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
"Oh, well! we'll send him back then, he cannot run me into more than
a hundred francs, and Verrières will have got used to seeing M. de
Rênal's children with a tutor. That result would not have been achieved
if I had allowed Julien to wear a workman's clothes. If I do send him
back, I shall of course keep the complete black suit which I have just
ordered at the draper's. All he will keep is the ready-made suit which
I have just put him into at the the tailor's."
The hour that Julien spent in his room seemed only a minute to Madame
de Rênal. The children who had been told about their new tutor began
to overwhelm their mother with questions. Eventually Julien appeared.
He was quite another man. It would be incorrect to say that he was
grave--he was the very incarnation of gravity. He was introduced to
the children and spoke to them in a manner that astonished M. de Rênal
himself.
"I am here, gentlemen, he said, as he finished his speech, to teach
you Latin. You know what it means to recite a lesson. Here is the Holy
Bible, he said, showing them a small volume in thirty-two mo., bound in
black. It deals especially with the history of our Lord Jesus Christ
and is the part which is called the New Testament. I shall often make
you recite your lesson, but do you make me now recite mine."
Adolphe, the eldest of the children, had taken up the book. "Open it
anywhere you like," went on Julien and tell me the first word of any
verse, "I will then recite by heart that sacred book which governs our
conduct towards the whole world, until you stop me."
Adolphe opened the book and read a word, and Julien recited the whole
of the page as easily as though he had been talking French. M. de Rênal
looked at his wife with an air of triumph The children, seeing the
astonishment of their parents, opened their eyes wide. A servant came
to the door of the drawing-room; Julien went on talking Latin. The
servant first remained motionless, and then disappeared. Soon Madame's
house-maid, together with the cook, arrived at the door. Adolphe had
already opened the book at eight different places, while Julien went
on reciting all the time with the same facility. "Great heavens!" said
the cook, a good and devout girl, quite aloud, "what a pretty little
priest!" M. de Rênal's self-esteem became uneasy. Instead of thinking
of examining the tutor, his mind was concentrated in racking his memory
for some other Latin words. Eventually he managed to spout a phrase of
Horace. Julien knew no other Latin except his Bible. He answered with a
frown. "The holy ministry to which I destine myself has forbidden me to
read so profane a poet."
M. de Rênal quoted quite a large number of alleged verses from Horace.
He explained to his children who Horace was, but the admiring children,
scarcely attended to what he was saying: they were looking at Julien.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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