The Red and the Black (33 page)

Every heart was moved. The presence of God seemed to have come down
into these narrow Gothic streets, bedecked on every side and
Liberally strewn with sand by the good offices of the faithful.

YOUNG

IT was no use Julien making himself small and foolish, he could not
get anyone to like him, he was too different. And yet, he said to
himself, all these teachers are discriminating people chosen from
among thousands; how come they don't appreciate my humility? Only one
of them seemed to take advantage of his readiness to believe anything
and to appear to be completely gullible. This was Father Chas-Bernard,
precentor at the cathedral where for the past fifteen years he had been
led to expect the office of canon; while waiting, he taught sacred
rhetoric at the seminary. During the period before his enlightenment,
this was one of the classes where Julien most regularly came top.
Father Chas had followed this up with marks of friendship towards him,
and at the end of his class he would readily link arms with him to
take one or two turns round the garden together.

What's he working round to? Julien wondered. He was amazed to see
that Father Chas would spend hours on end talking to him about the
cathedral vestments. It possessed seventeen braided chasubles in
addition to the mourning vestments. Great hopes were placed on the
aged wife of the President de Rubempré for over seventy years this
ninetyyear-old lady had preserved her wedding dresses made of
sumptuous fabrics from Lyon interwoven with gold. 'Just imagine, dear
fellow,' said Father Chas stopping in his tracks and opening his eyes
wide, 'these fabrics stand up by themselves, there's so much gold in
them. It's widely believed in Besançon that in her will the
président's wife increases the cathedral
treasure
by more than ten chasubles, not to mention

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four or five capes for high feasts. I'll go further,' added Father
Chas lowering his voice, 'I have reason to suppose that the
président's wife will leave us eight magnificent torches in
silver-gilt that are presumed to have been bought in Italy by the Duke
of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, to whom one of her ancestors was
favourite minister.'

But what's this
man working round to with all this stuff about old clothes? Julien
wondered. This skilful preparation has been going on for ages, and
nothing is coming of it. He must mistrust me a lot! He's more skilful
than all the rest of them--you can guess their secret aims as easily
as anything in a couple of weeks. I get it, this fellow's ambition has
been suffering for fifteen years!

One evening, in the middle of their instruction on the use of arms,
^*
Julien was summoned to see Father Pirard, who said to him:

'Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi. Father ChasBernard needs you to help him adorn the cathedral; go and obey.'

Father Pirard called him back and added with an air of commiseration:

'It's up to you to see if you want to exploit the opportunity to wander off into the town.'

'
Incedo per ignes,
'
^*
Julien replied (I have hidden enemies).

On the following morning, as soon as it was full daylight, Julien
made his way to the cathedral with lowered gaze. The sight of the
streets and the bustle beginning to take over the town did him some
good. On all sides people were adorning the house-fronts for the
procession. All the time he had spent at the seminary seemed now like a
mere moment to him. His thoughts were on Vergy and on pretty Amanda
Binet whom he might well meet, as her café was not far off. He caught
sight of Father Chas-Bernard from a distance, standing in the door
of his beloved cathedral; he was a portly man with a radiant face and
an open expression. That day he was in jubilation: 'I was waiting for
you, my dear son,' he exclaimed as soon as he caught sight of Julien,
'I bid you welcome. Today's task will be long and arduous; let us
fortify ourselves with a first

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breakfast; the second will come at ten o'clock during High Mass.'

'It is my wish, Father,' Julien said to him gravely, 'not to be alone
for a single instant; may I beg you to note', he went on, pointing to
the clock above their heads, 'that my time of arrival is one minute
to five.'

'Ah! those nasty little
wretches in the seminary are making you afraid! You're a bit silly to
think about them,' said Father Chas. 'Is a path any the less beautiful
for having thorns in the hedges bordering it? Travellers go on their
way and leave the nasty thorns to fester where they are. But anyway,
to work, dear boy, to work.'

Father
Chas was right to say the task would be arduous. On the previous
evening there had been a grand funeral ceremony at the cathedral; no
one had been able to prepare anything, so it was necessary in the
space of a single morning to deck all the gothic pillars which form
the three naves with a sort of draping of red damask rising to a
height of thirty feet. The bishop had had four decorators brought from
Paris by mail-coach, but these gentlemen could not cope with
everything, and far from encouraging their clumsy Besançon workmates,
they made matters worse by laughing at them.

