The Red and the Black by Stendhal

mayor-anyone held in esteem--and serve their passions. Such conduct,
which is known in society as worldly wisdom, need not for a layman be
totally incompatible with salvation; but with our calling, we have to
choose; you either make your fortune in this world or the next,
there's no half-way house. So think about it, my dear fellow, and come
back to me in three days' time with your final answer. I dimly
perceive in the depths of your character a smouldering ardour which
doesn't signal the sort of moderation and complete renunciation of
worldly advantages that are essential in a priest. I predict great
things
    -48-

of your intellect; but if you'll allow me to say so,' the kindly
priest added with tears in his eyes, 'I shall fear for your salvation
if you go into the priesthood.'
    Julien was ashamed of the emotion he felt; for the first time in his
life, he could see that someone cared for him; he savoured his tears,
and went off to hide them in the deep woods above Verrières.
    Why am I in this state? he wondered to himself at last; I feel I
would willingly give my life a hundred times over for kind old Father
Chélan, and yet he's just proved to me that I'm a mere idiot. He's the
crucial one I have to deceive, and he sees straight through me. This
secret ardour he was talking about is my ambition to make my fortune.
He thinks I'm unworthy to be a priest, at the very moment when I
imagined that by sacrificing an income of fifty louis I would give him
the highest opinion of my piety and my vocation.
    In future, Julien went on, I shall only count on the parts of my
character that I've put to the test. Whoever would have predicted that
I'd get any pleasure from shedding tears! Or that I should feel
affection for someone who proves to me that I'm a mere idiot!
    Three days later Julien had found the pretext he should have been
armed with right from the start: it was a piece of slander, but does
that matter? He admitted to the priest with much hesitation that he
had been put off the proposed marriage from the outset by a
consideration which he could not go into because it would be damaging
to a third party. This was tantamount to impugning Elisa's conduct.
Father Chélan detected in Julien's attitude a sort of vehemence that
was entirely worldly, and altogether different from the kind which
should have inspired a young Levite.
    'Dear fellow,' he said to him, pursuing the matter, 'you'd do better
to become an honest country squire, learned and worthy of respect,
than be a priest without a calling.'
    Julien replied very ably to these fresh admonishments as far as
language went: he was able to produce the words that a fervent young
seminarist would have used. But his tone of voice in uttering them,
and the ill-disguised vehemence which shone in his eyes, caused great
alarm to Father Chélan.
    -49-

You mustn't take too dim a view of Julien's future prospects. He
could come up with just the phrases required by a cautious and wily
hypocrisy. That's not bad at his age. As far as tone and gesture were
concerned, he lived among country folk, and had been deprived of great
models to imitate. Later on, he had only to be given the opportunity
to associate with such gentlemen and he at once became admirable in
gesture as well as in word.
    M me de Rênal was astonished that her chambermaid's new fortune did not
make her any happier; she noticed how the girl was constantly visiting
the priest, and coming back with tears in her eyes. At last Elisa
spoke to her of her marriage.
    M me de Rênal felt as though she had fallen ill; a kind of fever prevented
her from sleeping; she only revived when she had her maid or Julien
with her. She could think of nothing but the two of them, and the
happiness they would experience in their married life. The little
house where they would have to live in poverty on an income of fifty
louis imprinted itself on her imagination in the most charming
colours. Julien