Mathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned himself to his first impulse, had written eight pages.

"What am I to do?" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was reading this letter. "Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest? My debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial scoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and persecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The villainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent; (second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million. I am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having rendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of the ruck.

"If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he prescribe?"

Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. "The marquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed." The valet added in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, "He is beside himself: look out!"

CHAPTER LXIII

THE HELL OF WEAKNESS

A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had force of will.—Mirabeau,

Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken.

"The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of Tartuffe supplied the answer

"I am not an angel. … I served you well; you paid me generously. … I was grateful, but I am twenty-two. … Only you and that charming person understood my thoughts in this household."

"Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The day when you found her charming you ought to have fled."

"I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for Languedoc."

Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No, no, he is not a wicked man."

"No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees. But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly got up again.

The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a distraction.

"What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture, and lost all power over the movements of his mind.

Julien was afraid of being beaten.

In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men."

Julien approached the table and wrote:

"I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to accept my apologies (together with the expression of my infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be occasioned by my death in his hôtel."

"Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien. "Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall at the bottom."

"Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away.

"I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to spare his valet the trouble of killing me.…

"Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer him.… But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son."

This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his danger.

This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to how to behave towards this infuriated man.… He is devoid of reason; he is capable of everything. Fouqué is too far away; besides, he would not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's."

"Count Altamira … am I certain of eternal silence? My request for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbé Pirard. His mind is crabbed by Jansenism.… A damned Jesuit would know the world, and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the very mention of my crime."

The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy.

Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence.

"I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father."

"What will he do?" said Julien keenly.

At that moment he loved the abbé, and would have found a scene between them very painful.

"I see three alternatives," continued Julien.

"M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide letter which he had left with the Marquis;" (2) He can get Count Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank."

"You would accept?" said the abbé furiously as he got up.

"You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son."

"Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that depraved man."

At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger.

"If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you who will be the cause of his death.… Perhaps you will rejoice at it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning, and shall publicly appear as Madame the widow Sorel , I shall send out my invitations, you can count on it… You will find me neither pusillanimous nor cowardly."

Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted in his turn.

He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic. Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed that she had said nothing to her mother.

Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had come away from his long consultation with the abbé Pirard in a very diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that she had read his suicide letter.

"My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the hotel before they get up from table."

When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement, she burst into tears.

"Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee."

This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these aristocrats manage to shock me."

Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time."

This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger, eventually made the marquis hesitate.

"Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly make it impossible for me to retract it."

In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbé Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence. Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the eyes of God.

"And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much longer with this strange mésalliance . Everything must be said all at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest mystery."

"It is true," said the marquis pensively.

Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the abbé Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his daughter.

He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in which he had indulged for the last ten years.

"Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked for by all the cream of the nobility of France."

CHAPTER LXIV

A MAN OF INTELLECT

The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway on horseback, "why should I not be a minister, a president of the council, a duke? This is how I should make war … By these means I should have all the reformers put in irons."— The Globe.

No argument will succeed in destroying the paramount influence of ten years of agreeable dreaming. The marquis thought it illogical to be angry, but could not bring himself to forgive. "If only this Julien could die by accident," he sometimes said to himself. It was in this way that his depressed imagination found a certain relief in running after the most absurd chimæras. They paralysed the influence of the wise arguments of the abbé Pirard. A month went by in this way without negotiations advancing one single stage.

The marquis had in this family matter, just as he had in politics, brilliant ideas over which he would be enthusiastic for two or three days. And then a line of tactics would fail to please him because it was based on sound arguments, while arguments only found favour in his eyes in so far as they were based on his favourite plan. He would work for three days with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a poet on bringing matters to a certain stage; on the following day he would not give it a thought.

Julien was at first disconcerted by the slowness of the marquis; but, after some weeks, he began to surmise that M. de La Mole had no definite plan with regard to this matter. Madame de La Mole and the whole household believed that Julien was travelling in the provinces in connection with the administration of the estates; he was in hiding in the parsonage of the abbé Pirard and saw Mathilde every day; every morning she would spend an hour with her father, but they would sometimes go for weeks on end without talking of the matter which engrossed all their thoughts.

"I don't want to know where the man is," said the marquis to her one day. "Send him this letter." Mathilde read:

"The Languedoc estates bring in 20,600 francs. I give 10,600 francs to my daughter, and 10,000 francs to M. Julien Sorel. It is understood that I give the actual estates. Tell the notary to draw up two separate deeds of gift, and to bring them to me to-morrow, after this there are to be no more relations between us. Ah, Monsieur, could I have expected all this? The marquis de La Mole."

"I thank you very much," said Mathilde gaily. "We will go and settle in the chateau d'Aiguillon, between Agen and Marmande. The country is said to be as beautiful as Italy."

This gift was an extreme surprise to Julien. He was no longer the cold, severe man whom we have hitherto known. His thoughts were engrossed in advance by his son's destiny. This unexpected fortune, substantial as it was for a man as poor as himself, made him ambitious. He pictured a time when both his wife and himself would have an income of 36,000 francs. As for Mathilde, all her emotions were concentrated on her adoration for her husband, for that was the name by which her pride insisted on calling Julien. Her one great ambition was to secure the recognition of her marriage. She passed her time in exaggerating to herself the consummate prudence which she had manifested in linking her fate to that of a superior man. The idea of personal merit became a positive craze with her.