Julien saw he would have to go up the ladder himself, and his agility
served him well. He took upon himself to direct the efforts of the
local decorators. Father Chas watched in delight as he leaped from
ladder to ladder. When all the pillars were decked in damask, it was a
matter of going to position five enormous bunches of feathers on top
of the great canopy above the high altar. An elaborate centrepiece of
gilded wood is supported by eight spiralling columns in Italian
marble. However, to reach the centre of the canopy above the tabernacle,
the only access was along an old wooden ledge possibly riddled with
woodworm and forty feet from the ground.

The sight of this difficult climb had extinguished the Parisian
decorators' gaiety which had sparkled so conspicuously till then; they
looked up from below, argued a lot, and did not go up. Julien seized
hold of the bunches of feathers and ran up the ladder. He positioned
them perfectly on top of the crownshaped decoration in the centre of the
canopy. As he came

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down the ladder, Father Chas-Bernard clasped him in his arms:

'
Optime
,' exclaimed the kindly priest, 'I shall tell Monsignor.'

Breakfast at ten was very jolly. Father Chas had never seen his church looking so beautiful.

'Dear disciple,' he said to Julien, 'my mother hired out chairs in
this venerable basilica, so I was nurtured in this great edifice.
Robespierre's Terror ruined us; but although only eight at the time, I
was already serving Masses in private houses, and I was fed on days
when Mass was celebrated. No one could fold a chasuble better than I,
the braid never got creased. Since Napoleon's reinstatement of
religious worship, I have had the good fortune to be in charge of
everything in this venerable basilica. Five times a year my eyes
behold it bedecked with these lovely adornments. But it has never been
so resplendent, never have the widths of damask been so beautifully
hung as today, so closely moulded to the pillars.'

At last he's going to tell me his secret, thought Julien, here he is
talking to me about himself; he's feeling expansive. But nothing rash
was said by this man for all his signs of exaltation. And yet he has
worked hard, he's happy, Julien said to himself, there's been no
stinting on the good wine. What a man! What an example to me! He gets
the gong. (This was a vulgar expression he had picked up from the old
surgeon.)

As the
Sanctus
from the High Mass rang out, Julien made as if to put on a surplice to follow the bishop in the magnificent procession.

'What about thieves, dear fellow, what about thieves!' exclaimed
Father Chas. 'You're not thinking. The procession is about to go out;
the church will be left deserted; we'll watch over it, just the two of
us. We'll be very lucky if all that goes missing is a couple of
lengths of that fine braid encircling the base of the pillars. That's
yet another gift from M
^me
de Rubempré; it comes from the
famous count her great-grandfather; it's pure gold, dear boy,' added the
priest into his ear, with an air of obvious excitement, 'nothing is
fake! I'm putting you in charge of inspecting the north aisle, don't
leave it. I'll do the south aisle and the main nave. Watch out for the

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confessionals; that's where the thieves plant their ladies to keep an eye open for the moment our backs are turned.'

As he finished speaking, the third quarter after eleven struck, and
the great bell at once pealed out. It rang full swing; these solemn,
resonant peals moved Julien. His imagination was no longer on earth.

The smell of incense and of the rose leaves scattered in front of the
holy sacrament by little children dressed up as St John brought his
exaltation to full pitch.

The deep
tones of this bell ought not to have aroused in Julien anything other
than the thought of twenty men labouring for fifty centimes each, maybe
assisted by fifteen or twenty of the faithful. He ought to have been
thinking of the wear on the ropes, on the beam, and of the danger from
the bell itself, which falls every other century; thinking of ways of
reducing the wages of the bellringers, or of paying them with some
indulgence or other grace drawn from the Church's treasure trove
without shrinking her purse.

Instead
of such wise reflections, Julien's soul, uplifted by the great
masculine resonance of the pealing bell, had wandered off in flights of
fantasy. He will never make a good priest, or a great administrator.
Souls which are moved like that are fit at the very most to produce an
artist. Here, Julien's presumption breaks forth in its full glory. As
many as fifty, maybe, of his fellow seminarists, made attentive to
the nitty gritty of life by public hatred and Jacobinism, depicted to
them as lying in wait behind every hedge, would only have thought,
on hearing the great cathedral bell, of the wages of the ringers. They
would have considered with Barême's
^*
genius whether the degree of emotion aroused in the public was
worth the money paid to the beuringers. If Julien had wished to think
of the material interests of the cathedral, his imagination would have
overshot the target, and fixed upon economizing forty francs in
manufacturing, thereby missing the opportunity of saving an
expenditure of twenty-five centimes.

