feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_22_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Red and the Black.part 1.chapter 23
feat_summary_id: part 1, chapter 23
feat_summary: {"name": "Part 1, Chapter 23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-1-chapter-23", "summary": "Two days after their first visit, the de Renals return to Verrieres. This time, Madame acts aloof towards Julien, who wonders if there is some other new man in her life. Julien soon finds out that Madame and her husband have been discussing an old mansion in Verrieres that's about to go up for public auction. Julien attends the auction. The old mansion gets rented to a friend of Monsieur de Renals, and for some reason, everyone in the room looks at Julien as though he has conspired to help his boss rent the house to the man he wants. The truth is, though, that the house has gone to a man for a price that Monsieur de Renal doesn't approve of. When he gets back to Julien's place, he sends Julien back home to the de Renal house with the children. A man shows up at the door named Signor Geronimo. He delivers a letter to Monsieur de Renal and stays for dinner. He's a really charming and funny man, and he quickly improves the spirits of everyone in the house. Julien thinks about how much he'd rather be a travelling singer than someone like Monsieur de Renal. Meanwhile, the whole town of Verrieres gossips about Madame de Renal's affair with Julien. Hearing this, Father Chelan summons Julien and tells him to leave Verrieres for a year. His options are to go into business with his buddy Fouqe or to go to a seminary to study to become a priest. Julien visits Madame again before leaving. She gives him a lock of her hair and begs him to make sure her children turn out well if she ever dies. Julien promises Madame that three days after he leaves, he'll come back at night to visit her. And yes, we're talking about a sexy rendezvous here. Monsieur Renal gets a moment alone with Madame and tells her he can't take it anymore. He's going to the casino to throw the anonymous letters about Madame in Monsieur Valenod's face. Madame is worried that the two will have a duel and one will die. Worse yet, she'll be responsible. She convinces her husband that he actually needs to be nicer to Valenod than ever. They also decide that the best thing for Julien is for him to leave town and go into a priest's seminary in the nearby town of Besancon. The next day, Monsieur de Renal gets another insulting anonymous letter. Julien agrees to go into the seminary instead of taking a job with Valenod. Madame falls into depression at the thought that she won't see Julien again. She is emotionally cold the last time they see one another.", "analysis": ""}
text: CHAPTER XXIII
  
  SORROWS OF AN OFFICIAL
  
  
          Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno, e ben pagato
          da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.--_Casti_.
  
  
  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? The ordinary trend of
  the nineteenth century is that when a noble and powerful individual
  encounters a man of spirit, he kills him, exiles him and imprisons him,
  or so humiliates him that the other is foolish enough to die of grief.
  In this country it so happens that it is not merely the man of spirit
  who suffers. The great misfortunes of the little towns of France and of
  representative governments, like that of New York, is that they find
  it impossible to forget the existence of individuals like M. de Renal.
  It is these men who make public opinion in a town of twenty thousand
  inhabitants, and public opinion is terrible in a country which has a
  charter of liberty. A man, though of a naturally noble and generous
  disposition, who would have been your friend in the natural course of
  events, but who happens to live a hundred leagues off, judges you by
  the public opinion of your town which is made by those fools who have
  chanced to be born noble, rich and conservative. Unhappy is the man who
  distinguishes himself.
  
  Immediately after dinner they left for Vergy, but the next day but
  one Julien saw the whole family return to Verrieres. An hour had not
  passed before he discovered to his great surprise that Madame de Renal
  had some mystery up her sleeve. Whenever he came into the room she
  would break off her conversation with her husband and would almost
  seem to desire that he should go away. Julien did not need to be given
  this hint twice. He became cold and reserved. Madame de Renal noticed
  it and did not ask for an explanation. "Is she going to give me a
  successor," thought Julien. "And to think of her being so familiar
  with me the day before yesterday, but that is how these great ladies
  are said to act. It's just like kings. One never gets any more warning
  than the disgraced minister who enters his house to find his letter of
  dismissal." Julien noticed that these conversations which left off so
  abruptly at his approach, often dealt with a big house which belonged
  to the municipality of Verrieres, a house which though old was large
  and commodious and situated opposite the church in the most busy
  commercial district of the town. "What connection can there be between
  this house and a new lover," said Julien to himself. In his chagrin he
  repeated to himself the pretty verses of Francis I. which seemed novel
  to him, for Madame de Renal had only taught him them a month before:
  
      Souvent femme varie
      Bien fol est qui s'y fie.
  
