The Red and the Black by Stendhal Page A

be a servant?'
    'But then who am I going to have my meals with?'
    This question threw old Sorel. He realized that if he said any more
he might put his foot in it. He lost his temper with Julien, swearing
profusely at him and accusing him of being greedy, and went off to
consult his other sons.
    Julien saw
them soon afterwards, leaning on their axes, deep in council. He
watched them for a long time, but was unable to guess what they were
saying, so he went and stationed
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himself on the far side of the saw to avoid being caught spying. He
wanted to think about this unexpected news which was changing his
destiny, but he felt incapable of acting prudently. His imagination
was completely taken up with picturing what he would see in M. de
Rênal's fine house.
    I must give up
the whole idea, he said to himself, rather than sink to eating with
the servants. My father will try to make me, but I'd rather die. I've
got fifteen francs and eight sous in my savings; I'll run away tonight
and get to Besançon in two days by cutting across country on paths
where I'm in no danger of meeting an officer of the law. There, I'll
enlist in the army and, if need be, cross into Switzerland. But that
means goodbye to any chance of bettering myself, goodbye to all my
ambition, and goodbye to the priesthood--that fine profession which
opens all doors.
    This horror of
eating with the servants was not natural to Julien; he would have done
far more distasteful things as a means to fortune. He got this
repugnance from Rousseau's * Confessions ,
the one book his imagination drew on to help him picture the world.
The collected bulletins of Napoleon's great army and the St Helena Chronicle completed his Koran. He would have given his life for these three
works. He never put his faith in any other. In accordance with one of
the old army surgeon's sayings, he regarded all the other books in the
world as a pack of lies, written by rogues to better themselves.
    Along with his fiery temperament, Julien had one of those amazing
memories which so often go with silliness. To win over old Father
Chélan, on whom it was plain to him that his own future lot depended,
he had learnt off by heart the whole of the New Testament in Latin. He
also knew J. de Maistre's book On the Pope , * and believed as little in the one as in the other.
    As if by mutual agreement, Sorel and his son avoided speaking to each
other for the rest of the day. At dusk Julien went off to have his
theology lesson from the priest, but did not consider it wise to say
anything to him about the strange proposal his father had received. It
may be a trap, he said to himself, I must pretend to have forgotten
all about it.
    Early next morning M. de Rênal summoned old Sorel, who
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kept him waiting well over an hour before he finally turned up,
making innumerable excuses the moment he was inside the door, with a
little bow between each one. By dint of enumerating all kinds of
objections, Sorel gathered that his son would eat with the master and
mistress of the house, and on days when they had company, alone in a
separate room with the children. Becoming ever more inclined to raise
difficulties the more genuinely keen he detected his worship to be,
and being in any case full of mistrust and amazement, Sorel asked to
see the bedroom where his son would sleep. It was a large, very
decently furnished room, but the three children's beds were already in
the process of being moved into it.
    This circumstance was a revelation to the old peasant. He at once
asked confidently to see the suit of clothes his son was to be given.
M. de Rênal opened his desk and took out a hundred francs.
    'With this money your son will go to M. Durand the draper and have a full black suit made to order.'
    'And even if I took him out of your service,' said the peasant,
suddenly forgetting to speak with respect, 'he'd keep this black
suit?'
    'I dare say.'
    'Well then!' said