Julien's almost continuous absence, coupled with the complications of business matters and the little time available in which to talk love, completed the good effect produced by the wise tactics which Julien had previously discovered.

Mathilde finished by losing patience at seeing so little of the man whom she had come really to love.

In a moment of irritation she wrote to her father and commenced her letter like Othello:

"My very choice is sufficient proof that I have preferred Julien to all the advantages which society offered to the daughter of the marquis de la Mole. Such pleasures, based as they are on prestige and petty vanity mean nothing to me. It is now nearly six weeks since I have lived separated from my husband. That is sufficient to manifest my respect for yourself. Before next Thursday I shall leave the paternal house. Your acts of kindness have enriched us. No one knows my secret except the venerable abbé Pirard. I shall go to him: he will marry us, and an hour after the ceremony we shall be on the road to Languedoc, and we will never appear again in Paris except by your instructions. But what cuts me to the quick is that all this will provide the subject matter for piquant ancedotes against me and against yourself. May not the epigrams of a foolish public compel our excellent Norbert to pick a quarrel with Julien, under such circumstances I know I should have no control over him. We should discover in his soul the mark of the rebel plebian. Oh father, I entreat you on my knees, come and be present at my marriage in M. Pirard's church next Thursday. It will blunt the sting of malignant scandal and will guarantee the life's happiness of your only daughter, and of that of my husband, etc., etc."

This letter threw the marquis's soul into a strange embarrassment. He must at last take a definite line. All his little habits: all his vulgar friends had lost their influence.

In these strange circumstances the great lines of his character, which had been formed by the events of his youth, reassumed all their original force. The misfortunes of the emigration had made him into an imaginative man. After having enjoyed for two years an immense fortune and all the distinctions of the court, 1790 had flung him into the awful miseries of the emigration. This hard schooling had changed the character of a spirit of twenty-two. In essence, he was not so much dominated by his present riches as encamped in their midst. But that very imagination which had preserved his soul from the taint of avarice, had made him a victim of a mad passion for seeing his daughter decorated by a fine title.

During the six weeks which had just elapsed, the marquis had felt at times impelled by a caprice for making Julien rich. He considered poverty mean, humiliating for himself, M. de la Mole, and impossible in his daughter's husband; he was ready to lavish money. On the next day his imagination would go off on another tack, and he would think that Julien would read between the lines of this financial generosity, change his name, exile himself to America, and write to Mathilde that he was dead for her. M. de la Mole imagined this letter written, and went so far as to follow its effect on his daughter's character.

The day when he was awakened from these highly youthful dreams by Mathilde's actual letter after he had been thinking for along time of killing Julien or securing his disappearance he was dreaming of building up a brilliant position for him. He would make him take the name of one of his estates, and why should he not make him inherit a peerage? His father-in-law, M. the duke de Chaulnes, had, since the death of his own son in Spain, frequently spoken to him about his desire to transmit his title to Norbert.…

"One cannot help owning that Julien has a singular aptitude for affairs, had boldness, and is possibly even brilliant," said the marquis to himself … "but I detect at the root of his character a certain element which alarms me. He produces the same impression upon everyone, consequently there must be something real in it," and the more difficult this reality was to seize hold of, the more it alarmed the imaginative mind of the old marquis.

"My daughter expressed the same point very neatly the other day (in a suppressed letter).

"Julien has not joined any salon or any côterie. He has nothing to support himself against me, and has absolutely no resource if I abandon him. Now is that ignorance of the actual state of society? I have said to him two or three times, the only real and profitable candidature is the candidature of the salons.

"No, he has not the adroit, cunning genius of an attorney who never loses a minute or an opportunity. He is very far from being a character like Louis XI. On the other hand, I seen him quote the most ungenerous maxims … it is beyond me. Can it be that he simply repeats these maxims in order to use them as a dam against his passions?

"However, one thing comes to the surface; he cannot bear contempt, that's my hold on him.

"He has not, it is true, the religious reverence for high birth. He does not instinctively respect us.… That is wrong; but after all, the only things which are supposed to make the soul of a seminary student impatient are lack of enjoyment and lack of money. He is quite different, and cannot stand contempt at any price."

Pressed as he was by his daughter's letter, M. de la Mole realised the necessity for making up his mind. "After all, the great question is this:—Did Julien's audacity go to the point of setting out to make advances to my daughter because he knows I love her more than anything else in the world, and because I have an income of a hundred thousand crowns?"

Mathilde protests to the contrary.… "No, monsieur Julien, that is a point on which I am not going to be under any illusion.

"Is it really a case of spontaneous and authentic love? or is it just a vulgar desire to raise himself to a fine position? Mathilde is far-seeing; she appreciated from the first that this suspicion might ruin him with me—hence that confession of hers. It was she who took upon herself to love him the first.

"The idea of a girl of so proud a character so far forgetting herself as to make physical advances! To think of pressing his arm in the garden in the evening! How horrible! As though there were not a hundred other less unseemly ways of notifying him that he was the object of her favour.

