The Red and the Black

A SMALL TOWN Put thousands together less bad, But the cage less gay.--_Hobbes_. The little town of Verrières can pass for one of the prettiest in Franche-Comté. Its white...

A MAYOR Importance! What is it, sir after all? The respect of fools, the wonder of children, the envy of the rich, the contempt of the wise man.--_Barnave_...

THE POOR FUND A virtuous curé who does not intrigue is a providence for the village.--_Fleury_ It should be mentioned that the curé of Verrières, an old man of ni...

A FATHER AND A SON E sara mia colpa Se cosi è? --_Machiavelli_. "My wife really has a head on her shoulders," said the mayor of Verrières at six o'clock...

A NEGOTIATION Cunctando restituit rem.--_Ennius_. "Answer me without lies, if you can, you damned dog, how did you get to know Madame de Rênal? When did you speak to her?" "...

ENNUI Non so piú cosa son Cosa facio. MOZART (_Figaro_). Madame de Rênal was going out of the salon by the folding window which opened on to the gard...

THE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES They only manage to touch the heart by wounding it.--_A Modern_. The children adored him, but he did not like them in the least. His thoug...

LITTLE EPISODES "Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression, And stolen glances sweeter for the theft, And burning blushes, though for no transgression." ...

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 ...

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. ...

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, ...

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 Rên...

THE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk along the high road.--_Saint-Réal_. When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the...

THE ENGLISH SCISSORS A young girl of sixteen had a pink complexion, and yet used red rouge.--_Polidori_. Fouqué's offer had, as a matter of fact, taken away all J...

THE COCK'S SONG Amour en latin faict amour; Or done provient d'amour la mart, Et, par avant, souley qui moreq, Deuil, plours, pieges, forfailz, remord. ...

THE DAY AFTER He turned his lips to hers and with his hand Called back the tangles of her wandering hair. _Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170. Happil...

THE FIRST DEPUTY 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...

A KING AT VERRIÈRES 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. _Se...

THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_. As he was replacing the usual furnitur...

ANONYMOUS LETTERS Do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood.--_Tempest_. As they left the drawing-room about mid...

DIALOGUE WITH A MASTER Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we; For such as we are made of, such we be.--_Twelfth Night_. It was with a childish pleasure that for a whol...

MANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830 Speech has been given to man to conceal his thought. _R.P. Malagrida_. Julien had scarcely arrived ...

SORROWS OF AN OFFICIAL Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno, è ben pagato da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.--_Casti_. Let us leave this petty man to ...

A CAPITAL What a noise, what busy people! What ideas for the future in a brain of twenty! What distraction offered by love.--_Barnave_. Finally he saw som...

THE SEMINARY Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at eighty-five centimes. Three hundred and thirty-six suppers at fifty centimes. Chocolate to those who a...

THE WORLD, OR WHAT THE RICH LACK 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 a...

FIRST EXPERIENCE OF LIFE The present time, Great God! is the ark of the Lord; cursed be he who touches it.--_Diderot_. The reader will kindly excuse us if we give...

A PROCESSION All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed to have descended into these narrow Gothic streets that stretched in every direction, and we...

THE FIRST PROMOTION He knew his age, he knew his department, and he is rich. _The Forerunner_. Julien had not emerged from the ...

AN AMBITIOUS MAN There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round. _Edinbu...

THE PLEASURES OF THE COUNTRY O rus quando ego te aspiciam?--_Horace_ "You've no doubt come to wait for the Paris mail, Monsieur," said the host of an inn where he had stoppe...

ENTRY INTO SOCIETY Ludicrous and pathetic memory: the first drawing-room where one appeared alone and without support at the age of eighteen! the look of a...

THE FIRST STEPS 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...

THE HÔTEL DE LA MOLE What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he try to please?--_Ronsard_. If everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la M...

SENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY An idea which has any life in it seems like a crudity, so accustomed are they to colourless expression. Woe to him who i...

PRONUNCIATION 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, no...

AN ATTACK OF GOUT And I got advancement, not on my merit, but because my master had the gout.--_Bertolotti_. The reader is perhaps surprised by this free and...

WHAT IS THE DECORATION WHICH CONFERS DISTINCTION? "Thy water refreshes me not," said the transformed genie. "'Tis nevertheless the freshest well in all Diar-Békir"--_Pelli...

THE BALL The luxurious dresses, the glitter of the candles; all those pretty arms and fine shoulders; the bouquets, the intoxicating strains of Rossini, th...

QUEEN MARGUERITE Love! In what madness do you not manage to make us find pleasure! Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Julien rerea...

A YOUNG GIRL'S DOMINION I admire her beauty but I fear her intellect.--_Mérimée_. If Julien had employed the time which he spent in exaggerating Matilde's beauty or in wo...

IS HE A DANTON? 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 ...

A PLOT Disconnected remarks, casual meetings, become transformed in the eyes of an imaginative man into the most convincing proofs, if he has any fire in h...

A YOUNG GIRL'S THOUGHTS What perplexity! What sleepless nights! Great God. Am I going to make myself contemptible? He will despise me himself. But he is le...

IS IT A PLOT? 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 dea...

ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 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 h...

AN OLD SWORD I now mean to be serious; it is time Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious. A jest at vice by virtues called a crime. _Don Juan...

CRUEL MOMENTS And she confesses it to me! She goes into even the smallest details! Her beautiful eyes fixed on mine, and describes the love which she felt ...

THE OPERA BOUFFE 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 ...

THE JAPANESE VASE His heart does not first realise the full extremity of his unhappiness: he is more troubled than moved. But as reason returns he feels th...

THE SECRET NOTE 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. ...

THE DISCUSSION The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice everything for the public welfare, there are thousands and millions who think of nothin...

THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn ripen.--_Mac...

STRASBOURG Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only his enchanting pleasures, his sweet del...

THE MINISTRY OF VIRTUE But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence and circumspection I shall no longer find it a pleasure.--_Lope de Vega_. As soon...

MORAL LOVE 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 ...

THE FINEST PLACES IN THE CHURCH Services! talents! merits! bah! belong to a côterie. _Télémaque_. The idea of a bishopric had t...

MANON LESCAUT Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed well enough by calling white bla...

ENNUI Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass; but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth centur...

A BOX AT THE BOUFFES As the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76. In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surpr...

FRIGHTEN HER So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_. Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's ...

THE TIGER Alas, why these things and not other things?--_Beaumarchais_. An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a tiger. He had trained ...

THE HELL OF WEAKNESS A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle ages, nay, even under Rich...

A MAN OF INTELLECT 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 du...

A STORM My God, give me mediocrity.--_Mirabeau_. His mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that she showed to him. He remained gloomy and tacitur...

SAD DETAILS Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged myself. I have deserved death, and here I am. Pray for my soul.--_Schiller_ Julien remai...

A TURRET The tomb of a friend.--_Sterne_. 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 w...

A POWERFUL MAN But her proceedings are so mysterious and her figure is so elegant! Who can she be?--_Schiller_. The doors of the turret opened very early on the f...

THE INTRIGUE 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 fath...

TRANQUILITY 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 ...

THE TRIAL 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 cri...

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 petty d...

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, faith...

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 we...

"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 Jan...

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