, that it amused him to join in their chatter. He was amazed by the sweetness of their voices, the simplicity and nobility of their manners; he required to wash his imagination clean of all the vulgar behaviour, all the unpleasant thoughts the atmosphere of which he had to breathe at Verrieres. There was always the dread of bankruptcy, wealth and poverty were always fighting for the upper hand. The people with whom he dined, in speaking of the joint on their table, made confidences humiliating to themselves, and nauseating to their hearers.
‘You aristocrats, you have every reason to be proud,’ he said to Madame de Renal. And he told her of all the dinners he had endured.
‘Why, so you are in the fashion!’ And she laughed heartily at the thought of the rouge which Madame Valenod felt herself obliged to put on whenever she expected Julien. ‘I believe she has designs on your heart,’ she added.
Luncheon was a joy. The presence of the children, albeit apparently a nuisance, increased as a matter of fact the general enjoyment. These poor children did not know how to express their delight at seeing Julien again. The servants had not failed to inform them that he was being offered two hundred francs more to educate the little Valenods.
In the middle of luncheon, Stanislas Xavier, still pale after his serious illness, suddenly asked his mother what was the value of his silver spoon and fork and of the mug out of which he was drinking.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I want to sell them to give the money to M. Julien, so that he shan’t be a dupe to stay with us.’
Julien embraced him, the tears standing in his eyes. The mother wept outright, while Julien, who had taken Stanislas on his knees, explained to him that he must not use the word dupe, which, employed in that sense, was a servant’s expression. Seeing the pleasure he was giving Madame de Renal, he tried to explain, by picturesque examples, which amused the children, what was meant by a dupe.
‘I understand,’ said Stanislas, ‘it’s the crow who is silly and drops his cheese, which is picked up by the fox, who is a flatterer.’
Madame de Renal, wild with joy, smothered her children in kisses, which she could hardly do without leaning slightly upon Julien.
Suddenly the door opened; it was M. de Renal. His stern, angry face formed a strange contrast with the innocent gaiety which his presence banished. Madame de Renal turned pale; she felt herself incapable of denying anything. Julien seized the opportunity and, speaking very loud, began to tell the Mayor the incident of the silver mug which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was sure that this story would be ill received. At the first word M. de Renal frowned, from force of habit at the mere name of silver. ‘The mention of that metal,’ he would say, ‘is always a preliminary to some call upon my purse.’
But here there was more than money at stake; there was an increase of his suspicions. The air of happiness which animated his family in his absence was not calculated to improve matters with a man dominated by so sensitive a vanity. When his wife praised the graceful and witty manner in which Julien imparted fresh ideas to his pupils:
‘Yes, yes, I know, he is making me odious to my children; it is very easy for him to be a hundred times pleasanter to them than I, who am, after all, the master. Everything tends in these days to bring lawfulauthority into contempt. Unhappy France!’
Madame de Renal did not stop to examine the implications of her husband’s manner. She had just seen the possibility of spending twelve hours in Julien’s company. She had any number of purchases to make in the town, and declared that she absolutely must dine in a tavern; in spite of anything her husband might say or do, she clung to her idea. The children were in ecstasies at the mere word tavern, which modern prudery finds such pleasure in pronouncing.
M. de Renal left his wife in the first linen-draper’s shop that she entered, to go and pay some calls. He returned more gloomy than in the morning; he was convinced that the whole town was thinking about nothing but himself and Julien. As a matter of fact, no one had as yet allowed him to form any suspicion of the offensive element in the popular comments. Those that had been repeated to the Mayor had dealt exclusively with the question whether Julien would remain with him at six hundred francs or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by the Governor of the Poorhouse.
The said Governor, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him the cold shoulder. His behaviour was not without a certain subtlety; there is not much thoughtless action in the provinces: sensations are so infrequent there that people suppress them.
M. Valenod was what is called, a hundred leagues from Paris, a faraud; this is a species marked by coarseness and natural effrontery. His triumphant existence, since 1815, had confirmed him in his habits. He reigned, so to speak, at Verrieres, under the orders of M. de Renal; but being far more active, blushing at nothing, interfering in everything, everlastingly going about, writing, speaking, forgetting humiliations, having no personal pretensions, he had succeeded in equalling the credit of his Mayor in the eyes of ecclesiastical authority. M. Valenod had as good as told the grocers of the place: ‘Give me the two biggest fools among you’; the lawyers: ‘Point me out the two most ignorant’; the officers of health: ‘Let me have your two biggest rascals.’ When he had collected the most shameless representatives of each profession, he had said to them: ‘Let us reign together.’
The manners of these men annoyed M. de Renal. Valenod’s coarse nature was offended by nothing, not even when the young abbe Maslon gave him the lie direct in public.
But, in the midst of this prosperity, M. Valenod was obliged to fortify himself by little insolences in points of detail against the harsh truths which he was well aware that everyone was entitled to address to him. His activity had multiplied since the alarms which M. Appert’s visit had left in its wake. He had made three journeys to Besancon; he wrote several letters for each mail; he sent others by unknown messengers who came to his house at nightfall. He had been wrong perhaps in securing the deprivation of the old cure Chelan; for this vindictive action had made him be regarded, by several pious ladies of good birth, as a profoundly wicked man. Moreover this service rendered had placed him in the absolute power of the Vicar–General de Frilair, from whom he received strange orders. He had reached this stage in his career when he yielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter. To add to his embarrassment, his wife informed him that she wished to have Julien in the house; the idea appealed to her vanity.
In this situation, M. Valenod foresaw a final rupture with his former confederate M. de Renal. The Mayor would address him in harsh language, which mattered little enough to him; but he might write to Besancon, or even to Paris. A cousin of some Minister or other might suddenly descend upon Verrieres and take over the Governorship of the Poorhouse. M. Valenod thought of making friends with the Liberals; it was for this reason that several of them