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Guide to UNIX Using Linux 4th Edition Palmer Solutions Manual instant download

The document provides a comprehensive solutions manual for the 'Guide to UNIX Using Linux 4th Edition' by Palmer, including answers to review questions and hands-on project tips for Chapter 6. It covers various topics such as scripting, environment variables, and debugging commands, along with practical exercises for students to enhance their understanding of UNIX and Linux. Additionally, it includes links to other related test banks and solution manuals available for download.

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100% found this document useful (3 votes)
15 views

Guide to UNIX Using Linux 4th Edition Palmer Solutions Manual instant download

The document provides a comprehensive solutions manual for the 'Guide to UNIX Using Linux 4th Edition' by Palmer, including answers to review questions and hands-on project tips for Chapter 6. It covers various topics such as scripting, environment variables, and debugging commands, along with practical exercises for students to enhance their understanding of UNIX and Linux. Additionally, it includes links to other related test banks and solution manuals available for download.

Uploaded by

adbieloretha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Guide to UNIX Using Linux Fourth Edition
Chapter 6 Solutions

Answers to the Chapter 6 Review Questions

1. Your organization routinely uses scripts, but as some employees have left, there are scripts that
contain only command lines and no one is certain of their purpose. What steps can be taken to
ensure a way for others to know the purpose of a script?
Answer: c. Require that script writers place comment lines inside the scripts using the #
symbol to begin each comment line.

2. Which of the following shells enables the use of scripts? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: a. Bash, b. csh, and d. zsh

3. You frequently use the command ls -a and want to save time by just entering l to do the same
thing. Which of the following commands enables you to set your system to view hidden files by
only entering l?
Answer: d. alias l=”ls -a”

4. You have written a script, but when you run it there is an error. Which of the following commands
can you use to debug your script? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: b. sh -v and d. sh -x

5. You have written a shell program that creates four temporary files. Which of the following
commands can you use to remove these files when the script has completed its work?
Answer: a. trap

6. Which of the following commands works well for menus used in a script? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: b. case

7. You are currently in the source directory, which is the new directory you have just created for
storing and running your scripts. You want to make certain that the source directory is in your
default path. Which of the following commands enables you to view the current default path
settings?
Answer: d. echo $PATH

8. You have created a script for use by your entire department in a commonly accessed directory.
Only you are able to run the script, which works perfectly. Which of the following is likely to be
the problem?
Answer: b. You did not give all users in your department execute permission for that
script.

9. Your current working directory contains a series of files that start with the word “account”
combined with a, b, c, d, and e, such as accounta, accountb, and so on. Which of the following
commands enables you to view the contents of all of these files? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: c. more account[a,b,c,d,e]

10. For which of the following logic structures used within a script is fi the final line for that logic
structure? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: d. if

11. Which of the following are examples of arithmetic or relational operators? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: a. !, b. <, c. %, and d. *

1
12. You have created a series of scripts that use the same environment variables. However, when you
run these scripts, some of them do not seem to recognize the environment variables you have set.
What is the problem?
Answer: a. You need to use the export command so these variables have global use.

13. You have spent the last two hours creating a report in a file and afterwards you use cat to create a
new file. Unfortunately the new file name you used was the same as the name you used for the
report, and now your report is gone. What should you do next time to prevent this from
happening?
Answer: b. Enter the command, set -o noclobber before you start.

14. You have remotely logged into a computer running UNIX or Linux, but you are not certain about
which operating system you are using. However, when you display the contents of the
______________ variable it shows which operating system you are using.
Answer: d. OSTYPE

15. What command can you use to view the environment and configuration variables already
configured on your system?
Answer: c. printenv

16. Which of the following are valid expressions? (Choose all that apply.)
Answer: a. let x=5*9, b. let x=y+10, c. let m=12/4, and d. let r=128-80

17. When you type for wood maple spruce oak pine at the command line and then press Enter, what
should you type next at the > prompt?
Answer: a. do

18. You want to store a long listing of your files in a variable called myfiles. Which of the following
commands enables you to do this?
Answer: c. myfiles=`ls –l`

19. What error is in the following script code?

case “selection” in
“i.”) ./listscript ;;
“ii”) ./numberscript ;;
“iii”) ./findscript ;;
esac

Answer: b. There should be a dollar sign in front of selection, as in “$selection”

20. You are working with a colleague on a script called value that updates several files. You want to
test the script, but not update the files. Which of the following commands can you use?
Answer: d. sh -n value

21. You only have to enter the name of a script to have it run, such as entering myscript. What setting
enables you to do this?
Answer: d. You have placed the directory from which you run the scripts in your PATH
variable.

22. What would you expect to find in the HOME environment variable?
Answer: The HOME environment variable identifies the path name for the user’s home
directory.

23. What is the difference between a compiler and an interpreter?

2
Answer: A compiler takes code from a program language, such as C or C++ and converts
the code into machine language instructions in a separate file to be executed later. An
interpreter takes commands or code, such as from a script and translates them into
executable instructions that run on the spot.

24. What command would you use to place the cursor in row 10 and column 15 on the screen or in a
terminal window?
Answer: Use the command tput cup 10 15.

25. What is the purpose of a login script?


Answer: The login script runs each time you log into your account and can include
commands, such as aliases and the set -o noclobber command, that take effect as soon as
the script runs and that last for the duration of the login session. (unless they are manually
changed by the user later during the login session).

Hands-On Projects Tips and Solutions for Chapter 6


Project 6-1
In this project, students view a listing of their environment variables.

In Step 2, a sampling of variables that students might record are:

▪ HOSTNAME
▪ SHELL
▪ TERM
▪ HISTSIZE
▪ USER
▪ SESSION_MANAGER
▪ MAIL
▪ PATH
▪ INPUTRC
▪ PWD
▪ LANG
▪ HOME
▪ LOGNAME.

Project 6-2
This project enables students to learn how to assign a shell variable, how to view the contents of a
variable, how to use double quotes and single quotes when manipulating shell variables, and how to
use backquotes to execute a command and store the result in a shell variable.

Project 6-3
In this project, students practice using the let command with constants and with a shell script variable
so they become familiar with this capability before they build more advanced scripts in later projects in
this chapter.

At this point, if you have students who are out of practice using basic mathematical and algebraic
concepts, you might spend a classroom session reviewing variables, expressions, and so on.

3
Project 6-4
In this project, students learn to export a shell variable to make it universally accessible as an
environment variable.

Project 6-5
For this project, students learn how to determine the contents of the PATH environment variable and
then how to add the current working directory to the PATH variable so they can execute scripts
without using the ./ characters.

Project 6-6
In this project, students create a short script to demonstrate sequential logic and to get additional
practice in using the let command as well as building expressions using constants, variables, and
arithmetic operators.

Project 6-7
Students use if statement decision logic in this project. In the first set of steps they create a script using
a basic if statement and in the second set of steps they modify their script to include an if statement
nested within an if statement.

Project 6-8
In this project, students first create a shell script containing a for loop that prints the names of six users
on individual lines. Next, students learn how to execute the same for loop logic directly from the
command line.

In Step 4 of the second set of steps, students should see the following list displayed to the screen:
▪ john
▪ ellen
▪ tom
▪ becky
▪ eli
▪ jill

Project 6-9
For this project, students practice using the brackets wildcard format to run a for loop.

Project 6-10
For this project, students create two scripts to practice using the while statement. The first script uses a
simple while statement to guess the favorite color and the second script is a more complex data input
form.

Project 6-11
This project enables students to practice using case logic in a simple script. They will learn much more
about using case logic in upcoming projects.

4
Project 6-12
In this project, students first practice the tput command from the command line to get an instant idea of
how the command works. In the second set of steps, students create a simple menu that runs via a shell
script.

Project 6-13
For this project, students use the sh -u and sh -v commands to learn about debugging. By now, students
will have likely made some mistakes in creating scripts and will understand the importance of these
commands. Because shell scripts are now getting more complex, it is important for students to have
this tool available from this point on.

