The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of 1830

The Marquis de la Mole received the abbé Pirard without any of those aristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so impertinent to one who understands them...

"M. the abbé Chas-Bernard has just written in your favour. I am on the whole sufficiently satisfied with your conduct. You are extremely imprudent and irresponsible without outw...

It was with a childish pleasure that for a whole hour Julien put the words together. As he came out of his room, he met his pupils with their mother. She took the letter with a...

Do you not deserve to be thrown aside like a plebeian corpse which has no soul and whose blood flows no longer in its veins. _Sermon of the Bishop at the Chapel of Saint Clement_.

Julien had scarcely arrived at Verrières before he reproached himself with his injustice towards Madame de Rênal. "I should have despised her for a weakling of a woman if she ha...

Let us leave this petty man to his petty fears; why did he take a man of spirit into his household when he needed someone with the soul of a valet? Why can't he select his staff...

If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed strange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his turn very strange to those persons...

The children adored him, but he did not like them in the least. His thoughts were elsewhere. But nothing which the little brats ever did made him lose his patience. Cold, just a...

"On my faith it comes to the same thing. I am running away from the abominable life which one leads in the provinces. I like the freshness of the woods and the country tranquill...

I am alone in the world. No one deigns to spare me a thought. All those whom I see make their fortune, have an insolence and hardness of heart which I do not feel in myself. The...

One day Julien had just returned from the charming estate of Villequier on the banks of the Seine, which was the especial subject of M. de la Mole's interest because it was the...

How the spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away.--_Shakespeare_.

The luxurious dresses, the glitter of the candles; all those pretty arms and fine shoulders; the bouquets, the intoxicating strains of Rossini, the paintings of Ciceri. I am bes...

The following day he again caught Norbert and his sister talking about him. A funereal silence was established on his arrival as on the previous day. His suspicions were now unb...

As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in four. He read at the bottom of the firs...

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...

Julien reread his letters. "How ridiculous I must have appeared in the eyes of that Parisian doll," he said to himself when the dinner-bell rang. "How foolish to have really tol...

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 he...

Madame de Rênal was going out of the salon by the folding window which opened on to the garden with that vivacity and grace which was natural to her when she was free from human...

Ludicrous and pathetic memory: the first drawing-room where one appeared alone and without support at the age of eighteen! the look of a woman sufficed to intimidate me. The mor...

The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject. He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and tempered eloquence with which Julien wa...

The reader is perhaps surprised by this free and almost friendly tone. We had forgotten to say that the marquis had been confined to his house for six weeks by the gout.

"None the less there's something that does not meet the eye," answered the cunning peasant. He was then silent for a moment. "But I shall never get anything out of you, you damn...

The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice everything for the public welfare, there are thousands and millions who think of nothing except their enjoyments and their v...

As soon as he had gone out Julien wept desperately and for a long time. He gradually admitted to himself that if madame de Rênal had been at Besançon he would have confessed his...

All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed to have descended into these narrow Gothic streets that stretched in every direction, and were sanded by the care of the faithf...

Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at eighty-five centimes. Three hundred and thirty-six suppers at fifty centimes. Chocolate to those who are entitled to it. How much profit...

"I cannot play such a trick on that poor abbé Chas-Bernard, as to summon him," he said to Fouqué: "it would prevent him from dining for three whole days.--But try and find some...

Julien remained motionless. He saw nothing more. When he recovered himself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church. The priest had left the altar. Julien st...

The country will remember this celebrated case for a long time. The interest in the accused amounted to an agitation. The reason was that his crime was astonishing, and yet not...

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 d...

Finally he saw some black walls near a distant mountain. It was the citadel of Besançon. "How different it would be for me," he said with a sigh, "if I were arriving at this nob...

As soon as our hero had returned to Paris and had come out of the study of the marquis de La Mole, who seemed very displeased with the despatches that were given him, he rushed...

If fatuity is pardonable it is in one's first youth, for it is then the exaggeration of an amiable thing. It needs an air of love, gaiety, nonchalance. But fatuity coupled with...

The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway on horseback, "why should I not be a minister, a president of the council, a duke? This is how I should make war.... By...

