The Red and the Black Read Free Page B

not one of the Happy Few, Faguet argued that a clever
schemer like Julien would be mad to throw it all away because of a bad
reference from M me de Rênal. What's more, the Marquis de
la Mole still had a pregnant daughter to marry off and the daughter in
question had pretty firm views as to whom she wanted for a husband.
Since Faguet, a number of people have tried to defend Stendhal by
saying that Julien is indeed mad, that is, that he acts in a kind of
somnambulistic trance and is therefore not entirely responsible for
his actions. While there is some evidence in the text for Julien being
in something of a state, it is insufficient to sustain such a thesis.
More persuasive are those who have argued in terms of an act of
vengeance and who have noted that, because M me de Rênal is a
woman, Julien is denied the opportunity of clearing his name by
challenging the offender to a duel. Most persuasive of all, perhaps,
is the view that the very inexplicability of the act makes it true to
life. It is a crime of passion and, as such, not reducible to the tidy
comprehensibility of the rational. By the same token, on the level of
novelistic technique, it constitutes an act of defiance, a refusal to
tell the story as if it were like many other similar stories, an
assertion that the central event of this novel is unique: just as its
main character is not like other heroes of history and literature but
is, as he is so often described in the book, someone quite out of the
ordinary.
    But what lessons can we
draw from the experiences of this man who shoots the woman he loves?
That we should not preconceive our lives, that we should live for the
moment and
    -xviii-

be ready to pounce on those fleeting moments of happiness which life
occasionally offers? That love, and love alone, holds the key? Yes,
partly, but the rich and subtle ironies, indeed the comedy and the
pathos, of The Red and the Black derive substantially from the
ambiguity surrounding these questions. True, at the end of the novel
it does seem as if imagination, that error which 'bears the mark of a
superior man' ( 11.19) as the narrator calls it, is to be mistrusted.
Imagined futures have led both Julien and the reader astray, and
Mathilde's desperate determination to relive the violent romance of
her sixteenthcentury ancestors begins to look increasingly suspect and
sterile. She alone is not surprised by the shooting, for it
corresponds to so many of her fantasies, yet these bear little
relation now to the increasingly authentic nature of Julien's
experience. Like him we too may be 'tired of heroism' ( 11.39). But
earlier in the novel Mathilde's energy and imagination seemed
commendable, as did her disdainful rejection of easy mediocrity. Were
we wrong to commend her? No, just as we may not be right to see Julien
discovering any universally applicable recipe for happiness at the
end of the novel.
    For why in fact did
Julien pass up the happiness on offer at Vergy? Because he might have
been bored. He himself reflects on this question:
Could happiness be so near at hand?... A life like this doesn't involve
much by way of expenditure; I can choose whether to marry M lle Elisa [M me de Rênal's maid] or become Fouqué's partner... But a traveller who
has just climbed a steep mountain sits down at the summit and finds
perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be happy if forced to rest for
ever?' ( 1.23)
    For all
that Vergy epitomizes some cherished Stendhalian values and for all
that Julien's pursuit of happiness could well have ended there,
imagination says no. Energy, curiosity and exploration are as
important as the trusting repose of reciprocated love. It may even be
better to travel than to arrive. The pursuit may matter more than the
happiness.
    However perfect the view
from the mountain-top, there are other peaks to climb, and Julien's
wise analogy points to the tragic disjunction between happiness and
imagination