Chapter summary
The day after touching hands under the linden, Julien Sorel decides that that night Madame de Rênal will give him her hand, and he sets himself a deadline: when the clock of the château strikes ten, either he carries out what he promised or he goes up to his room to blow his brains out. He takes her hand, she withdraws it, he takes it again, and at last the hand stays; Madame de Rênal, holding hands with him under the linden, thinks of nothing and lets herself live. The next morning Rênal, who has returned from Verrières, reproaches Julien for spending the morning without attending to the children. Julien answers with contempt, rejects Madame de Rênal's arm, and coldly faces Madame Derville, who asks him to control himself. Then he asks Madame de Rênal to fetch from his mattress a small black cardboard box with a portrait, without looking. She supposes it is the portrait of the woman he loves, and she suffers jealousy in fetching it, but Julien burns the box, which held a portrait of Napoleon and lines written by him. He asks for the favor because Rênal, with the gardener and the valet who hates him, is renewing the corn-husk mattresses of the house, and the portrait they might find would destroy, before the royalist mayor, the reputation on which Julien lives.
Analysis
Julien sets himself the ten o'clock deadline, under pain of killing himself, because he treats her hand as a question of honor: backing out would be cowardice before himself, the tribunal he fears most. Desire weighs little; what moves him is proving that he keeps his promises, like the soldier who fears shame more than the enemy.
Ch. IX. On the night in the garden, after holding Madame de Rênal's hand: - To tell the truth, I am feeling a little indisposed, but the fresh air does me good. These words confirmed Julien's happiness, which at that moment was extreme: he spoke, forgot to pretend, and seemed a most amiable man to the two friends who were listening to him.
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