Project 6-14
In this project, students learn how to create an alias. Consider using this project as an opportunity to
discuss aliases that you like to use in your work or that you have incorporated into a login script.

Project 6-15
This project is the first in a series of projects in which students create a telephone list application that
simulates one that might be used in an organization. In the first set of steps, students make sure they
have a source subdirectory in which to store their application files. Next, they create a beginning menu
application.

Project 6-16
Students will need a data file with some practice data already in it for testing their application as they
go along. In this project, they delete the former versions of the corp_phones files created for practice in
Chapter 4 to make sure that they are starting with known data. Then they create a new corp_phones file
in their source directory. This project also helps ensure that students begin with some familiarity of the
data. Note that to ensure they start fresh, there are some differences between the contents of this file
and the files they created in Chapter 4.

It is common for application developers to use practice data files with a few known data entries when
they develop an application. Consider holding a discussion about why these files are important and
discuss practice data files you may have used when you have developed applications for an
organization.

Project 6-17
In this project, students edit the phmenu script so that it can call applications..

Project 6-18
For this project, students again edit the phmenu script to be able to print raw data to view for
verification of the data.

Project 6-19
For this project, students create and test the phlist1 script to display a listing of telephone number
information. This script can be run from the phmenu script as well.

5
Project 6-20
In this project, students create the phoneadd script from which to add new records to the corp_phones
file.

Discovery Exercises
1. Use two different commands to display the contents of the HOME variable

Answer: Type printenv HOME and press Enter. Also, type echo $HOME and press Enter.

2. Assign the variable t the value of 20. Next, assign the variable s the value of t+30. Finally, display
the contents of t and s to verify you have correctly defined these variables.
Answer: Type t=20 and press Enter. Next, type let s=t+30 and press Enter. To verify the
contents of t type echo $t and press Enter. Next to verify the contents of s type echo $s
and press Enter.

3. Make the s variable you assigned in Exercise 2 an environment variable and use the command to
verify it is recognized as an environment variable.

Answer: Type export s and press Enter. Next, type printenv or printenv s and press Enter
to verify that s is now recognized as an environment variable.

4. Switch to your source directory. Display the contents of the PATH variable. Next, use the
command to add your current working directory to the PATH variable.

Answer: Type cd source and press Enter. Next, type echo $PATH or printenv PATH and
press Enter. Finally, type PATH=$PATH:. and press Enter.

5. After completing Exercise 4, run the phmenu program in the easiest way.

Answer: Because the source directory is now in the path, you simply type phmenu and
press Enter.

6. Create a variable called iam and assign the results of the whoami command to it. Display the
contents of the variable to verify your results.

Answer: Type iam=`whoami` and press Enter. Next, type echo $iam and press Enter.

7. Change back to your home directory, if you are not in it. Use the set command to set up your
working environment to prevent you from overwriting a file.

Answer: Type set -o noclobber and press Enter.

8. Create an alias called var that displays your environment variables.

Answer: Type alias var=” printenv” and press Enter.

9. At the command line use a for loop that uses the variable sandwiches and then displays a line at a
time the following sandwiches: chicken, ham, hummus, tomato.

Answer: Type the following at the command line:


for sandwiches in chicken ham hummus tomato <Enter>

6
>do <Enter>
>echo $sandwiches <Enter>
>done <Enter>

10. Create a script that uses case logic to have someone guess your favorite sandwich, such as tuna.

Answer: The lines of code in the script should be, for example:
echo -n "Guess my favorite sandwich: "
read guess
case “$guess” in
“tuna”) echo “Tuna is my favorite sandwich” ;;
* ) echo “Nope, actually I like tuna” ;;
esac

11. Display the contents of .bashrc file. Next, use the vi editor to edit that file and put in an alias so
that every time you type list you see a long file listing of a directory.

Answer: Make sure you are in your home directory (enter pwd and then enter cd if you
are not in your home directory). Type less .bashrc and press Enter (or students can use
more or cat) to see the contents of the .bashrc file. Next, use vi or Emacs to place the line
alias list=”ls –l” under the # User specific aliases and functions section in the file.

12. Use a command to simulate how you would troubleshoot a problem with the sandwich script you
created in Exercise 10.

Answer: Type sh -x sandwich or sh -v sandwich and press Enter.

13. What is wrong with the following lines of code?


While [ “$value” = “100” ; do
Echo “That’s a large number.” read value
fi

Answer: 1) there should be a closing bracket after “100”, 2) Echo should not have an
initial capital letter, 3) there should be a semicolon on the second line to separate
number.” and read value, and the third line should have done instead of fi.

14. Use the let command to store the value 1024 in the variable ram. Display the contents of ram.

Answer: Type let ram=1024 and press Enter. Next, type echo $ram and press Enter.

15. Temporarily change your home directory environment variable to /home and then use one
command to go to your home directory. Change the home directory environment variable back to
your regular home directory and switch to it.

Answer: Type HOME=”/home” and press Enter. Next, type cd and press Enter. To go
back to the default, type HOME=”/home/username” and press Enter. Next, type cd and
press Enter

16. Use the tput command to clear the screen and then to place the cursor in row 7, column 22:

Answer: Type tput clear and press Enter. Next type tput cup 7 22 and press Enter.

17. Write a script that creates the following menu:


Soup Menu
==========

7
(t)omato
(b)ean
(s)quash
Select a soup … (q) to quit

Answer: Here is some example code:

loop=y
while [ "$loop" = y ]
do
clear
tput cup 3 12; echo "Soup Menu"
tput cup 4 12; echo "========="
tput cup 6 9; echo "(t)omato"
tput cup 7 9; echo "(b)bean”"
tput cup 8 9; echo "(s)squash"
tput cup 10 9; echo "Select a soup … (q) to quit”
tput cup 11 9
read choice || continue
done

18. List all of the signal numbers and designations for the trap command. What is the designation for
signal 31?

Answer: Type trap -l and press Enter. The designation for signal 31 is SIGSYS.

19. Modify your script from Exercise 17 so that there is a beep when the menu is ready to take the
user’s input.

Answer: Use the line near the end as follows:


tput cup 10 9; echo -e "Select a soup … (q) to quit \a”

20. Is there a command that you can use to prevent shell variables from being assigned new values? If
so, what is it?

Answer: Yes. Use the readonly command in the Bash shell.

8
Other documents randomly have
different content
LITTLE EPISODES

“Then there were sighs, the deeper for


suppression,
And stolen glances sweeter for theft,
And burning blushes, though for no
transgression.”
Don Juan,
c. I, st. 74.

