The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830Stendhal
General
The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830
Stendhal
Ambition -- Fiction; Bildungsromans; Church and state -- Fiction; France -- Fiction; Young men -- France -- Fiction
Finally our gentlemen arrived at the ugliest rooms in this superb
suite. There was scarcely any light. They found there a little keen
man with a lively eye and a blonde wig. The abbé turned round
to Julien and presented him. It was the marquis. Julien had much
difficulty in recognising him, he found his manner was so polite.
It was no longer the grand seigneur with that haughty manner of the
abbey of Bray-le-Haut. Julien thought that his wig had much too many
hairs. As the result of this opinion he was not at all intimidated.
The descendant of the friend of Henry III. seemed to him at first of
a rather insignificant appearance. He was extremely thin and very
restless, but he soon noticed that the marquis had a politeness which
was even more pleasant to his listener than that of the Bishop of
Besançon himself. The audience only lasted three minutes. As they went
out the abbé said to Julien,
"You looked at the marquis just as you would have looked at a picture.
I am not a great expert in what these people here call politeness. You
will soon know more about it than I do, but really the boldness of your
looks seemed scarcely polite."
They had got back into the fiacre. The driver stopped near the
boulevard; the abbé ushered Julien into a suite of large rooms. Julien
noticed that there was no furniture. He was looking at the magnificent
gilded clock representing a subject which he thought very indecent,
when a very elegant gentleman approached him with a smiling air. Julien
bowed slightly.
The gentleman smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. Julien shuddered
and leapt back, he reddened with rage. The abbé Pirard, in spite of his
gravity, laughed till the tears came into his eyes. The gentleman was a
tailor.
"I give you your liberty for two days," said the abbé as they went
out. "You cannot be introduced before then to Madame de la Mole. Any
one else would watch over you as if you were a young girl during these
first few moments of your life in this new Babylon. Get ruined at once
if you have got to be ruined, and I will be rid of my own weakness of
being fond of you. The day after to-morrow this tailor will bring you
two suits, you will give the man who tries them on five francs. Apart
from that don't let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. If
you say a word they will manage somehow to make fun of you. They have a
talent for it. Come and see me the day after to-morrow at noon.... Go
and ruin yourself.... I was forgetting, go and order boots and a hat at
these addresses."
Julien scrutinised the handwriting of the addresses.
"It's the marquis's hand," said the abbé; "he is an energetic man who
foresees everything, and prefers doing to ordering. He is taking you
into his house, so that you may spare him that kind of trouble. Will
you have enough brains to execute efficiently all the instructions
which he will give you with scarcely a word of explanation? The future
will show, look after yourself."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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