  M. de Renal took the mail to Besancon. This journey was a matter of two
  hours. He seemed extremely harassed. On his return he threw a big grey
  paper parcel on the table.
  
  "Here's that silly business," he said to his wife. An hour afterwards
  Julien saw the bill-poster carrying the big parcel. He followed him
  eagerly. "I shall learn the secret at the first street corner." He
  waited impatiently behind the bill-poster who was smearing the back of
  the poster with his big brush. It had scarcely been put in its place
  before Julien's curiosity saw the detailed announcement of the putting
  up for public auction of that big old house whose name had figured so
  frequently in M. de Renal's conversations with his wife. The auction of
  the lease was announced for to-morrow at two o'clock in the Town Hall
  after the extinction of the third fire. Julien was very disappointed.
  He found the time a little short. How could there be time to apprise
  all the other would-be purchasers. But, moreover, the bill, which was
  dated a fortnight back, and which he read again in its entirety in
  three distinct places, taught him nothing.
  
  He went to visit the house which was to let. The porter, who had not
  seen him approach, was saying mysteriously to a neighbour:
  
  "Pooh, pooh, waste of time. M. Maslon has promised him that he shall
  have it for three hundred francs; and, as the mayor kicked, he has been
  summoned to the bishop's palace by M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair."
  
  Julien's arrival seemed very much to disconcert the two friends who
  did not say another word. Julien made a point of being present at the
  auction of the lease.
  
  There was a crowd in the badly-lighted hall, but everybody kept
  quizzing each other in quite a singular way. All eyes were fixed on a
  table where Julien perceived three little lighted candle-ends on a tin
  plate. The usher was crying out "Three hundred francs, gentlemen."
  
  "Three hundred francs, that's a bit too thick," said a man to his
  neighbour in a low voice. Julien was between the two of them. "It's
  worth more than eight hundred, I will raise the bidding." "It's cutting
  off your nose to spite your face. What will you gain by putting M.
  Maslon, M. Valenod, the Bishop, this terrible Grand Vicar de Frilair
  and the whole gang on your track."
  
  "Three hundred and twenty francs," shouted out the other.
  
  "Damned brute," answered his neighbour. "Why here we have a spy of the
  mayor," he added, designating Julien.
  
  Julien turned sharply round to punish this remark, but the two,
  Franc-comtois, were no longer paying any attention to him. Their
  coolness gave him back his own. At that moment the last candle-end
  went out and the usher's drawling voice awarded the house to M. de St.
  Giraud of the office of the prefecture of ---- for a term of nine years
  and for a rent of 320 francs.
  
  As soon as the mayor had left the hall, the gossip began again.
  
  "Here's thirty francs that Grogeot's recklessness is landing the
  municipality in for," said one--"But," answered another, "M. de Saint
  Giraud will revenge himself on Grogeot."
  
  "How monstrous," said a big man on Julien's left. "A house which I
  myself would have given eight hundred francs for my factory, and I
  would have got a good bargain."
  
  "Pooh!" answered a young manufacturer, "doesn't M. de St. Giraud belong
  to the congregation? Haven't his four children got scholarships? poor
  man! The community of Verrieres must give him five hundred francs over
  and above his salary, that is all."
  
  "And to say that the mayor was not able to stop it," remarked a third.
  "For he's an ultra he is, I'm glad to say, but he doesn't steal."
  
  "Doesn't he?" answered another. "Suppose it's simply a mere game of
  'snap'[1] then. Everything goes into a big common purse, and everything
  is divided up at the end of the year. But here's that little Sorel,
  let's go away."
  