It was only when Madame de Rênal began to think of her maid


Elisa that there was some slight change in that angelic sweetness
which she owed both to her natural character and her actual
happiness. The girl had come into a fortune, went to confess herself
to the curé Chélan and confessed to him her plan of marrying Julien.
The curé was truly rejoiced at his friend’s good fortune, but he was
extremely surprised when Julien resolutely informed him that
Mademoiselle Elisa’s offer could not suit him.
“Beware, my friend, of what is passing within your heart,” said the
curé with a frown, “I congratulate you on your mission, if that is the
only reason why you despise a more than ample fortune. It is fifty-
six years since I was first curé of Verrières, and yet I shall be turned
out, according to all appearances. I am distressed by it, and yet my
income amounts to eight hundred francs. I inform you of this detail
so that you may not be under any illusions as to what awaits you in
your career as a priest. If you think of paying court to the men who
enjoy power, your eternal damnation is assured. You may make your
fortune, but you will have to do harm to the poor, flatter the sub-
prefect, the mayor, the man who enjoys prestige, and pander to his
passion; this conduct, which in the world is called knowledge of life,
is not absolutely incompatible with salvation so far as a layman is
concerned; but in our career we have to make a choice; it is a
question of making one’s fortune either in this world or the next;
there is no middle course. Come, my dear friend, reflect, and come
back in three days with a definite answer. I am pained to detect that
there is at the bottom of your character a sombre passion which is
far from indicating to me that moderation and that perfect
renunciation of earthly advantages so necessary for a priest; I augur
well of your intellect, but allow me to tell you,” added the good curé
with tears in his eyes, “I tremble for your salvation in your career as
a priest.”
Julien was ashamed of his emotion; he found himself loved for the
first time in his life; he wept with delight; and went to hide his tears
in the great woods behind Verrières.
“Why am I in this position?” he said to himself at last, “I feel that I
would give my life a hundred times over for this good curé Chélan,
and he has just proved to me that I am nothing more than a fool. It
is especially necessary for me to deceive him, and he manages to
find me out. The secret ardour which he refers to is my plan of
making my fortune. He thinks I am unworthy of being a priest, that
too, just when I was imagining that my sacrifice of fifty louis would
give him the very highest idea of my piety and devotion to my
mission.”
“In future,” continued Julien, “I will only reckon on those elements
in my character which I have tested. Who could have told me that I
should find any pleasure in shedding tears? How I should like some
one to convince me that I am simply a fool!”
Three days later, Julien found the excuse with which he ought to
have been prepared on the first day; the excuse was a piece of
calumny, but what did it matter? He confessed to the curé, with a
great deal of hesitation, that he had been persuaded from the
suggested union by a reason he could not explain, inasmuch as it
tended to damage a third party. This was equivalent to impeaching
Elisa’s conduct. M. Chélan found that his manner betrayed a certain
worldly fire which was very different from that which ought to have
animated a young acolyte.
“My friend,” he said to him again, “be a good country citizen,
respected and educated, rather than a priest without a true mission.”
So far as words were concerned, Julien answered these new
remonstrances very well. He managed to find the words which a
young and ardent seminarist would have employed, but the tone in
which he pronounced them, together with the thinly concealed fire
which blazed in his eye, alarmed M. Chélan.
You must not have too bad an opinion of Julien’s prospects. He
invented with correctness all the words suitable to a prudent and
cunning hypocrisy. It was not bad for his age. As for his tone and his
gestures, he had spent his life with country people; he had never
been given an opportunity of seeing great models. Consequently, as
soon as he was given a chance of getting near such gentlemen, his
gestures became as admirable as his words.
Madame de Rênal was astonished that her maid’s new fortune did
not make her more happy. She saw her repeatedly going to the curé
and coming back with tears in her eyes. At last Elisa talked to her of
her marriage.
Madame de Rênal thought she was ill. A kind of fever prevented
her from sleeping. She only lived when either maid or Julien were in
sight. She was unable to think of anything except them and the
happiness which they would find in their home. Her imagination
depicted in the most fascinating colours the poverty of the little
house, where they were to live on their income of fifty louis a year.
Julien could quite well become an advocate at Bray, the sub-
prefecture, two leagues from Verrières. In that case she would see
him sometimes. Madame de Rênal sincerely believed she would go
mad. She said so to her husband and finally fell ill. That very
evening when her maid was attending her, she noticed that the girl
was crying. She abhorred Elisa at that moment, and started to scold
her; she then begged her pardon. Elisa’s tears redoubled. She said if
her mistress would allow her, she would tell her all her unhappiness.
“Tell me,” answered Madame de Rênal.
“Well, Madame, he refuses me, some wicked people must have
spoken badly about me. He believes them.”
“Who refuses you?” said Madame de Rênal, scarcely breathing.
“Who else, Madame, but M. Julien,” answered the maid sobbing.
“M. the curé had been unable to overcome his resistance, for M. the
curé thinks that he ought not to refuse an honest girl on the pretext
that she has been a maid. After all, M. Julien’s father is nothing more
than a carpenter, and how did he himself earn his living before he
was at Madame’s?”
Madame de Rênal stopped listening; her excessive happiness had
almost deprived her of her reason. She made the girl repeat several
times the assurance that Julien had refused her, with a positiveness
which shut the door on the possibility of his coming round to a more
prudent decision.
“I will make a last attempt,” she said to her maid. “I will speak to
M. Julien.”
The following day, after breakfast, Madame de Rênal indulged in
the delightful luxury of pleading her rival’s cause, and of seeing
Elisa’s hand and fortune stubbornly refused for a whole hour.
Julien gradually emerged from his cautiously worded answers, and
finished by answering with spirit Madame de Rênal’s good advice.
She could not help being overcome by the torrent of happiness
which, after so many days of despair, now inundated her soul. She
felt quite ill. When she had recovered and was comfortably in her
own room she sent everyone away. She was profoundly astonished.
“Can I be in love with Julien?” she finally said to herself. This
discovery, which at any other time would have plunged her into
remorse and the deepest agitation, now only produced the effect of
a singular, but as it were, indifferent spectacle. Her soul was
exhausted by all that she had just gone through, and had no more
sensibility to passion left.
Madame de Rênal tried to work, and fell into a deep sleep; when
she woke up she did not frighten herself so much as she ought to
have. She was too happy to be able to see anything wrong in
anything. Naïve and innocent as she was, this worthy provincial
woman had never tortured her soul in her endeavours to extract
from it a little sensibility to some new shade of sentiment or
unhappiness. Entirely absorbed as she had been before Julien’s
arrival with that mass of work which falls to the lot of a good
mistress of a household away from Paris, Madame de Rênal thought
of passion in the same way in which we think of a lottery: a certain
deception, a happiness sought after by fools.
The dinner bell rang. Madame de Rênal blushed violently. She
heard the voice of Julien who was bringing in the children. Having
grown somewhat adroit since her falling in love, she complained of
an awful headache in order to explain her redness.
“That’s just like what all women are,” answered M. de Rênal with a