" Qui s'excuse s'accuse; I distrust Mathilde." The marquis's reasoning was more conclusive to-day than it was usually. Nevertheless, force of habit prevailed, and he resolved to gain time by writing to his daughter, for a correspondence was being carried on between one wing of the hotel and the other. M. de la Mole did not dare to discuss matters with Mathilde and to see her face to face. He was frightened of clinching the whole matter by yielding suddenly.

"Mind you commit no new acts of madness; here is a commission of lieutenant of Hussars for M. the chevalier, Julien Sorel de la Vernaye. You see what I am doing for him. Do not irritate me. Do not question me. Let him leave within twenty-four hours and present himself at Strasbourg where his regiment is. Here is an order on my banker. Obey me."

Mathilde's love and joy were unlimited. She wished to profit by her victory and immediately replied.

"If M. de la Vernaye knew all that you are good enough to do for him, he would be overwhelmed with gratitude and be at your feet. But amidst all this generosity, my father has forgotten me; your daughter's honour is in peril. An indiscretion may produce an everlasting blot which an income of twenty thousand crowns could not put right. I will only send the commission to M. de la Vernaye if you give me your word that my marriage will be publicly celebrated at Villequier in the course of next month. Shortly after that period, which I entreat you not to prolong, your daughter will only be able to appear in public under the name of Madame de la Vernaye. How I thank you, dear papa, for having saved me from the name of Sorel, etc., etc."

The reply was unexpected:

"Obey or I retract everything. Tremble, you imprudent youny girl. I do not yet know what your Julien is, and you yourself know less than I. Let him leave for Strasbourg, and try to act straightly. I will notify him from here of my wishes within a fortnight."

Mathilde was astonished by this firm answer. I do not know Julien. These words threw her into a reverie which soon finished in the most fascinating suppositions; but she believed in their truth. My Julien's intellect is not clothed in the petty mean uniform of the salons, and my father refuses to believe in his superiority by reason of the very fact which proves it.

All the same, if I do not obey this whim of his, I see the possibility of a public scene; a scandal would lower my position in society, and might render me less fascinating in Julien's eyes. After the scandal … ten years of poverty; and the only thing which can prevent marrying for merit becoming ridiculous is the most brilliant wealth. If I live far away from my father, he is old and may forget me … Norbert will marry some clever, charming woman; old Louis XIV. was seduced by the duchess of Burgundy.

She decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's letter to Julien. It might perhaps have been that ferocious character driven to some act of madness.

Julien's joy was unlimited when she informed him in the evening that he was a lieutenant of Hussars. Its extent can be imagined from the fact that this had constituted the ambition of his whole life, and also from the passion which he now had for his son. The change of name struck him with astonishment.

"After all," he thought, "I have got to the end of my romance, and I deserve all the credit. I have managed to win the love of that monster of pride," he added, looking at Mathilde. "Her father cannot live without her, nor she without me."

CHAPTER LXV

A STORM

My God, give me mediocrity.— Mirabeau.

His mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that she showed to him. He remained gloomy and taciturn. He had never seemed so great and so adorable in Mathilde's eyes. She was apprehensive of some subtle twist of his pride which would spoil the whole situation.

She saw the abbé Pirard come to the hotel nearly every morning. Might not Julien have divined something of her father's intentions through him? Might not the marquis himself have written to him in a momentary caprice. What was the explanation of Julien's stern manner following on so great a happiness? She did not dare to question.

She did not dare —she—Mathilde! From that moment her feelings for Julien contained a certain vague and unexpected element which was almost panic. This arid soul experienced all the passion possible in an individual who has been brought up amid that excessive civilisation which Paris so much admires.

Early on the following day Julien was at the house of the abbé Pirard. Some post-horses were arriving in the courtyard with a dilapidated chaise which had been hired at a neighbouring station.

"A vehicle like that is out of fashion," said the stern abbé to him morosely. "Here are twenty thousand francs which M. de la Mole makes you a gift of. He insists on your spending them within a year, but at the same time wants you to try to look as little ridiculous as possible." (The priest regarded flinging away so substantial a sum on a young man as simply an opportunity for sin).

"The marquis adds this: 'M. Julien de la Vernaye will have received this money from his father, whom it is needless to call by any other name. M. de la Vernaye will perhaps think it proper to give a present to M. Sorel, a carpenter of Verrières, who cared for him in his childhood.…' I can undertake that commission," added the abbé. "I have at last prevailed upon M. de la Mole to come to a settlement with that Jesuit, the abbé de Frilair. His influence is unquestionably too much for us. The complete recognition of your high birth on the part of this man, who is in fact the governor of B —— will be one of the unwritten terms of the arrangement." Julien could no longer control his ecstasy. He embraced the abbé. He saw himself recognised.

"For shame," said M. Pirard, pushing him away. " What is the meaning of this worldly vanity? As for Sorel and his sons, I will offer them in my own name a yearly allowance of five hundred francs, which will be paid to each of them as long as I am satisfied with them."

Julien was already cold and haughty. He expressed his thanks, but in the vaguest terms which bound him to nothing. "Could it be possible," he said to himself, "that I am the natural son of some great nobleman who was exiled to our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?" This idea seemed less and less improbable every minute.… "My hatred of my father would be a proof of this.… In that case, I should not be an unnatural monster after all."