  Julien got home in a very bad temper. He found Madame de Renal very sad.
  
  "You come from the auction?" she said to him.
  
  "Yes, madam, where I had the honour of passing for a spy of M. the
  Mayor."
  
  "If he had taken my advice, he would have gone on a journey."
  
  At this moment Monsieur de Renal appeared: he looked very dismal. The
  dinner passed without a single word. Monsieur de Renal ordered Julien
  to follow the children to Vergy.
  
  Madame de Renal endeavoured to console her husband.
  
  "You ought to be used to it, my dear."
  
  That evening they were seated in silence around the domestic hearth.
  The crackle of the burnt pinewood was their only distraction. It
  was one of those moments of silence which happen in the most united
  families. One of the children cried out gaily,
  
  "Somebody's ringing, somebody's ringing!"
  
  "Zounds! supposing it's Monsieur de Saint Giraud who has come under
  the pretext of thanking me," exclaimed the mayor. "I will give him a
  dressing down. It is outrageous. It is Valenod to whom he'll feel under
  an obligation, and it is I who get compromised. What shall I say if
  those damned Jacobin journalists get hold of this anecdote, and turn me
  into a M. Nonante Cinque."
  
  A very good-looking man, with big black whiskers, entered at this
  moment, preceded by the servant.
  
  "Monsieur the mayor, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M.
  the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who is attached to the Embassy of Naples,
  gave me for you on my departure. That is only nine days ago, added
  Signor Geronimo, gaily looking at Madame de Renal. Your cousin, and my
  good friend, Signor de Beauvoisis says that you know Italian, Madame."
  
  The Neapolitan's good humour changed this gloomy evening into a very
  gay one. Madame de Renal insisted upon giving him supper. She put the
  whole house on the go. She wanted to free Julien at any price from the
  imputation of espionage which she had heard already twice that day.
  
  Signor Geronimo was an excellent singer, excellent company, and had
  very gay qualities which, at any rate in France, are hardly compatible
  with each other. After dinner he sang a little duet with Madame de
  Renal, and told some charming tales. At one o'clock in the morning the
  children protested, when Julien suggested that they should go to bed.
  
  "Another of those stories," said the eldest.
  
  "It is my own, Signorino," answered Signor Geronimo.
  
  "Eight years ago I was, like you, a young pupil of the Naples
  Conservatoire. I mean I was your age, but I did not have the honour to
  be the son of the distinguished mayor of the pretty town of Verrieres."
  This phrase made M. de Renal sigh, and look at his wife.
  
  "Signor Zingarelli," continued the young singer, somewhat exaggerating
  his action, and thus making the children burst into laughter, "Signor
  Zingarelli was an excellent though severe master. He is not popular at
  the Conservatoire, but he insists on the pretence being kept up that he
  is. I went out as often as I could. I used to go to the little Theatre
  de San Carlino, where I used to hear divine music. But heavens! the
  question was to scrape together the eight sous which were the price of
  admission to the parterre? An enormous sum," he said, looking at the
  children and watching them laugh. "Signor Giovannone, director of the
  San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen. 'That child is a treasure,'
  he said.
  
  "'Would you like me to engage you, my dear boy?' he said.
  
  "'And how much will you give me?'
  
  "'Forty ducats a month.' That is one hundred and sixty francs,
  gentlemen. I thought the gates of heaven had opened.
  
  "'But,' I said to Giovannone, 'how shall I get the strict Zingarelli to
  let me go out?'
  
  "'_Lascia fare a me_.'"
  
  "Leave it to me," exclaimed the eldest of the children.
  
  "Quite right, my young sir. Signor Giovannone he says to me, 'First
  sign this little piece of paper, my dear friend.' I sign.
  
  "He gives me three ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told
  me what I had to do.
  
  "Next day I asked the terrible Zingarelli for an audience. His old
  valet ushered me in.
  
  "'What do you want of me, you naughty boy?' said Zingarelli.
  
  "'Maestro,' I said, 'I repent of all my faults. I will never go out of
  the Conservatoire by passing through the iron grill. I will redouble my
  diligence.'
  