coarse laugh. “Those machines have always got something or other
to be put right.”
Although she was accustomed to this type of wit, Madame de
Rênal was shocked by the tone of voice. In order to distract herself,
she looked at Julien’s physiognomy; he would have pleased her at
this particular moment, even if he had been the ugliest man
imaginable.
M. de Rênal, who always made a point of copying the habits of
the gentry of the court, established himself at Vergy in the first fine
days of the spring; this is the village rendered celebrated by the
tragic adventure of Gabrielle. A hundred paces from the picturesque
ruin of the old Gothic church, M. de Rênal owns an old château with
its four towers and a garden designed like the one in the Tuileries
with a great many edging verges of box and avenues of chestnut
trees which are cut twice in the year. An adjacent field, crowded with
apple trees, served for a promenade. Eight or ten magnificent
walnut trees were at the end of the orchard. Their immense foliage
went as high as perhaps eighty feet.
“Each of these cursed walnut trees,” M. de Rênal was in the habit
of saying, whenever his wife admired them, “costs me the harvest of
at least half an acre; corn cannot grow under their shade.”
Madame de Rênal found the sight of the country novel: her
admiration reached the point of enthusiasm. The sentiment by which
she was animated gave her both ideas and resolution. M. de Rênal
had returned to the town, for mayoral business, two days after their
arrival in Vergy. But Madame de Rênal engaged workmen at her own
expense. Julien had given her the idea of a little sanded path which
was to go round the orchard and under the big walnut trees, and
render it possible for the children to take their walk in the very
earliest hours of the morning without getting their feet wet from the
dew. This idea was put into execution within twenty-four hours of its
being conceived. Madame de Rênal gaily spent the whole day with
Julien in supervising the workmen.
When the Mayor of Verrières came back from the town he was
very surprised to find the avenue completed. His arrival surprised
Madame de Rênal as well. She had forgotten his existence. For two
months he talked with irritation about the boldness involved in
making so important a repair without consulting him, but Madame
de Rênal had had it executed at her own expense, a fact which
somewhat consoled him.
She spent her days in running about the orchard with her children,
and in catching butterflies. They had made big hoods of clear gauze
with which they caught the poor lepidoptera. This is the barbarous
name which Julien taught Madame de Rênal. For she had had M.
Godart’s fine work ordered from Besançon, and Julien used to tell
her about the strange habits of the creatures.
They ruthlessly transfixed them by means of pins in a great
cardboard box which Julien had prepared.
Madame de Rênal and Julien had at last a topic of conversation;
he was no longer exposed to the awful torture that had been
occasioned by their moments of silence.
They talked incessantly and with extreme interest, though always
about very innocent matters. This gay, full, active life, pleased the
fancy of everyone, except Mademoiselle Elisa who found herself
overworked. Madame had never taken so much trouble with her
dress, even at carnival time, when there is a ball at Verrières, she
would say; she changes her gowns two or three times a day.
As it is not our intention to flatter anyone, we do not propose to
deny that Madame de Rênal, who had a superb skin, arranged her
gowns in such a way as to leave her arms and her bosom very
exposed. She was extremely well made, and this style of dress
suited her delightfully.
“You have never been so young, Madame,” her Verrières friends
would say to her, when they came to dinner at Vergy (this is one of
the local expressions).
It is a singular thing, and one which few amongst us will believe,
but Madame de Rênal had no specific object in taking so much
trouble. She found pleasure in it and spent all the time which she did
not pass in hunting butterflies with the children and Julien, in
working with Elisa at making gowns, without giving the matter a
further thought. Her only expedition to Verrières was caused by her
desire to buy some new summer gowns which had just come from
Mulhouse.
She brought back to Vergy a young woman who was a relative of
hers. Since her marriage, Madame de Rênal had gradually become
attached to Madame Derville, who had once been her school mate at
the Sacré Cœur.
Madame Derville laughed a great deal at what she called her
cousin’s mad ideas: “I would never have thought of them alone,” she
said. When Madame de Rênal was with her husband, she was
ashamed of those sudden ideas, which, are called sallies in Paris,
and thought them quite silly: but Madame Derville’s presence gave
her courage. She would start to telling her thoughts in a timid voice,
but after the ladies had been alone for a long time, Madame de
Rênal’s brain became more animated, and a long morning spent
together by the two friends passed like a second, and left them in
the best of spirits. On this particular journey, however, the acute
Madame Derville thought her cousin much less merry, but much
more happy than usual.
Julien, on his side, had since coming to the country lived like an
absolute child, and been as happy as his pupils in running after the
butterflies. After so long a period of constraint and wary diplomacy,
he was at last alone and far from human observation; he was
instinctively free from any apprehension on the score of Madame de
Rênal, and abandoned himself to the sheer pleasure of being alive,
which is so keen at so young an age, especially among the most
beautiful mountains in the world.
Ever since Madame Derville’s arrival, Julien thought that she was
his friend; he took the first opportunity of showing her the view from
the end of the new avenue, under the walnut tree; as a matter of
fact it is equal, if not superior, to the most wonderful views that
Switzerland and the Italian lakes can offer. If you ascend the steep
slope which commences some paces from there, you soon arrive at
great precipices fringed by oak forests, which almost jut on to the
river. It was to the peaked summits of these rocks that Julien, who
was now happy, free, and king of the household into the bargain,
would take the two friends, and enjoy their admiration these sublime
views.
“To me it’s like Mozart’s music,” Madame Derville would say.
The country around Verrières had been spoilt for Julien by the
jealousy of his brothers and the presence of a tyranous and angry
father. He was free from these bitter memories at Vergy; for the first
time in his life, he failed to see an enemy. When, as frequently
happened, M. de Rênal was in town, he ventured to read; soon,
instead of reading at night time, a procedure, moreover, which
involved carefully hiding his lamp at the bottom of a flower-pot
turned upside down, he was able to indulge in sleep; in the day,
however, in the intervals between the children’s lessons, he would
come among these rocks with that book which was the one guide of
his conduct and object of his enthusiasm. He found in it
simultaneously happiness, ecstasy and consolation for his moments
of discouragement.
Certain remarks of Napoleon about women, several discussions
about the merits of the novels which were fashionable in his reign,
furnished him now for the first time with some ideas which any other
young man of his age would have had for a long time.
The dog days arrived. They started the habit of spending the
evenings under an immense pine tree some yards from the house.
The darkness was profound. One evening, Julien was speaking and
gesticulating, enjoying to the full the pleasure of being at his best
when talking to young women; in one of his gestures, he touched
the hand of Madame de Rênal which was leaning on the back of one
of those chairs of painted wood, which are so frequently to be seen
in gardens.
The hand was quickly removed, but Julien thought it a point of
duty to secure that that hand should not be removed when he
touched it. The idea of a duty to be performed and the
consciousness of his stultification, or rather of his social inferiority, if
he should fail in achieving it, immediately banished all pleasure from
his heart.