A few days after this soliloquy the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars, which was one of the most brilliant in the army, was being reviewed on the parade ground of Strasbourg. M. the chevalier de La Vernaye sat the finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six thousand francs. He was received as a lieutenant, though he had never been sub-lieutenant except on the rolls of a regiment of which he had never heard.

His impassive manner, his stern and almost malicious eyes, his pallor, and his invariable self-possession, founded his reputation from the very first day. Shortly afterwards his perfect and calculated politeness, and his skill at shooting and fencing, of which, though without any undue ostentation, he made his comrades aware, did away, with all idea of making fun of him openly. After hesitating for five or six days, the public opinion of the regiment declared itself in his favour. "This young man has everything," said the facetious old officers, "except youth."

Julien wrote from Strasbourg to the old cure of Verrières, M. Chélan, who was now verging on extreme old age.

"You will have learnt, with a joy of which I have no doubt, of the events which have induced my family to enrich me. Here are five hundred francs which I request you to distribute quietly, and without any mention of my name, among those unfortunate ones who are now poor as I myself was once, and whom you will doubtless help as you once helped me."

Julien was intoxicated with ambition, and not with vanity He nevertheless devoted a great part of his time to attending to his external appearance. His horses, his uniform, his orderlies' liveries, were all kept with a correctness which would have done credit to the punctiliousness of a great English nobleman. He had scarcely been made a lieutenant as a matter of favour (and that only two days ago) than he began to calculate that if he was to become commander-in-chief at thirty, like all the great generals, then he must be more than a lieutenant at twenty-three at the latest. He thought about nothing except fame and his son.

It was in the midst of the ecstasies of the most reinless ambition that he was surprised by the arrival of a young valet from the hôtel de la Mole, who had come with a letter.

"All is lost," wrote Mathilde to him: "Rush here as quickly as possible, sacrifice everything, desert if necessary. As soon as you have arrived, wait for me in a fiacre near the little garden door, near No. —— of the street —— I will come and speak to you: I shall perhaps be able to introduce you into the garden. All is lost, and I am afraid there is no way out; count on me; you will find me staunch and firm in adversity. I love you."

A few minutes afterwards, Julien obtained a furlough from the colonel, and left Strasbourg at full gallop: But the awful anxiety which devoured him did not allow him to continue this method of travel beyond Metz. He flung himself into a post-chaise, and arrived with an almost incredible rapidity at the indicated spot, near the little garden door of the hotel de la Mole. The door opened, and Mathilde, oblivious of all human conventions, rushed into his arms. Fortunately, it was only five o'clock in the morning, and the street was still deserted.

"All is lost. My father, fearing my tears, left Thursday night. Nobody knows where for? But here is his letter: read it." She climbed into the fiacre with Julien.

"I could forgive everything except the plan of seducing you because you are rich. That, unhappy girl, is the awful truth. I give you my word of honour that I will never consent to a marriage with that man. I will guarantee him an income of 10,000 francs if he will live far away beyond the French frontiers, or better still, in America. Read the letter which I have just received in answer to the enquiries which I have made. The impudent scoundrel had himself requested me to write to madame de Rênal. I will never read a single line you write concerning that man. I feel a horror for both Paris and yourself. I urge you to cover what is bound to happen with the utmost secrecy. Be frank, have nothing more to do with the vile man, and you will find again the father you have lost."

"Where is Madame de Rênal's letter? " said Julien coldly.

"Here it is. I did not want to shew it to you before you were prepared for it."

LETTER

"My duties to the sacred cause of religion and morality, oblige me, monsieur, to take the painful course which I have just done with regard to yourself: an infallible principle orders me to do harm to my neighbour at the present moment, but only in order to avoid an even greater scandal. My sentiment of duty must overcome the pain which I experience. It is only too true, monsieur, that the conduct of the person about whom you ask me to tell you the whole truth may seem incredible or even honest. It may possibly be considered proper to hide or to disguise part of the truth: that would be in accordance with both prudence and religion. But the conduct about which you desire information has been in fact reprehensible to the last degree, and more than I can say. Poor and greedy as the man is, it is only by the aid of the most consummate hypocrisy, and by seducing a weak and unhappy woman, that he has endeavoured to make a career for himself and become someone in the world. It is part of my painful duty to add that I am obliged to believe that M. Julien has no religious principles. I am driven conscientiously to think that one of his methods of obtaining success in any household is to try to seduce the woman who commands the principal influence. His one great object, in spite of his show of disinterestedness, and his stock-in-trade of phrases out of novels, is to succeed in doing what he likes with the master of the household and his fortune. He leaves behind him unhappiness and eternal remorse, etc., etc., etc."

This extremely long letter, which was almost blotted out by tears, was certainly in madame de Rênal's handwriting; it was even written with more than ordinary care.

"I cannot blame M. de la Mole," said Julien, "after he had finished it. He is just and prudent. What father would give his beloved daughter to such a man? Adieu!" Julien jumped out of the fiacre and rushed to his postchaise, which had stopped at the end of the street Mathilde, whom he had apparently forgotten, took a few steps as though to follow him, but the looks she received from the tradesmen, who were coming out on the thresholds of their shops, and who knew who she was, forced her to return precipitately to the garden.