This garden was very big, it had been planned a few years ago in perfect taste. But the trees were more than a century old. It had a certain rustic atmosphere.--_Massinger_.

"You wicked man! Your letter only told me where you were. As for what you call your crime, but which is really nothing more or less than a noble vengeance, which shews me all th...

His heart does not first realise the full extremity of his unhappiness: he is more troubled than moved. But as reason returns he feels the depth of his misfortune. All the pleas...

Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only his enchanting pleasures, his sweet delights, which are outside thy sphe...

The need of anxiety. These words summed up the character of my aunt, the beautiful Marguerite de Valois, who was soon to marry the King of Navarre whom we see reigning at presen...

Mathilde had not written without a struggle. Whatever might have been the beginning of her interest in Julien, it soon dominated that pride which had reigned unchallenged in her...

It should be mentioned that the curé of Verrières, an old man of ninety, who owed to the bracing mountain air an iron constitution and an iron character, had the right to visit...

When Julien was taken back to prison he had been taken into a room intended for those who were condemned to death. Although a man who in the usual way would notice the most pett...

The delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the happiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to herself, "he is worthy of being my master s...

His mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that she showed to him. He remained gloomy and taciturn. He had never seemed so great and so adorable in Mathi...

When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy, he noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Rênal since the day before yesterday. The...

An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a tiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a cocked pistol on his table.

Oh, how cruel is the interval between the conception and the execution of a great project. What vain fears, what fits of irresolution! It is a matter of life and death--even mor...

I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving you in telling you of it. _Letter to the author_.

When he was deep asleep an hour afterwards, he was woken up by feeling tears flow over his hand. "Oh, it is Mathilde again," he thought, only half awake. "She has come again, fa...

Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was...

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,...

Oh, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away. _Two Gentlemen of Ve...

Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were only insignificant personages present, th...

Castres 1676--A brother has just murdered his sister in the house next to mine. This gentleman had already been guilty of one murder. His father saved his life by causing five-h...

She did not appear at dinner. She came for a minute into the salon in the evening, but did not look at Julien. He considered this behaviour strange, "but," he thought, "I do not...

Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Rênal had been too agitated and too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a single moment become the whole to world her.

He heard a loud noise in the corridor. It was not the time when the gaoler usually came up to his prison. The osprey flew away with a shriek. The door opened, and the venerable...

In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that...

"My wife really has a head on her shoulders," said the mayor of Verrières at six o'clock the following morning, as he went down to the saw-mill of Father Sorel. "It had never oc...

Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Rênal had the mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her. She absolutely lost her head, and cam...

It is because I was foolish then that I am wise to-day. Oh thou philosopher who seest nothing except the actual instant. How short-sighted are thy views! Thine eye is not adapte...

If Julien had employed the time which he spent in exaggerating Matilde's beauty or in working himself up into a rage against that family haughtiness which she was forgetting for...

The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext could excuse any deviation from the rôl...

The reader will kindly excuse us if we give very few clear and definite facts concerning this period of Julien's life. It is not that we lack facts; quite the contrary. But it m...

If Julien had possessed a little of that adroitness on which he so gratuitously plumed himself, he could have congratulated himself the following day on the effect produced by h...

The little town of Verrières can pass for one of the prettiest in Franche-Comté. Its white houses with their pointed red-tiled roofs stretch along the slope of a hill, whose sli...

There also was of course in Adeline That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line Of anything which Nature would express; Just as a Mandar...

This immense valley, filled with brilliant lights and so many thousands of men dazzles my sight. No one knows me. All are superior to me. I lose my head. _Poemi dell' av. REINA_.

Madame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any pleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however, grieved her. "What a pity that M. So...

The idea of a bishopric had thus become associated with the idea of Julien in the mind of a woman, who would sooner or later have at her disposal the finest places in the Church...

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. T...

Happily for the reputation of M. de Rênal as an administrator an immense wall of support was necessary for the public promenade which goes along the hill, a hundred steps above...

Fouqué's offer had, as a matter of fact, taken away all Julien's happiness; he could not make up his mind to any definite course. "Alas! perhaps I am lacking in character. I sho...

This was the stage Julien had reached, when after several months of probation the steward of the household handed him the third quarter of his wages. M. de la Mole had entrusted...