CHAPTER IX

AN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY

M. Guérin’s Dido, a charming sketch!—Strombeck.

His expression was singular when he saw Madame de Rênal the


next day; he watched her like an enemy with whom he would have
to fight a duel. These looks, which were so different from those of
the previous evening, made Madame de Rênal lose her head; she
had been kind to him and he appeared angry. She could not take her
eyes off his.
Madame Derville’s presence allowed Julien to devote less time to
conversation, and more time to thinking about what he had in his
mind. His one object all this day was to fortify himself by reading the
inspired book that gave strength to his soul.
He considerably curtailed the children’s lessons, and when
Madame de Rênal’s presence had effectually brought him back to the
pursuit of his ambition, he decided that she absolutely must allow
her hand to rest in his that evening.
The setting of the sun which brought the crucial moment nearer
and nearer made Julien’s heart beat in a strange way. Night came.
He noticed with a joy, which took an immense weight off his heart,
that it was going to be very dark. The sky, which was laden with big
clouds that had been brought along by a sultry wind, seemed to
herald a storm. The two friends went for their walk very late. All
they did that night struck Julien as strange. They were enjoying that
hour which seems to give certain refined souls an increased pleasure
in loving.
At last they sat down, Madame de Rênal beside Julien, and
Madame Derville near her friend. Engrossed as he was by the
attempt which he was going to make, Julien could think of nothing
to say. The conversation languished.
“Shall I be as nervous and miserable over my first duel?” said
Julien to himself; for he was too suspicious both of himself and of
others, not to realise his own mental state.
In his mortal anguish, he would have preferred any danger
whatsoever. How many times did he not wish some matter to crop
up which would necessitate Madame de Rênal going into the house
and leaving the garden! The violent strain on Julien’s nerves was too
great for his voice not to be considerably changed; soon Madame de
Rênal’s voice became nervous as well, but Julien did not notice it.
The awful battle raging between duty and timidity was too painful,
for him to be in a position to observe anything outside himself. A
quarter to ten had just struck on the château clock without his
having ventured anything. Julien was indignant at his own
cowardice, and said to himself, “at the exact moment when ten
o’clock strikes, I will perform what I have resolved to do all through
the day, or I will go up to my room and blow out my brains.”
After a final moment of expectation and anxiety, during which
Julien was rendered almost beside himself by his excessive emotion,
ten o’clock struck from the clock over his head. Each stroke of the
fatal clock reverberated in his bosom, and caused an almost physical
pang.
Finally, when the last stroke of ten was still reverberating, he
stretched out his hand and took Madame de Rênal’s, who
immediately withdrew it. Julien, scarcely knowing what he was
doing, seized it again. In spite of his own excitement, he could not
help being struck by the icy coldness of the hand which he was
taking; he pressed it convulsively; a last effort was made to take it
away, but in the end the hand remained in his.
His soul was inundated with happiness, not that he loved Madame
de Rênal, but an awful torture had just ended. He thought it
necessary to say something, to avoid Madame Derville noticing
anything. His voice was now strong and ringing. Madame de Rênal’s,
on the contrary, betrayed so much emotion that her friend thought
she was ill, and suggested her going in. Julien scented danger, “if
Madame de Rênal goes back to the salon, I shall relapse into the
awful state in which I have been all day. I have held the hand far too
short a time for it really to count as the scoring of an actual
advantage.”
At the moment when Madame Derville was repeating her
suggestion to go back to the salon, Julien squeezed vigorously the
hand that was abandoned to him.
Madame de Rênal, who had started to get up, sat down again and
said in a faint voice,
“I feel a little ill, as a matter of fact, but the open air is doing me
good.”
These words confirmed Julien’s happiness, which at the present
moment was extreme; he spoke, he forgot to pose, and appeared
the most charming man in the world to the two friends who were
listening to him. Nevertheless, there was a slight lack of courage in
all this eloquence which had suddenly come upon him. He was
mortally afraid that Madame Derville would get tired of the wind
before the storm, which was beginning to rise, and want to go back
alone into the salon. He would then have remained tête-à-tête with
Madame de Rênal. He had had, almost by accident that blind
courage which is sufficient for action; but he felt that it was out of
his power to speak the simplest word to Madame de Rênal. He was
certain that, however slight her reproaches might be, he would
nevertheless be worsted, and that the advantage he had just won
would be destroyed.
Luckily for him on this evening, his moving and emphatic speeches
found favour with Madame Derville, who very often found him as
clumsy as a child and not at all amusing. As for Madame de Rênal,
with her hand in Julien’s, she did not have a thought; she simply
allowed herself to go on living.
The hours spent under this great pine tree, planted by Charles the
Bold according to the local tradition, were a real period of happiness.
She listened with delight to the soughing of the wind in the thick
foliage of the pine tree and to the noise of some stray drops which
were beginning to fall upon the leaves which were lowest down.
Julien failed to notice one circumstance which, if he had, would have
quickly reassured him; Madame de Rênal, who had been obliged to
take away her hand, because she had got up to help her cousin to
pick up a flower-pot which the wind had knocked over at her feet,
had scarcely sat down again before she gave him her hand with
scarcely any difficulty and as though it had already been a pre-
arranged thing between them.
Midnight had struck a long time ago; it was at last necessary to
leave the garden; they separated. Madame de Rênal swept away as
she was, by the happiness of loving, was so completely ignorant of
the world that she scarcely reproached herself at all. Her happiness
deprived her of her sleep. A leaden sleep overwhelmed Julien who
was mortally fatigued by the battle which timidity and pride had
waged in his heart all through the day.
He was called at five o’clock on the following day and scarcely
gave Madame de Rênal a single thought.
He had accomplished his duty, and a heroic duty too. The
consciousness of this filled him with happiness; he locked himself in
his room, and abandoned himself with quite a new pleasure to
reading exploits of his hero.
When the breakfast bell sounded, the reading of the Bulletins of
the Great Army had made him forget all his advantages of the
previous day. He said to himself flippantly, as he went down to the
salon, “I must tell that woman that I am in love with her.” Instead of
those looks brimful of pleasure which he was expecting to meet, he
found the stern visage of M. de Rênal, who had arrived from
Verrières two hours ago, and did not conceal his dissatisfaction at
Julien’s having passed the whole morning without attending to the
children. Nothing could have been more sordid than this self-
important man when he was in a bad temper and thought that he
could safely show it.
Each harsh word of her husband pierced Madame de Rênal’s
heart.
As for Julien, he was so plunged in his ecstasy, and still so
engrossed by the great events which had been passing before his
eyes for several hours, that he had some difficulty at first in bringing
his attention sufficiently down to listen to the harsh remarks which
M. de Rênal was addressing to him. He said to him at last, rather
abruptly,
“I was ill.”
The tone of this answer would have stung a much less sensitive
man than the mayor of Verrières. He half thought of answering
Julien by turning him out of the house straight away. He was only
restrained by the maxim which he had prescribed for himself, of
never hurrying unduly in business matters.
“The young fool,” he said to himself shortly afterwards, “has won
a kind of reputation in my house. That man Valenod may take him
into his family, or he may quite well marry Elisa, and in either case,
he will be able to have the laugh of me in his heart.”
In spite of the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Rênal’s
dissatisfaction did not fail to vent itself any the less by a string of
coarse insults which gradually irritated Julien. Madame de Rênal was
on the point of bursting into tears. Breakfast was scarcely over,
when she asked Julien to give her his arm for a walk. She leaned on
him affectionately. Julien could only answer all that Madame de
Rênal said to him by whispering.
“That’s what rich people are like!”
M. de Rênal was walking quite close to them; his presence
increased Julien’s anger. He suddenly noticed that Madame de Rênal
was leaning on his arm in a manner which was somewhat marked.
This horrified him, and he pushed her violently away and disengaged
his arm.
Luckily, M. de Rênal did not see this new piece of impertinence; it
was only noticed by Madame Derville. Her friend burst into tears. M.
de Rênal now started to chase away by a shower of stones a little
peasant girl who had taken a private path crossing a corner of the
orchard. “Monsieur Julien, restrain yourself, I pray you. Remember
that we all have our moments of temper,” said madame Derville
rapidly.
Julien looked at her coldly with eyes in which the most supreme
contempt was depicted.
This look astonished Madame Derville, and it would have surprised
her even more if she had appreciated its real expression; she would
have read in it something like a vague hope of the most atrocious
vengeance. It is, no doubt, such moments of humiliation which have
made Robespierres.
“Your Julien is very violent; he frightens me,” said Madame
Derville to her friend, in a low voice.
“He is right to be angry,” she answered. “What does it matter if he
does pass a morning without speaking to the children, after the
astonishing progress which he has made them make. One must
admit that men are very hard.”
For the first time in her life Madame de Rênal experienced a kind
of desire for vengeance against her husband. The extreme hatred of
the rich by which Julien was animated was on the point of exploding.
Luckily, M. de Rênal called his gardener, and remained occupied with
him in barring by faggots of thorns the private road through the
orchard. Julien did not vouchsafe any answer to the kindly
consideration of which he was the object during all the rest of the
walk. M. de Rênal had scarcely gone away before the two friends
made the excuse of being fatigued, and each asked him for an arm.
Walking as he did between these two women whose extreme
nervousness filled their cheeks with a blushing embarrassment, the
haughty pallor and sombre, resolute air of Julien formed a strange
contrast. He despised these women and all tender sentiments.
“What!” he said to himself, “not even an income of five hundred
francs to finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them
packing.”
And absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous
words of his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to
understand, displeased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a
word—feminine.
As the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of
endeavouring to keep the conversation alive, it came about that
Madame de Rênal mentioned that her husband had come from
Verrières because he had made a bargain for the May straw with one
of his farmers. (In this district it is the May straw with which the bed
mattresses are filled).
“My husband will not rejoin us,” added Madame de Rênal; “he will
occupy himself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses
with the help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May
straw this morning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at
the second.”
Julien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Rênal in a
singular way, and soon managed somehow to take her on one side,
doubling his pace. Madame Derville allowed them to get ahead.
“Save my life,” said Julien to Madame de Rênal; “only you can do
it, for you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess
to you, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the
mattress of my bed.”
At these words Madame de Rênal in her turn became pale.
“Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room,
feel about without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it is
nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black
cardboard, very glossy.”
“Does it contain a portrait?” said Madame de Rênal, scarcely able
to hold herself upright.
Julien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded
to exploit it.
“I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to
look at that portrait; it is my secret.”
“It is a secret,” repeated Madame de Rênal in a faint voice.
But though she had been brought up among people who are
proud of their fortune and appreciative of nothing except money,
love had already instilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as
she was, it was with an air of the most simple devotion that Madame
de Rênal asked Julien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil
her commission.
“So” she said to him as she went away, “it is a little round box of
black cardboard, very glossy.”
“Yes, Madame,” answered Julien, with that hardness which danger
gives to men.
She ascended the second storey of the château as pale as though
she had been going to her death. Her misery was completed by the
sensation that she was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of
doing Julien a service restored her strength.
“I must have that box,” she said to herself, as she doubled her
pace.
She heard her husband speaking to the valet in Julien’s very room.
Happily, they passed into the children’s room. She lifted up the
mattress, and plunged her hand into the stuffing so violently that
she bruised her fingers. But, though she was very sensitive to slight
pain of this kind, she was not conscious of it now, for she felt almost
simultaneously the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized
it and disappeared.
She had scarcely recovered from the fear of being surprised by
her husband than the horror with which this box inspired her came
within an ace of positively making her feel ill.
“So Julien is in love, and I hold here the portrait of the woman
whom he loves!”
Seated on the chair in the ante-chamber of his apartment,
Madame de Rênal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her
extreme ignorance, moreover, was useful to her at this juncture; her
astonishment mitigated her grief. Julien seized the box without
thanking her or saying a single word, and ran into his room, where
he lit a fire and immediately burnt it. He was pale and in a state of
collapse. He exaggerated the extent of the danger which he had
undergone.
“Finding Napoleon’s portrait,” he said to himself, “in the possession
of a man who professes so great a hate for the usurper! Found, too,
by M. de Rênal, who is so great an ultra, and is now in a state of
irritation, and, to complete my imprudence, lines written in my own
handwriting on the white cardboard behind the portrait, lines, too,
which can leave no doubt on the score of my excessive admiration.
And each of these transports of love is dated. There was one the day
before yesterday.”
“All my reputation collapsed and shattered in a moment,” said
Julien to himself as he watched the box burn, “and my reputation is
my only asset. It is all I have to live by—and what a life to, by
heaven!”
An hour afterwards, this fatigue, together with the pity which he
felt for himself made him inclined to be more tender. He met
Madame de Rênal and took her hand, which he kissed with more
sincerity than he had ever done before. She blushed with happiness
and almost simultaneously rebuffed Julien with all the anger of
jealousy. Julien’s pride which had been so recently wounded made
him act foolishly at this juncture. He saw in Madame de Rênal
nothing but a rich woman, he disdainfully let her hand fall and went
away. He went and walked about meditatively in the garden. Soon a
bitter smile appeared on his lips.
“Here I am walking about as serenely as a man who is master of
his own time. I am not bothering about the children! I am exposing
myself to M. de Rênal’s humiliating remarks, and he will be quite
right.” He ran to the children’s room. The caresses of the youngest
child, whom he loved very much, somewhat calmed his agony.
“He does not despise me yet,” thought Julien. But he soon
reproached himself for this alleviation of his agony as though it were
a new weakness. The children caress me just in the same way in
which they would caress the young hunting-hound which was
bought yesterday.

