The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century by Stendhal

The Red and the Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century by Stendhal

Author:Stendhal
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Psychological, Classics, Church and state, Fiction, Literary, Ambition, Bildungsromane, France
ISBN: 9780199539253
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1900-01-02T00:00:00+00:00


'I think even your servants make fun of him. What a name, the Baron Bâton! * ' said M. de Caylus.

' "What's in a name?" he said to us the other day,' went on Mathilde. '"Imagine the Duc de Bouillon * announced for the first time; all the public needs, where I'm concerned, is a little familiarity..."'

Julien left the vicinity of the sofa. With little appreciation as yet of the delightful subtleties of lighthearted banter, if he was to laugh at a joke he expected it to have some rational basis. All he saw in the exchanges of these young people was the tone of universal denigration, and he was shocked by it. With the straitlaced outlook of a provincial or an Englishman, he went so far as to detect envy in it, and he was certainly quite wrong there.

Count Norbert, he thought, whom I've seen writing three rough copies of a twenty-line letter to his colonel, would be happy indeed if he had written a page like one of M. Sainclair's in his whole life.

Moving unnoticed because of his insignificance, Julien went over to several groups in succession; he was following the Baron Bâton at a distance, and wanted to hear him speak. This man with such great wit wore a worried look, and Julien only saw him recover a little composure once he had thought up three or four clever remarks. It struck Julien that this kind of wit needed breathing space.

The baron was unable to say anything punchy; he needed at least four sentences of six lines in order to sparkle.

'This man holds forth, he doesn't converse,' someone was saying behind Julien. He turned round and flushed with pleasure when he heard the Comte Chalvet's name mentioned. He's the most subtle man of this century. * Julien had often seen his name in the St Helena Chronicle and the fragments of history dictated by Napoleon. The Comte Chalvet expressed himself tersely; his sallies were lightning flashes, well-aimed, brilliant and profound. If he spoke on some matter, the discussion was instantly seen to be advanced. He adduced facts, it was a pleasure to listen to him. What is more, in politics he was a shameless cynic.

'I'm an independent,' he was saying to a gentleman wearing

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