Julien Sorel and Malvolio

Julien Sorel's long courtship, if you can call it that, of Mathile de la Mole (Stendahl's The Red and the Black, 1830) finally clicks when Mlle sends him a note asking him to use a ladder to climb to her bedroom window (he used the same means in his seduction of Mme Renal back in the provinces). All well and good, but he begins to suspect that he's the victim of a hoax, that her brother and his aristocratic buddies will be lying in wait to capture him climbing the ladder or to eavesdrop on his professions of love, catching him the act so to speak and humiliating him or worse - definitely causing the Marquis de la Mole to dismiss his private secretary. In short, Julien suspects that he's a Malvolio, being set up by a ne're do well aristocratic brother, his buddies, and some of the servants. It takes a long time for J to realize that in fact Mathile is in love with him - and they finally, and discretely - note Stendahl's funny use of asterisks! - have sex. And then of course Mlle has regrets, she refuses even to look at Julien, she's humiliated, he feels ashamed and rides his horse to exhaustion (nice way to treat and animal, btw), and makes a plan to leave Paris on business for the Marquis (Mathile's father) - but then the Marquis has a new and top-secret assignment for Julien, asking him to sit in on a mysterious business meeting, memorize the goings-on, and deliver a secret report to someone in London, at his great risk. Here the plot finally is getting good: What's the meeting about and what will be the cost to J for taking part? Red and Black is much less of a novel of intrigue that S's later work, Charterhouse of Parma, and much more a study of the personality of an ambitious young man who believes his was born too late for the military glory he deserves - and who as far as I can see as no morals, values, or ideals. If this intrigue about the secret meeting gives J new insight into the perverse beliefs of the French aristocrats, it will add some much-needed energy into the 2nd half of this novel.