CHAPTER X

A GREAT HEART AND A SMALL FORTUNE

But passion most disembles, yet


betrays,
Even by its darkness, as the blackest
sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest.
Don Juan, c.
4, st. 75.

M. De Rênal was going through all the rooms in the château, and
he came back into the children’s room with the servants who were
bringing back the stuffings of the mattresses. The sudden entry of
this man had the effect on Julien of the drop of water which makes
the pot overflow.
Looking paler and more sinister than usual, he rushed towards
him. M. de Rênal stopped and looked at his servants.
“Monsieur,” said Julien to him, “Do you think your children would
have made the progress they have made with me with any other
tutor? If you answer ‘No,’” continued Julien so quickly that M. de
Rênal did not have time to speak, “how dare you reproach me with
neglecting them?”
M. de Rênal, who had scarcely recovered from his fright,
concluded from the strange tone he saw this little peasant assume,
that he had some advantageous offer in his pocket, and that he was
going to leave him.
The more he spoke the more Julien’s anger increased, “I can live
without you, Monsieur,” he added.
“I am really sorry to see you so upset,” answered M. de Rênal
shuddering a little. The servants were ten yards off engaged in
making the beds.
“That is not what I mean, Monsieur,” replied Julien quite beside
himself. “Think of the infamous words that you have addressed to
me, and before women too.”
M. de Rênal understood only too well what Julien was asking, and
a painful conflict tore his soul. It happened that Julien, who was
really mad with rage, cried out,
“I know where to go, Monsieur, when I leave your house.”
At these words M. de Rênal saw Julien installed with M. Valenod.
“Well, sir,” he said at last with a sigh, just as though he had called in
a surgeon to perform the most painful operation, “I accede to your
request. I will give you fifty francs a month. Starting from the day
after to-morrow which is the first of the month.”
Julien wanted to laugh, and stood there dumbfounded. All his
anger had vanished.
“I do not despise the brute enough,” he said to himself. “I have no
doubt that that is the greatest apology that so base a soul can
make.”
The children who had listened to this scene with gaping mouths,
ran into the garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was very
angry, but that he was going to have fifty francs a month.
Julien followed them as a matter of habit without even looking at
M. de Rênal whom he left in a considerable state of irritation.
“That makes one hundred and sixty-eight francs,” said the mayor
to himself, “that M. Valenod has cost me. I must absolutely speak a
few strong words to him about his contract to provide for the
foundlings.”
A minute afterwards Julien found himself opposite M. de Rênal.
“I want to speak to M. Chélan on a matter of conscience. I have
the honour to inform you that I shall be absent some hours.”
“Why, my dear Julien,” said M. de Rênal smiling with the falsest
expression possible, “take the whole day, and to-morrow too if you
like, my good friend. Take the gardener’s horse to go to Verrières.”
“He is on the very point,” said M. de Rênal to himself, “of giving an
answer to Valenod. He has promised me nothing, but I must let this
hot-headed young man have time to cool down.”
Julien quickly went away, and went up into the great forest,
through which one can manage to get from Vergy to Verrières. He
did not wish to arrive at M. Chélan’s at once. Far from wishing to
cramp himself in a new pose of hypocrisy he needed to see clear in
his own soul, and to give audience to the crowd of sentiments which
were agitating him.
“I have won a battle,” he said to himself, as soon as he saw that
he was well in the forest, and far from all human gaze. “So I have
won a battle.”
This expression shed a rosy light on his situation, and restored
him to some serenity.
“Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month, M. de Rênal must
be precious afraid, but what of?”
This meditation about what could have put fear into the heart of
that happy, powerful man against whom he had been boiling with
rage only an hour back, completed the restoration to serenity of
Julien’s soul. He was almost able to enjoy for a moment the
delightful beauty of the woods amidst which he was walking.
Enormous blocks of bare rocks had fallen down long ago in the
middle of the forest by the mountain side. Great cedars towered
almost as high as these rocks whose shade caused a delicious
freshness within three yards of places where the heat of the sun’s
rays would have made it impossible to rest.
Julien took breath for a moment in the shade of these great rocks,
and then he began again to climb. Traversing a narrow path that
was scarcely marked, and was only used by the goat herds, he soon
found himself standing upon an immense rock with the complete
certainty of being far away from all mankind. This physical position
made him smile. It symbolised to him the position he was burning to
attain in the moral sphere. The pure air of these lovely mountains
filled his soul with serenity and even with joy. The mayor of Verrières
still continued to typify in his eyes all the wealth and all the
arrogance of the earth; but Julien felt that the hatred that had just
thrilled him had nothing personal about it in spite of all the violence
which he had manifested. If he had left off seeing M. de Rênal he
would in eight days have forgotten him, his castle, his dogs, his
children and all his family. “I forced him, I don’t know how, to make
the greatest sacrifice. What? more than fifty crowns a year, and only
a minute before I managed to extricate myself from the greatest
danger; so there are two victories in one day. The second one is
devoid of merit, I must find out the why and the wherefore. But
these laborious researches are for to-morrow.”
Standing up on his great rock, Julien looked at the sky which was
all afire with an August sun. The grasshoppers sang in the field
about the rock; when they held their peace there was universal
silence around him. He saw twenty leagues of country at his feet. He
noticed from time to time some hawk, which launching off from the
great rocks over his head was describing in silence its immense
circles. Julien’s eye followed the bird of prey mechanically. Its
tranquil powerful movements struck him. He envied that strength,
that isolation.
“Would Napoleon’s destiny be one day his?”

CHAPTER XI

AN EVENING

Yet Julia’s very coldness still was kind,


And tremulously gently her small hand
Withdrew itself from his, but left behind
A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland,
And slight, so very slight that to the mind,
’Twas but a doubt.
Don Juan, c. I.
st, 71.

It was necessary, however, to put in an appearance at Verrières.


