Chapter summary
Madame de Rênal, who expected a dirty and shabbily dressed priest, finds at the door a boy still almost a child, pale, who has just been crying and who will soon be nineteen, and at once is charmed by him; on swearing that he will never beat her children, Julien Sorel dares to kiss her hand. Rênal talks with Julien in a room, keeping his wife back, hands him the thirty-six francs for the first month, demands that he stop seeing his relatives, and takes him to Mr. Durand's shop to dress him in black. Introduced to the children, Julien recites the Bible in Latin by heart before the amazed servants and Valenod and the subgovernor Maugiron, and the scene earns him the title of "sir." That evening all of Verrières goes to the mayor's house to see the marvel. A few days later he refuses the two-year contract that Rênal proposes to him.
Analysis
The meeting is a mutual surprise: Madame de Rênal expected a dirty priest and sees a boy who has just been crying, and Julien expected harshness and finds a woman who asks him not to beat the children. The kiss on the hand, however, is not an impulse: Julien has the daring idea, is afraid of it, and forces himself to carry it out, thinking it would be cowardice not to perform an action that could be useful to him and could reduce the contempt the lady probably feels for a poor workman. It is the first gesture he imposes on himself as a duty, against his own shyness.
Julien himself records, without dramatizing, the yardstick he will use from now on: What a difference from me, thought Julien. Yesterday my own father beat me. How happy these rich people are!
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