Julien had left for Verrières. During that rapid journey he was unable to write to Mathilde as he had intended. His hand could only form illegible characters on the paper.

He arrived at Verrières on a Sunday morning. He entered the shop of the local gunsmith, who overwhelmed him with congratulations on his recent good fortune. It constituted the news of the locality.

Julien had much difficulty in making him understand that he wanted a pair of pistols. At his request the gunsmith loaded the pistols.

The three peals sounded; it is a well-known signal in the villages of France, and after the various ringings in the morning announces the immediate commencement of Mass.

Julien entered the new church of Verrières. All the lofty windows of the building were veiled with crimson curtains. Julien found himself some spaces behind the pew of madame de Rênal. It seemed to him that she was praying fervently The sight of the woman whom he had loved so much made Julien's arm tremble so violently that he was at first unable to execute his project. "I cannot," he said to himself. "It is a physical impossibility."

At that moment the young priest, who was officiating at the Mass, rang the bell for the elevation of the host. Madame de Rênal lowered her head, which, for a moment became entirely hidden by the folds of her shawl. Julien did not see her features so distinctly: he aimed a pistol shot at her, and missed her: he aimed a second shot, she fell.

CHAPTER LXVI

SAD DETAILS

Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged myself. I have deserved death, and here I am. Pray for my soul.— Schiller

Julien remained motionless. He saw nothing more. When he recovered himself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church. The priest had left the altar. Julien started fairly slowly to follow some women who were going away with loud screams. A woman who was trying to get away more quickly than the others, pushed him roughly. He fell. His feet got entangled with a chair, knocked over by the crowd; when he got up, he felt his neck gripped. A gendarme, in full uniform, was arresting him. Julien tried mechanically to have recourse to his little pistol; but a second gendarme pinioned his arms.

He was taken to the prison. They went into a room where irons were put on his hands. He was left alone. The door was doubly locked on him. All this was done very quickly, and he scarcely appreciated it at all.

"Yes, upon my word, all is over," he said aloud as he recovered himself. "Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight … or killing myself here."

His reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had been seized in some violent grip. He looked round to see if anyone was holding him. After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.

Madame de Rênal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had pierced her hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round. The bullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate, had ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however, broken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous splinter of stone.

When, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to madame de Rênal, "I answer for your life as I would for my own," she was profoundly grieved.

She had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time. The letter which she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the injunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a creature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness. This unhappiness was caused by Julien's absence; but she, for her own part, called it remorse. Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both virtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no mistake as to its nature.

"Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being a sin," thought madame de Rênal. "God will perhaps forgive me for rejoicing over my death." She did not dare to add, "and dying by Julien's hand puts the last touch on my happiness."

She had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the crowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid, Elisa. "The gaoler," she said to her with a violent blush, "is a cruel man. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing so … I cannot bear that idea. Could you not go, as though on your own account, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some louis. You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly, above all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money."

It was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had to thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrières. It was still the same M. Nolraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so finely alarmed by M. Appert's presence.

A judge appeared in the prison. "I occasioned death by premeditation," said Julien to him. "I bought the pistols and had them loaded at so-and-so's, a gunsmith. Article 1342 of the penal code is clear. I deserve death, and I expect it." Astonished at this kind of answer, the judge started to multiply his questions, with a view of the accused contradicting himself in his answers.

"Don't you see," said Julien to him with a smile, "that I am making myself out as guilty as you can possibly desire? Go away, monsieur, you will not fail to catch the quarry you are pursuing. You will have the pleasure to condemn me. Spare me your presence."

"I have an irksome duty to perform," thought Julien. "I must write to mademoiselle de la Mole:—

"I have avenged myself," he said to her. "Unfortunately, my name will appear in the papers, and I shall not be able to escape from the world incognito. I shall die in two months' time. My revenge was ghastly, like the pain of being separated from you. From this moment I forbid myself to write or pronounce your name. Never speak of me even to my son; silence is the only way of honouring me. To the ordinary commonplace man, I shall represent a common assassin. Allow me the luxury of the truth at this supreme moment; you will forget me. This great catastrophe of which I advise you not to say a single word to a single living person, will exhaust, for several years to come, all that romantic and unduly adventurous element which I have detected in your character. You were intended by nature to live among the heroes of the middle ages; exhibit their firm character. Let what has to happen take place in secret and without your being compromised. You will assume a false name, and you will confide in no one. If you absolutely need a friend's help, I bequeath the abbé Pirard to you.

Do not talk to anyone else, particularly to the people of your own class—the de Luz's, the Caylus's.

A year after my death, marry M. de Croisenois; I command you as your husband. Do not write to me at all, I shall not answer. Though in my view, much less wicked than Iago, I am going to say, like him: 'From this time forth, I never will speack word.'

I shall never be seen to speak or write again. You will have received my final words and my final expressions of adoration.

J. S."

It was only after he had despatched this letter and had recovered himself a little, that Julien felt for the first time extremely unhappy. Those momentous words, I shall die, meant the successive tearing out of his heart of each individual hope and ambition. Death, in itself, was not horrible in his eyes. His whole life had been nothing but a long preparation for unhappiness, and he had made a point of not losing sight of what is considered the greatest unhappiness of all.