  "'If I were not frightened of spoiling the finest bass voice I have
  ever heard, I would put you in prison for a fortnight on bread and
  water, you rascal.'
  
  "'Maestro,' I answered, 'I will be the model boy of the whole school,
  _credete a me_, but I would ask one favour of you. If anyone comes and
  asks permission for me to sing outside, refuse. As a favour, please say
  that you cannot let me.'
  
  "'And who the devil do you think is going to ask for a ne'er-do-well
  like you? Do you think I should ever allow you to leave the
  Conservatoire? Do you want to make fun of me? Clear out! Clear out!' he
  said, trying to give me a kick, 'or look out for prison and dry bread.'"
  
  One thing astonished Julien. The solitary weeks passed at Verrieres in
  de Renal's house had been a period of happiness for him. He had only
  experienced revulsions and sad thoughts at the dinners to which he had
  been invited. And was he not able to read, write and reflect, without
  being distracted, in this solitary house? He was not distracted every
  moment from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying
  the movement of a false soul in order to deceive it by intrigue and
  hypocrisy.
  
  "To think of happiness being so near to me--the expense of a life
  like that is small enough. I could have my choice of either marrying
  Mademoiselle Elisa or of entering into partnership with Fouque. But it
  is only the traveller who has just scaled a steep mountain and sits
  down on the summit who finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be
  happy if he had to rest all the time?"
  
  Madame de Renal's mind had now reached a state of desperation. In spite
  of her resolutions, she had explained to Julien all the details of the
  auction. "He will make me forget all my oaths!" she thought.
  
  She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save that
  of her husband if she had seen him in danger. She was one of those
  noble, romantic souls who find a source of perpetual remorse equal to
  that occasioned by the actual perpetration of a crime, in seeing the
  possibility of a generous action and not doing it. None the less, there
  were deadly days when she was not able to banish the imagination of
  the excessive happiness which she would enjoy if she suddenly became a
  widow, and were able to marry Julien.
  
  He loved her sons much more than their father did; in spite of his
  strict justice they were devoted to him. She quite realised that if
  she married Julien, it would be necessary to leave that Vergy, whose
  shades were so dear to her. She pictured herself living at Paris, and
  continuing to give her sons an education which would make them admired
  by everyone. Her children, herself, and Julien! They would be all
  perfectly happy!
  
  Strange result of marriage such as the nineteenth century has made it!
  The boredom of matrimonial life makes love fade away inevitably, when
  love has preceded the marriage. But none the less, said a philosopher,
  married life soon reduces those people who are sufficiently rich
  not to have to work, to a sense of being utterly bored by all quiet
  enjoyments. And among women, it is only arid souls whom it does not
  predispose to love.
  
  The philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but she
  was not excused in Verrieres, and without her suspecting it, the whole
  town found its sole topic of interest in the scandal of her intrigue.
  As a result of this great affair, the autumn was less boring than usual.
  
  The autumn and part of the winter passed very quickly. It was necessary
  to leave the woods of Vergy. Good Verrieres society began to be
  indignant at the fact that its anathemas made so little impression on
  Monsieur de Renal. Within eight days, several serious personages who
  made up for their habitual gravity of demeanour by their pleasure in
  fulfilling missions of this kind, gave him the most cruel suspicions,
  at the same time utilising the most measured terms.
  
  M. Valenod, who was playing a deep game, had placed Elisa in an
  aristocratic family of great repute, where there were five women.
  Elisa, fearing, so she said, not to find a place during the winter, had
  only asked from this family about two-thirds of what she had received
  in the house of the mayor. The girl hit upon the excellent idea of
  going to confession at the same time to both the old cure Chelan,
  and also to the new one, so as to tell both of them in detail about
  Julien's amours.
  
  The day after his arrival, the abbe Chelan summoned Julien to him at
  six o'clock in the morning.
  