While the procession moved slowly through Besançon on one of the
loveliest days you can imagine, stopping at the resplendent altars of
repose
^*
put up by each official body in a

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bid to outshine the others, the church remained plunged in deep
silence. It was pleasantly cool in the half-light; the smell of
flowers and incense still lingered there.

The silence, the deep solitude, the cool of the long naves made
Julien's dreaming all the sweeter. He did not fear disturbance from
Father Chas, who was busy in another part of the church. His soul had
almost cut free from its mortal body, which was walking slowly up and
down the north aisle that had been entrusted to Julien's guard. He was
all the more at ease since he had made sure that the confessionals
only contained a few pious women; his eyes looked without seeing.

However, he was half recalled from his absent state by the sight of
two strikingly well dressed women kneeling down, one in a
confessional, and the other, right next to the first, against a chair.
He looked without seeing; but whether from a vague sense of duty, or
whether out of admiration for the noble and simple dress of these
ladies, he noticed that there was no priest in the confessional. How
odd, he thought, that these beautiful ladies are not kneeling in front
of one of the altars of repose, if they are pious; or stationed to
their advantage in the front row of a balcony, if they belong to high
society. How shapely that dress is! How graceful! He slackened his
pace to get a better view of them.

The one who was kneeling in the confessional turned her head a little
to one side on hearing the noise of Julien's footsteps in the depths
of this great silence. All of a sudden she gave a little cry and began
to feel faint.

As her strength left
her, this lady fell backwards from her kneeling position; her friend,
who was close by, rushed foward to come to her aid. At the same
moment, Julien saw the shoulders of the lady who was falling
backwards. A twisted necklace of large natural pearls that was very
familiar to him caught his gaze. Imagine his feelings on recognizing
the hair: it was M
^me
Rênal! The lady who was trying to support her friend's head and prevent her from falling right over backwards was M
^me
Derville. Julien rushed forward, quite beside himself; M
^me
de Rênal's fall might well have brought her friend down too if Julien had not supported them both. He saw M
^me
de Rênal's head, pale and totally inert, lolling on her shoulder.

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He helped M
^me
Derville to rest this charming head against a wicker chair; he was on his knees.

M
^me
Derville turned round and recognized him.

'Be off with you, sir, be off!' she said to him in tones of the
utmost fury. 'It's vital she doesn't see you again. The sight of you
must indeed be appalling to her, she was so happy before you came
along! Your behaviour is atrocious. Be off with you; go away if you
have any shame left.'

These words
were spoken with such authority, and Julien felt so weak at that
moment, that he did go away. She's always hated me, he said to
himself, thinking about M
^me
Derville.

At the same moment, the nasal chanting of the first priests in the
procession echoed round the church; it was coming back in. Father
Chas-Bernard called Julien several times without his hearing to begin
with: he finally came over, and finding Julien behind a pillar where
he had taken refuge more dead than alive, took him by the arm. He
wanted to present him to the bishop.

'You're not feeling too good, my boy,' said the priest to him on
seeing him so pale and scarcely in a fit state to walk. 'You've been
working too hard.' The priest gave him his arm. 'Come along, sit you
down on the holy water clerk's little bench behind me; I'll hide you.'
They found themselves next to the main door. 'Take it easy, we've a
good twenty minutes yet before Monsignor appears. Try to gather your
strength together; when he passes, I'll lift you up: I'm strong and
sturdy in spite of my age.'

But when the bishop passed by, Julien was trembling so much that Father Chas gave up the idea of presenting him.

'Don't be too upset,' he said to him, 'I'll find another opportunity.'

That evening he arranged for ten pounds of candles to be sent over to
the seminary chapel, 'candles that had been thrifted by Julien's
care, and the speed with which he had had them extinguished.' Nothing
could have been further from the truth. The poor man was totally
extinguished himself; he had not had a single idea in his head since
seeing M
^me
de Rênal.

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