As Julien left the curé house he was fortunate enough to meet M.
Valenod, whom he hastened to tell of the increase in his salary.
On returning to Vergy, Julien waited till night had fallen before
going down into the garden. His soul was fatigued by the great
number of violent emotions which had agitated him during the day.
“What shall I say to them?” he reflected anxiously, as he thought
about the ladies. He was far from realising that his soul was just in a
mood to discuss those trivial circumstances which usually
monopolise all feminine interests. Julien was often unintelligible to
Madame Derville, and even to her friend, and he in his turn only half
understood all that they said to him. Such was the effect of the force
and, if I may venture to use such language, the greatness of the
transports of passion which overwhelmed the soul of this ambitious
youth. In this singular being it was storm nearly every day.
As he entered the garden this evening, Julien was inclined to take
an interest in what the pretty cousins were thinking. They were
waiting for him impatiently. He took his accustomed seat next to
Madame de Rênal. The darkness soon became profound. He
attempted to take hold of a white hand which he had seen some
time near him, as it leant on the back of a chair. Some hesitation
was shewn, but eventually the hand was withdrawn in a manner
which indicated displeasure. Julien was inclined to give up the
attempt as a bad job, and to continue his conversation quite gaily,
when he heard M. de Rênal approaching.
The coarse words he had uttered in the morning were still ringing
in Julien’s ears. “Would not taking possession of his wife’s hand in
his very presence,” he said to himself, “be a good way of scoring off
that creature who has all that life can give him. Yes! I will do it. I,
the very man for whom he has evidenced so great a contempt.”
From that moment the tranquillity which was so alien to Julien’s
real character quickly disappeared. He was obsessed by an anxious
desire that Madame de Rênal should abandon her hand to him.
M. de Rênal was talking politics with vehemence; two or three
commercial men in Verrières had been growing distinctly richer than
he was, and were going to annoy him over the elections. Madame
Derville was listening to him. Irritated by these tirades, Julien
brought his chair nearer Madame de Rênal. All his movements were
concealed by the darkness. He dared to put his hand very near to
the pretty arm which was left uncovered by the dress. He was
troubled and had lost control of his mind. He brought his face near
to that pretty arm and dared to put his lips on it.
Madame de Rênal shuddered. Her husband was four paces away.
She hastened to give her hand to Julien, and at the same time to
push him back a little. As M. de Rênal was continuing his insults
against those ne’er-do-wells and Jacobins who were growing so rich,
Julien covered the hand which had been abandoned to him with
kisses, which were either really passionate or at any rate seemed so
to Madame de Rênal. But the poor woman had already had the
proofs on that same fatal day that the man whom she adored,
without owning it to herself, loved another! During the whole time
Julien had been absent she had been the prey to an extreme
unhappiness which had made her reflect.
“What,” she said to herself, “Am I going to love, am I going to be
in love? Am I, a married woman, going to fall in love? But,” she said
to herself, “I have never felt for my husband this dark madness,
which never permits of my keeping Julien out of my thoughts. After
all, he is only a child who is full of respect for me. This madness will
be fleeting. In what way do the sentiments which I may have for this
young man concern my husband? M. de Rênal would be bored by
the conversations which I have with Julien on imaginative subjects.
As for him, he simply thinks of his business. I am not taking
anything away from him to give to Julien.”
No hypocrisy had sullied the purity of that naïve soul, now swept
away by a passion such as it had never felt before. She deceived
herself, but without knowing it. But none the less, a certain instinct
of virtue was alarmed. Such were the combats which were agitating
her when Julien appeared in the garden. She heard him speak and
almost at the same moment she saw him sit down by her side. Her
soul was as it were transported by this charming happiness which
had for the last fortnight surprised her even more than it had
allured. Everything was novel for her. None the less, she said to
herself after some moments, “the mere presence of Julien is quite
enough to blot out all his wrongs.” She was frightened; it was then
that she took away her hand.
His passionate kisses, the like of which she had never received
before, made her forget that perhaps he loved another woman.
Soon he was no longer guilty in her eyes. The cessation of that
poignant pain which suspicion had engendered and the presence of
a happiness that she had never even dreamt of, gave her ecstasies
of love and of mad gaiety. The evening was charming for everyone,
except the mayor of Verrières, who was unable to forget his parvenu
manufacturers. Julien left off thinking about his black ambition, or
about those plans of his which were so difficult to accomplish. For
the first time in his life he was led away by the power of beauty. Lost
in a sweetly vague reverie, quite alien to his character, and softly
pressing that hand, which he thought ideally pretty, he half listened
to the rustle of the leaves of the pine trees, swept by the light night
breeze, and to the dogs of the mill on the Doubs, who barked in the
distance.
But this emotion was one of pleasure and not passion. As he
entered his room, he only thought of one happiness, that of taking
up again his favourite book. When one is twenty the idea of the
world and the figure to be cut in it dominate everything.
He soon, however, laid down the book. As the result of thinking of
the victories of Napoleon, he had seen a new element in his own
victory. “Yes,” he said to himself, “I have won a battle. I must exploit
it. I must crush the pride of that proud gentleman while he is in
retreat. That would be real Napoleon. I must ask him for three days’
holiday to go and see my friend Fouqué. If he refuses me I will
threaten to give him notice, but he will yield the point.”
Madame de Rênal could not sleep a wink. It seemed as though,
until this moment, she had never lived. She was unable to distract
her thoughts from the happiness of feeling Julian cover her hand
with his burning kisses.
Suddenly the awful word adultery came into her mind. All the
loathesomeness with which the vilest debauchery can invest sensual
love presented itself to her imagination. These ideas essayed to
pollute the divinely tender image which she was fashioning of Julien,
and of the happiness of loving him. The future began to be painted
in terrible colours. She began to regard herself as contemptible.
That moment was awful. Her soul was arriving in unknown
countries. During the evening she had tasted a novel happiness.
Now she found herself suddenly plunged in an atrocious
unhappiness. She had never had any idea of such sufferings; they
troubled her reason. She thought for a moment of confessing to her
husband that she was apprehensive of loving Julien. It would be an
opportunity of speaking of him. Fortunately her memory threw up a
maxim which her aunt had once given her on the eve of her
marriage. The maxim dealt with the danger of making confidences
to a husband, for a husband is after all a master. She wrung her
hands in the excess of her grief. She was driven this way and that by
clashing and painful ideas. At one moment she feared that she was
not loved. The next the awful idea of crime tortured her, as much as
if she had to be exposed in the pillory on the following day in the
public square of Verrières, with a placard to explain her adultery to
the populace.
Madame de Rênal had no experience of life. Even in the full
possession of her faculties, and when fully exercising her reason, she
would never have appreciated any distinction between being guilty
in the eyes of God, and finding herself publicly overwhelmed with
the crudest marks of universal contempt.
When the awful idea of adultery, and of all the disgrace which in
her view that crime brought in its train, left her some rest, she
began to dream of the sweetness of living innocently with Julien as
in the days that had gone by.
She found herself confronted with the horrible idea that Julien
loved another woman. She still saw his pallor when he had feared to
lose her portrait, or to compromise her by exposing it to view. For
the first time she had caught fear on that tranquil and noble visage.
He had never shewn such emotion to her or her children. This
additional anguish reached the maximum of unhappiness which the
human soul is capable of enduring. Unconsciously, Madame de Rênal
uttered cries which woke up her maid. Suddenly she saw the
brightness of a light appear near her bed, and recognized Elisa. “Is it
you he loves?” she exclaimed in her delirium.
Fortunately, the maid was so astonished by the terrible trouble in
which she found her mistress that she paid no attention to this
singular expression. Madame de Rênal appreciated her imprudence.
“I have the fever,” she said to her, “and I think I am a little delirious.”
Completely woken up by the necessity of controlling herself, she
became less unhappy. Reason regained that supreme control which
the semi-somnolent state had taken away. To free herself from her
maid’s continual stare, she ordered her maid to read the paper, and
it was as she listened to the monotonous voice of this girl, reading a
long article from the Quotidienne that Madame de Rênal made the
virtuous resolution to treat Julien with absolute coldness when she
saw him again.