  "I ask you nothing," he said. "I beg you, and if needs be I insist,
  that you either leave for the Seminary of Besancon, or for your friend
  Fouque, who is always ready to provide you with a splendid future. I
  have seen to everything and have arranged everything, but you must
  leave, and not come back to Verrieres for a year."
  
  Julien did not answer. He was considering whether his honour ought to
  regard itself offended at the trouble which Chelan, who, after all, was
  not his father, had taken on his behalf.
  
  "I shall have the honour of seeing you again to-morrow at the same
  hour," he said finally to the cure.
  
  Chelan, who reckoned on carrying so young a man by storm, talked a
  great deal. Julien, cloaked in the most complete humbleness, both of
  demeanour and expression, did not open his lips.
  
  Eventually he left, and ran to warn Madame de Renal whom he found in
  despair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain amount of
  frankness. The weakness of his character found support in the prospect
  of the legacy, and had decided him to treat her as perfectly innocent.
  He had just confessed to her the strange state in which he had found
  public opinion in Verrieres. The public was wrong; it had been misled
  by jealous tongues. But, after all, what was one to do?
  
  Madame de Renal was, for the moment, under the illusion that Julien
  would accept the offer of Valenod and stay at Verrieres. But she was no
  longer the simple, timid woman that she had been the preceding year.
  Her fatal passion and remorse had enlightened her. She soon realised
  the painful truth (while at the same time she listened to her husband),
  that at any rate a temporary separation had become essential.
  
  When he is far from me, Julien will revert to those ambitious projects
  which are so natural when one has no money. And I, Great God! I am so
  rich, and my riches are so useless for my happiness. He will forget
  me. Loveable as he is, he will be loved, and he will love. You unhappy
  woman. What can I complain of? Heaven is just. I was not virtuous
  enough to leave off the crime. Fate robs me of my judgment. I could
  easily have bribed Elisa if I had wanted to; nothing was easier. I did
  not take the trouble to reflect for a moment. The mad imagination of
  love absorbed all my time. I am ruined.
  
  When Julien apprised Madame de Renal of the terrible news of his
  departure, he was struck with one thing. He did not find her put
  forward any selfish objections. She was evidently making efforts not to
  cry.
  
  "We have need of firmness, my dear." She cut off a strand of her hair.
  "I do no know what I shall do," she said to him, "but promise me if I
  die, never to forget my children. Whether you are far or near, try to
  make them into honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles
  will have their throats cut. Their father will probably emigrate,
  because of that peasant on the roof who got killed. Watch over my
  family. Give me your hand. Adieu, my dear. These are our last moments.
  Having made this great sacrifice, I hope I shall have the courage to
  consider my reputation in public."
  
  Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell
  touched him.
  
  "No, I am not going to receive your farewell like this. I will leave
  you now, as you yourself wish it. But three days after my departure I
  will come back to see you at night."
  
  Madame de Renal's life was changed. So Julien really loved her, since
  of his own accord he had thought of seeing her again. Her awful grief
  became changed into one of the keenest transports of joy which she had
  felt in her whole life. Everything became easy for her. The certainty
  of seeing her lover deprived these last moments of their poignancy.
  From that moment, both Madame de Renal's demeanour and the expression
  of her face were noble, firm, and perfectly dignified.
  
  M. de Renal soon came back. He was beside himself. He eventually
  mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two
  months before.
  
  "I will take it to the Casino, and shew everybody that it has been sent
  by that brute Valenod, whom I took out of the gutter and made into one
  of the richest tradesmen in Verrieres. I will disgrace him publicly,
  and then I will fight him. This is too much."
  
  "Great Heavens! I may become a widow," thought Madame de Renal, and
  almost at the same time she said to herself,
  
  "If I do not, as I certainly can, prevent this duel, I shall be the
  murderess of my own husband."
  
  She had never expended so much skill in honoring his vanity. Within
  two hours she made him see, and always by virtue of reasons which he
  discovered himself, that it was necessary to show more friendship than
  ever to M. Valenod, and even to take Elisa back into the household.
  