"Come then," he said to himself; "if I had to fight a duel in a couple of months, with an expert duellist, should I be weak enough to think about it incessantly with panic in my soul?"

He passed more than an hour in trying to analyze himself thoroughly on this score.

When he saw clear in his own soul, and the truth appeared before his eyes with as much definiteness as one of the pillars of his prison, he thought about remorse.

"Why should I have any? I have been atrociously injured; I have killed—I deserve death, but that is all. I die after having squared my account with humanity. I do not leave any obligation unfulfilled. I owe nothing to anybody; there is nothing shameful about my death, except the instrument of it; that alone, it is true, is simply sufficient to disgrace me in the eyes of the bourgeois of Verrières; but from the intellectual standpoint, what could be more contemptible than they? I have one means of winning their consideration; by flinging pieces of gold to the people as I go to the scaffold. If my memory is linked with the idea of gold, they will always look upon it as resplendent."

After this chain of reasoning, which after a minute's reflection seemed to him self-evident, Julien said to himself, "I have nothing left to do in the world," and fell into a deep sleep.

About 9 o'clock in the evening the gaoler woke him up as he brought in his supper.

"What are they saying in Verrières?"

"M. Julien, the oath which I took before the crucifix in the 'Royal Courtyard,' on the day when I was installed in my place, obliges me to silence."

He was silent, but remained. Julien was amused by the sight of this vulgar hypocrisy. I must make him, he thought, wait a long time for the five francs which he wants to sell his conscience for.

When the gaoler saw him finish his meal without making any attempt to corrupt him, he said in a soft and perfidious voice:

"The affection which I have for you, M. Julien, compels me to speak. Although they say that it is contrary to the interests of justice, because it may assist you in preparing your defence. M. Julien you are a good fellow at heart, and you will be very glad to learn that madame de Rênal is better."

"What! she is not dead?" exclaimed Julien, beside himself.

"What, you know nothing?" said the gaoler, with a stupid air which soon turned into exultant cupidity. "It would be very proper, monsieur, for you to give something to the surgeon, who, so far as law and justice go, ought not to have spoken. But in order to please you, monsieur, I went to him, and he told me everything."

"Anyway, the wound is not mortal," said Julien to him impatiently, "you answer for it on your life?"

The gaoler, who was a giant six feet tall, was frightened and retired towards the door. Julien saw that he was adopting bad tactics for getting at the truth. He sat down again and flung a napoleon to M. Noiraud.

As the man's story proved to Julien more and more conclusively that madame de Rênal's wound was not mortal, he felt himself overcome by tears. "Leave me," he said brusquely.

The gaoler obeyed. Scarcely had the door shut, than Julien exclaimed: "Great God, she is not dead," and he fell on his knees, shedding hot tears.

In this supreme moment he was a believer. What mattered the hypocrisies of the priests? Could they abate one whit of the truth and sublimity of the idea of God?

It was only then that Julien began to repent of the crime that he had committed. By a coincidence, which prevented him falling into despair, it was only at the present moment that the condition of physical irritation and semi-madness, in which he had been plunged since his departure from Paris for Verrières came to an end.

His tears had a generous source. He had no doubt about the condemnation which awaited him.

"So she will live," he said to himself. "She will live to forgive me and love me."

Very late the next morning the gaoler woke him up and said, "You must have a famous spirit, M. Julien. I have come in twice, but I did not want to wake you up. Here are two bottles of excellent wine which our curé, M. Maslon, has sent you."

"What, is that scoundrel still here?" said Julien.

"Yes, monsieur," said the gaoler, lowering his voice. "But do not talk so loud, it may do you harm."

Julien laughed heartily.

"At the stage I have reached, my friend, you alone can do me harm in the event of your ceasing to be kind and tender. You will be well paid," said Julien, changing his tone and reverting to his imperious manner. This manner was immediately justified by the gift of a piece of money.

M. Noiraud related again, with the greatest detail, everything he had learnt about madame de Rênal, but he did not make any mention of mademoiselle Elisa's visit.

The man was as base and servile as it was possible to be. An idea crossed Julien's mind. "This kind of misshapen giant cannot earn more than three or four hundred francs, for his prison is not at all full. I can guarantee him ten thousand francs, if he will escape with me to Switzerland. The difficulty will be in persuading him of my good faith." The idea of the long conversation he would need to have with so vile a person filled Julien with disgust. He thought of something else.

In the evening the time had passed. A postchaise had come to pick him up at midnight. He was very pleased with his travelling companions, the gendarmes. When he arrived at the prison of Besançon in the morning they were kind enough to place him in the upper storey of a Gothic turret. He judged the architecture to be of the beginning of the fourteenth century. He admired its fascinating grace and lightness. Through a narrow space between two walls, beyond the deep court, there opened a superb vista.

On the following day there was an interrogation, after which he was left in peace for several days. His soul was calm. He found his affair a perfectly simple one. "I meant to kill. I deserve to be killed."

His thoughts did not linger any further over this line of reasoning. As for the sentence, the disagreeableness of appearing in public, the defence, he considered all this as slight embarrassment, irksome formalities, which it would be time enough to consider on the actual day. The actual moment of death did not seize hold of his mind either. "I will think about it after the sentence." Life was no longer boring, he was envisaging everything from a new point of view, he had no longer any ambition. He rarely thought about mademoiselle de la Mole. His passion of remorse engrossed him a great deal, and often conjured up the image of madame de Rênal, particularly during the silence of the night, which in this high turret was only disturbed by the song of the osprey.