CHAPTER XII

A JOURNEY

Elegant people are to be found in Paris. People of character


may exist in the provinces.—Sièyes

At five o’clock the following day, before Madame de Rênal was


visible, Julien obtained a three days’ holiday from her husband.
Contrary to his expectation Julien found himself desirous of seeing
her again. He kept thinking of that pretty hand of hers. He went
down into the garden, but Madame de Rênal kept him waiting for a
long time. But if Julien had loved her, he would have seen her
forehead glued to the pane behind the half-closed blinds on the first
floor. She was looking at him. Finally, in spite of her resolutions, she
decided to go into the garden. Her habitual pallor had been
succeeded by more lively hues. This woman, simple as she was, was
manifestly agitated; a sentiment of constraint, and even of anger,
altered that expression of profound serenity which seemed, as it
were, to be above all the vulgar interests of life and gave so much
charm to that divine face.
Julien approached her with eagerness, admiring those beautiful
arms which were just visible through a hastily donned shawl. The
freshness of the morning air seemed to accentuate still more the
brilliance of her complexion which the agitation of the past night
rendered all the more susceptible to all impressions. This demure
and pathetic beauty, which was, at the same time, full of thoughts
which are never found in the inferior classes, seemed to reveal to
Julien a faculty in his own soul which he had never before realised.
Engrossed in his admiration of the charms on which his greedy gaze
was riveted, Julien took for granted the friendly welcome which he
was expecting to receive. He was all the more astonished at the icy
coldness which she endeavoured to manifest to him, and through
which he thought he could even distinguish the intention of putting
him in his place.
The smile of pleasure died away from his lips as he remembered
his rank in society, especially from the point of view of a rich and
noble heiress. In a single moment his face exhibited nothing but
haughtiness and anger against himself. He felt violently disgusted
that he could have put off his departure for more than an hour,
simply to receive so humiliating a welcome.
“It is only a fool,” he said to himself, “who is angry with others; a
stone falls because it is heavy. Am I going to be a child all my life?
How on earth is it that I manage to contract the charming habit of
showing my real self to those people simply in return for their
money? If I want to win their respect and that of my own self, I
must shew them that it is simply a business transaction between my
poverty and their wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues
away from their insolence, and is situated in too high a sphere to be
affected by their petty marks of favour or disdain.”
While these feelings were crowding the soul of the young tutor, his
mobile features assumed an expression of ferocity and injured pride.
Madame de Rênal was extremely troubled. The virtuous coldness
that she had meant to put into her welcome was succeeded by an
expression of interest—an interest animated by all the surprise
brought about by the sudden change which she had just seen. The
empty morning platitudes about their health and the fineness of the
day suddenly dried up. Julien’s judgment was disturbed by no
passion, and he soon found a means of manifesting to Madame de
Rênal how light was the friendly relationship that he considered
existed between them. He said nothing to her about the little
journey that he was going to make; saluted her, and went away.
As she watched him go, she was overwhelmed by the sombre
haughtiness which she read in that look which had been so gracious
the previous evening. Her eldest son ran up from the bottom of the
garden, and said as he kissed her,
“We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey.”
At these words, Madame de Rênal felt seized by a deadly
coldness. She was unhappy by reason of her virtue, and even more
unhappy by reason of her weakness.
This new event engrossed her imagination, and she was
transported far beyond the good resolutions which she owed to the
awful night she had just passed. It was not now a question of
resisting that charming lover, but of losing him for ever.
It was necessary to appear at breakfast. To complete her anguish,
M. de Rênal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien’s
departure. The mayor of Verrières had noticed something unusual in
the firm tone in which he had asked for a holiday.
“That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else’s offer up his
sleeve, but that somebody else, even though it’s M. Valenod, is
bound to be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs,
which the annual salary now tots up to. He must have asked
yesterday at Verrières for a period of three days to think it over, and
our little gentleman runs off to the mountains this morning so as not
to be obliged to give me an answer. Think of having to reckon with a
wretched workman who puts on airs, but that’s what we’ve come
to.”
“If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded
Julien, thinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?” said
Madame de Rênal to herself. “Yes, that is all decided.” In order to be
able at any rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering Madame
Derville’s questions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to
bed.
“That’s what women are,” repeated M. de Rênal, “there is always
something out of order in those complicated machines,” and he went
off jeering.
While Madame de Rênal was a prey to all the poignancy of the
terrible passion in which chance had involved her, Julien went
merrily on his way, surrounded by the most beautiful views that
mountain scenery can offer. He had to cross the great chain north of
Vergy. The path which he followed rose gradually among the big
beech woods, and ran into infinite spirals on the slope of the high
mountain which forms the northern boundary of the Doubs valley.
Soon the traveller’s view, as he passed over the lower slopes
bounding the course of the Doubs towards the south, extends as far
as the fertile plains of Burgundy and Beaujolais. However insensible
was the soul of this ambitious youth to this kind of beauty, he could
not help stopping from time to time to look at a spectacle at once so
vast and so impressive.
Finally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which
he had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at the
solitary valley where lived his friend Fouqué, the young wood
merchant. Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any
other human being. Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks
which crowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off
anyone coming near him. He discovered a little grotto in the middle
of the almost vertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it,
and was soon ensconced in this retreat. “Here,” he said, “with eyes
brilliant with joy, men cannot hurt me.” It occurred to him to indulge
in the pleasure of writing down those thoughts of his which were so
dangerous to him everywhere else. A square stone served him for a
desk; his pen flew. He saw nothing of what was around him. He
noticed at last that the sun was setting behind the distant mountains
of Beaujolais.
“Why shouldn’t I pass the night here?” he said to himself. “I have
bread, and I am free.” He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of
that great word. The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in
his not being free, even at Fouqué’s. Leaning his head on his two
hands, Julien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever
been in his life, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his
freedom. Without realising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight
become successively extinguished. Surrounded by this immense
obscurity, his soul wandered into the contemplation of what he
imagined that he would one day meet in Paris. First it was a woman,
much more beautiful and possessed of a much more refined
temperament than anything he could have found in the provinces.
He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from her for
some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to
deserve to be loved still more.
A young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of
Paris society, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if
we assume him possessed of Julien’s imagination, have been
brought back to himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great
deeds would have disappeared from out his ken together with hope
of achieving them and have been succeeded by the platitude. “If one
leave one’s mistress one runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or
three times a day.” But the young peasant saw nothing but the lack
of opportunity between himself and the most heroic feats.
But a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two
leagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which
Fouqué lived. Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and
carefully burnt all that he had written. He quite astonished his friend
when he knocked at his door at one o’clock in the morning. He
found Fouqué engaged in making up his accounts. He was a young
man of high stature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a
never-ending nose, and a large fund of good nature concealed
beneath this repulsive appearance.
“Have you quarelled with M. de Rênal then that you turn up
unexpectedly like this?” Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the
events of the previous day.
“Stay with me,” said Fouqué to him. “I see that you know M. de
Rênal, M. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the curé Chélan. You
have understood the subtleties of the character of those people. So
there you are then, quite qualified to attend auctions. You know
arithmetic better than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot
in my business. The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the
fear of taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from
undertaking excellent business. It’s scarcely a month since I put
Michaud de Saint-Amand, whom I haven’t seen for six years, and
whom I ran across at the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six
thousand francs. Why shouldn’t it have been you who made those
six thousand francs, or at any rate three thousand. For if I had had
you with me that day, I would have raised the bidding for that lot of
timber and everybody else would soon have run away. Be my
partner.”
This offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams.
Fouqué showed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the
supper—which the two friends prepared themselves like the Homeric
heroes (for Fouqué lived alone) and proved to him all the
advantages offered by his timber business. Fouqué had the highest
opinion of the gifts and character of Julien.
When, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood,
he said to himself: “It is true I can make some thousands of francs
here and then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or
of a priest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France. The
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