  Madame de Renal had need of courage to bring herself to see again the
  girl who was the cause of her unhappiness. But this idea was one of
  Julien's. Finally, having been put on the track three or four times,
  M. de Renal arrived spontaneously at the conclusion, disagreeable
  though it was from the financial standpoint, that the most painful
  thing that could happen to him would be that Julien, in the middle of
  the effervescence of popular gossip throughout Verrieres, should stay
  in the town as the tutor of Valenod's children. It was obviously to
  Julien's interest to accept the offer of the director of the workhouse.
  Conversely, it was essential for M. de Renal's prestige that Julien
  should leave Verrieres to enter the seminary of Besancon or that of
  Dijon. But how to make him decide on that course? And then how is he
  going to live?
  
  M. de Renal, seeing a monetary sacrifice looming in the distance,
  was in deeper despair than his wife. As for her, she felt after this
  interview in the position of a man of spirit who, tired of life, has
  taken a dose of stramonium. He only acts mechanically so to speak, and
  takes no longer any interest in anything. In this way, Louis XIV. came
  to say on his death-bed, "When I was king." An admirable epigram.
  
  Next morning, M. de Renal received quite early an anonymous letter.
  It was written in a most insulting style, and the coarsest words
  applicable to his position occurred on every line. It was the work of
  some jealous subordinate. This letter made him think again of fighting
  a duel with Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as the idea of
  immediate action. He left the house alone, went to the armourer's and
  got some pistols which he loaded.
  
  "Yes, indeed," he said to himself, "even though the strict
  administration of the Emperor Napoleon were to become fashionable
  again, I should not have one sou's worth of jobbery to reproach myself
  with; at the outside, I have shut my eyes, and I have some good letters
  in my desk which authorise me to do so."
  
  Madame de Renal was terrified by her husband's cold anger. It recalled
  to her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had so much trouble in
  repelling. She closeted herself with him. For several hours she talked
  to him in vain. The new anonymous letter had decided him. Finally she
  succeeded in transforming the courage which had decided him to box
  Valenod's ears, into the courage of offering six hundred francs to
  Julien, which would keep him for one year in a seminary.
  
  M. de Renal cursed a thousand times the day that he had had the
  ill-starred idea of taking a tutor into his house, and forgot the
  anonymous letter.
  
  He consoled himself a little by an idea which he did not tell his
  wife. With the exercise of some skill, and by exploiting the romantic
  ideas of the young man, he hoped to be able to induce him to refuse M.
  Valenod's offer at a cheaper price.
  
  Madame de Renal had much more trouble in proving to Julien that
  inasmuch as he was sacrificing the post of six hundred francs a year
  in order to enable her husband to keep up appearances, he need have no
  shame about accepting the compensation. But Julien would say each time,
  "I have never thought for a moment of accepting that offer. You have
  made me so used to a refined life that the coarseness of those people
  would kill me."
  
  Cruel necessity bent Julien's will with its iron hand. His pride gave
  him the illusion that he only accepted the sum offered by M. de Renal
  as a loan, and induced him to give him a promissory note, repayable in
  five years with interest.
  
  Madame de Renal had, of course, many thousands of francs which had been
  concealed in the little mountain cave.
  
  She offered them to him all a tremble, feeling only too keenly that
  they would be angrily refused.
  
  "Do you wish," said Julien to her, "to make the memory of our love
  loathsome?"
  
  Finally Julien left Verrieres. M. de Renal was very happy, but when
  the fatal moment came to accept money from him the sacrifice proved
  beyond Julien's strength. He refused point blank. M. de Renal embraced
  him around the neck with tears in his eyes. Julien had asked him for
  a testimonial of good conduct, and his enthusiasm could find no terms
  magnificent enough in which to extol his conduct.
  
  Our hero had five louis of savings and he reckoned on asking Fouque for
  an equal sum.
  
  He was very moved. But one league from Verrieres, where he left so much
  that was dear to him, he only thought of the happiness of seeing the
  capital of a great military town like Besancon.
  