He thanked heaven that he had not inflicted a mortal wound. "Astonishing," he said to himself, "I thought that she had destroyed my future happiness for ever by her letter to M. de la Mole, and here am I, less than a fortnight after the date of that letter, not giving a single thought to all the things that engrossed me then. An income of two or three thousand francs, on which to live quietly in a mountain district, like Vergy… I was happy then… I did not realise my happiness."

At other moments he would jump up from his chair. "If I had mortally wounded madame de Rênal, I would have killed myself… I need to feel certain of that so as not to horrify myself."

"Kill myself? That's the great question," he said to himself. "Oh, those judges, those fiends of red tape, who would hang their best citizen in order to win the cross… At any rate, I should escape from their control and from the bad French of their insults, which the local paper will call eloquence."

"I still have five or six weeks, more or less to live… Kill myself. No, not for a minute," he said to himself after some days, " Napoleon went on living."

"Besides, I find life pleasant, this place is quiet, I am not troubled with bores," he added with a smile, and he began to make out a list of the books which he wanted to order from Paris.

CHAPTER LXVII

A TURRET

The tomb of a friend.— Sterne .

He heard a loud noise in the corridor. It was not the time when the gaoler usually came up to his prison. The osprey flew away with a shriek. The door opened, and the venerable curé Chélan threw himself into his arms. He was trembling all over and had his stick in his hands.

"Great God! Is it possible, my child—I ought to say monster?"

The good old man could not add a single word. Julien was afraid he would fall down. He was obliged to lead him to a chair. The hand of time lay heavy on this man who had once been so active. He seemed to Julien the mere shadow of his former self.

When he had regained his breath, he said, "It was only the day before yesterday that I received your letter from Strasbourg with your five hundred francs for the poor of Verrières. They brought it to me in the mountains at Liveru where I am living in retirement with my nephew Jean. Yesterday I learnt of the catastrophe … Heavens, is it possible?" And the old man left off weeping. He did not seem to have any ideas left, but added mechanically, "You will have need of your five hundred francs, I will bring them back to you."

"I need to see you, my father," exclaimed Julien, really touched. "I have money, anyway."

But he could not obtain any coherent answer. From time to time, M. Chélan shed some tears which coursed silently down his cheeks. He then looked at Julien, and was quite dazed when he saw him kiss his hands and carry them to his lips. That face which had once been so vivid, and which had once portrayed with such vigour the most noble emotions was now sunk in a perpetual apathy. A kind of peasant came soon to fetch the old man. "You must not fatigue him," he said to Julien, who understood that he was the nephew. This visit left Julien plunged in a cruel unhappiness which found no vent in tears. Everything seemed to him gloomy and disconsolate. He felt his heart frozen in his bosom.

This moment was the cruellest which he had experienced since the crime. He had just seen death and seen it in all its ugliness. All his illusions about greatness of soul and nobility of character had been dissipated like a cloud before the hurricane.

This awful plight lasted several hours. After moral poisoning, physical remedies and champagne are necessary. Julien would have considered himself a coward to have resorted to them. "What a fool I am," he exclaimed, towards the end of the horrible day that he had spent entirely in walking up and down his narrow turret. "It's only, if I had been going to die like anybody else, that the sight of that poor old man would have had any right to have thrown me into this awful fit of sadness: but a rapid death in the flower of my age simply puts me beyond the reach of such awful senility."

In spite of all his argumentation, Julien felt as touched as any weak-minded person would have been, and consequently felt unhappy as the result of the visit. He no longer had any element of rugged greatness, or any Roman virtue. Death appeared to him at a great height and seemed a less easy proposition.

"This is what I shall take for my thermometer," he said to himself. "To-night I am ten degrees below the courage requisite for guillotine-point level. I had that courage this morning. Anyway, what does it matter so long as it comes back to me at the necessary moment?" This thermometer idea amused him and finally managed to distract him.

When he woke up the next day he was ashamed of the previous day. "My happiness and peace of mind are at stake." He almost made up his mind to write to the Procureur-General to request that no one should be admitted to see him. "And how about Fouqué," he thought? "If he takes it upon himself to come to Besançon, his grief will be immense." It had perhaps been two months since he had given Fouqué a thought. "I was a great fool at Strasbourg. My thoughts did not go beyond my coat-collar. He was much engrossed by the memory of Fouqué, which left him more and more touched. He walked nervously about. Here I am, clearly twenty degrees below death point … If this weakness increases, it will be better for me to kill myself. What joy for the abbé Maslon, and the Valenods, if I die like an usher."

Fouqué arrived. The good, simple man, was distracted by grief. His one idea, so far as he had any at all, was to sell all he possessed in order to bribe the gaoler and secure Julien's escape. He talked to him at length of M. de Lavalette's escape.

"You pain me," Julien said to him. "M. de Lavalette was innocent—I am guilty. Though you did not mean to, you made me think of the difference.…"

"But is it true? What? were you going to sell all you possessed?" said Julien, suddenly becoming mistrustful and observant.

