Chapter summary
Leaving the presbytery, Julien Sorel meets Valenod and hurries to tell him about the salary raise. In the evening, in the garden, he tries to take the hand of Madame de Rênal, who withdraws it. But, on hearing Rênal approach, talking politics angrily, he resolves to take her hand in front of her own husband, and kisses her arm and hand, which she, frightened, ends up surrendering. Madame de Rênal, who had spent the day tormented by the suspicion that Julien loved someone else and, during his absence that day, had come to acknowledge that she was in love, forgets her suspicion under his kisses. Back in her room, she is seized by the terror of the word adultery, to the point of screaming and waking Élisa, and she resolves to treat him with perfect coldness. Julien, in his room, resolves to enjoy the victory, which he calls pure Napoleon, and to ask his employer for three days off to visit his friend Fouqué.
Analysis
Once she withdraws her hand, Julien is ready to let the matter drop and keep talking. It is Rênal's arrival that decides him, because taking the wife's hand in the presence of the man who treated him roughly that morning would be a way of mocking him. The gesture is one of revenge and of campaign, the same logic as the battle of the previous chapter, and Madame de Rênal, with her husband four paces away, gives way. She had already acknowledged, during his absence that day, that she loved him.
The threat hanging over Monsieur de Rênal is not only financial but political: Monsieur de Rênal spoke of politics angrily: two or three manufacturers of Verrières were becoming decidedly richer than he was and wanted to challenge him at the elections.
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