  During the short absence of three days, Madame de Renal was the victim
  of one of the cruellest deceptions to which love is liable. Her life
  was tolerable, because between her and extreme unhappiness there was
  still that last interview which she was to have with Julien.
  
  Finally during the night of the third day, she heard from a distance
  the preconcerted signal. Julien, having passed through a thousand
  dangers, appeared before her. In this moment she only had one
  thought--"I see him for the last time." Instead of answering the
  endearments of her lover, she seemed more dead than alive. If she
  forced herself to tell him that she loved him, she said it with an
  embarrassed air which almost proved the contrary. Nothing could rid her
  of the cruel idea of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien thought
  for the moment that he was already forgotten. His pointed remarks to
  this effect were only answered by great tears which flowed down in
  silence, and by some hysterical pressings of the hand.
  
  "But," Julien would answer his mistress's cold protestations, "Great
  Heavens! How can you expect me to believe you? You would show one
  hundred times more sincere affection to Madame Derville to a mere
  acquaintance."
  
  Madame de Renal was petrified, and at a loss for an answer.
  
  "It is impossible to be more unhappy. I hope I am going to die. I feel
  my heart turn to ice."
  
  Those were the longest answers which he could obtain.
  
  When the approach of day rendered it necessary for him to leave Madame
  de Renal, her tears completely ceased. She saw him tie a knotted rope
  to the window without saying a word, and without returning her kisses.
  It was in vain that Julien said to her.
  
  "So now we have reached the state of affairs which you wished for
  so much. Henceforward you will live without remorse. The slightest
  indisposition of your children will no longer make you see them in the
  tomb."
  
  "I am sorry that you cannot kiss Stanislas," she said coldly.
  
  Julien finished by being profoundly impressed by the cold embraces of
  this living corpse. He could think of nothing else for several leagues.
  His soul was overwhelmed, and before passing the mountain, and while
  he could still see the church tower of Verrieres he turned round
  frequently.
  
  
  [1] C'est pigeon qui vole. A reference to a contemporary animal game
  with a pun on the word "vole."
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Part 1, Chapter 23
target: Two days after their first visit, the de Renals return to Verrieres. This time, Madame acts aloof towards Julien, who wonders if there is some other new man in her life. Julien soon finds out that Madame and her husband have been discussing an old mansion in Verrieres that's about to go up for public auction. Julien attends the auction. The old mansion gets rented to a friend of Monsieur de Renals, and for some reason, everyone in the room looks at Julien as though he has conspired to help his boss rent the house to the man he wants. The truth is, though, that the house has gone to a man for a price that Monsieur de Renal doesn't approve of. When he gets back to Julien's place, he sends Julien back home to the de Renal house with the children. A man shows up at the door named Signor Geronimo. He delivers a letter to Monsieur de Renal and stays for dinner. He's a really charming and funny man, and he quickly improves the spirits of everyone in the house. Julien thinks about how much he'd rather be a travelling singer than someone like Monsieur de Renal. Meanwhile, the whole town of Verrieres gossips about Madame de Renal's affair with Julien. Hearing this, Father Chelan summons Julien and tells him to leave Verrieres for a year. His options are to go into business with his buddy Fouqe or to go to a seminary to study to become a priest. Julien visits Madame again before leaving. She gives him a lock of her hair and begs him to make sure her children turn out well if she ever dies. Julien promises Madame that three days after he leaves, he'll come back at night to visit her. And yes, we're talking about a sexy rendezvous here. Monsieur Renal gets a moment alone with Madame and tells her he can't take it anymore. He's going to the casino to throw the anonymous letters about Madame in Monsieur Valenod's face. Madame is worried that the two will have a duel and one will die. Worse yet, she'll be responsible. She convinces her husband that he actually needs to be nicer to Valenod than ever. They also decide that the best thing for Julien is for him to leave town and go into a priest's seminary in the nearby town of Besancon. The next day, Monsieur de Renal gets another insulting anonymous letter. Julien agrees to go into the seminary instead of taking a job with Valenod. Madame falls into depression at the thought that she won't see Julien again. She is emotionally cold the last time they see one another.