Fouqué was delighted at seeing his friend answer his obsessing idea, and detailed at length, and within a hundred francs, what he would get for each of his properties.

"What a sublime effort for a small country land-owner," thought Julien. "He is ready to sacrifice for me the fruits of all the economies, and all the little semi-swindling tricks which I used to be ashamed of when I saw him practice them."

"None of the handsome young people whom I saw in the hotel de la Mole, and who read Réné , would have any of his ridiculous weaknesses: but, except those who are very young and who have also inherited riches and are ignorant of the value of money, which of all those handsome Parisians would be capable of such a sacrifice?"

All Fouqué's mistakes in French and all his common gestures seemed to disappear. He threw himself into his arms. Never have the provinces in comparison with Paris received so fine a tribute. Fouqué was so delighted with the momentary enthusiasm which he read in his friend's eyes that he took it for consent to the flight.

This view of the sublime recalled to Julien all the strength that the apparition of M. Chélan had made him lose. He was still very young; but in my view he was a fine specimen. Instead of his character passing from tenderness to cunning, as is the case with the majority of men, age would have given him that kindness of heart which is easily melted … but what avail these vain prophecies.

The interrogations became more frequent in spite of all the efforts of Julien, who always endeavoured by his answers to shorten the whole matter.

"I killed, or at anyrate, I wished to occasion death, and I did so with premeditation," he would repeat every day. But the judge was a pedant above everything. Julien's confessions had no effect in curtailing the interrogations. The judge's conceit was wounded. Julien did not know that they had wanted to transfer him into an awful cell, and that it was only, thanks to Fouqué's efforts, that he was allowed to keep his pretty room at the top of a hundred and eighty steps.

M. the abbé de Frilair was one of the important customers who entrusted Fouqé with the purveying of their firewood. The good tradesmen managed to reach the all powerful grand vicar. M. de Frilair informed him, to his unspeakable delight, that he was so touched by Julien's good qualities, and by the services which he had formerly rendered to the seminary, that he intended to recommend him to the judges. Fouqué thought he saw a hope of saving his friend, and as he went out, bowing down to the ground, requested M. the grand vicar, to distribute a sum of ten louis in masses to entreat the acquittal of the accused.

Fouqué was making a strange mistake. M. de Frilair was very far from being a Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the good peasant understand that he would do better to keep his money. Seeing that it was impossible to be clear without being indiscreet, he advised him to give that sum as alms for the use of the poor prisoners, who, in point of fact, were destitute of everything.

"This Julien is a singular person, his action is unintelligible," thought M. de Frilair, "and I ought to find nothing unintelligible. Perhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him.… In any case, I shall get to the bottom of the matter, and shall perhaps find an opportunity of putting fear into the heart of that madame de Rênal who has no respect for us, and at the bottom detests me.… Perhaps I might be able to utilise all this as a means of a brilliant reconciliation with M. de la Mole, who has a weakness for the little seminarist.

The settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks previously, and the abbé Pirard had left Besançon after having duly mentioned Julien's mysterious birth, on the very day when the unhappy man tried to assassinate madame de Rênal in the church of Verrières.

There was only one disagreeable event between himself and his death which Julien anticipated. He consulted Fouqué concerning his idea of writing to M. the Procureur-General asking to be exempt from all visits. This horror at the sight of a father, above all at a moment like this, deeply shocked the honest middle-class heart of the wood merchant.

He thought he understood why so many people had a passionate hatred for his friend. He concealed his feelings out of respect for misfortune.

"In any case," he answered coldly, "such an order for privacy would not be applied to your father."

CHAPTER LXVIII

A POWERFUL MAN

But her proceedings are so mysterious and her figure is so elegant! Who can she be?— Schiller.

The doors of the turret opened very early on the following day.

"Oh! good God," he thought, "here's my father! What an unpleasant scene!"

At the same time a woman dressed like a peasant rushed into his arms. He had difficulty in recognising her. It was mademoiselle de la Mole.

"You wicked man! Your letter only told me where you were. As for what you call your crime, but which is really nothing more or less than a noble vengeance, which shews me all the loftiness of the heart which beats within your bosom, I only got to know of it at Verrières."

In spite of all his prejudices against mademoiselle de la Mole, prejudices moreover which he had not owned to himself quite frankly, Julien found her extremely pretty. It was impossible not to recognise both in what she had done and what she had said, a noble disinterested feeling far above the level of anything that a petty vulgar soul would have dared to do? He thought that he still loved a queen, and after a few moments said to her with a remarkable nobility both of thought and of elocution,

"I sketched out the future very clearly. After my death I intended to remarry you to M. de Croisenois, who will officially of course then marry a widow. The noble but slightly romantic soul of this charming widow, who will have been brought back to the cult of vulgar prudence by an astonishing and singular event which played in her life a part as great as it was tragic, will deign to appreciate the very real merit of the young marquis. You will resign yourself to be happy with ordinary worldly happiness, prestige, riches, high rank. But, dear Mathilde, if your arrival at Besançon is suspected, it will be a mortal blow for M. de la Mole, and that is what I shall never forgive myself. I have already caused him so much sorrow. The academician will say that he has nursed a serpent in his bosom.