Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘Is it you that he loves?’ she cried in her frenzy.

The maid, amazed at the fearful distress in which she found her mistress, paid no attention fortunately to this singular utterance. Madame de Renal realised her own imprudence: ‘I am feverish,’ she told her, ‘and I think, a little light-headed; stay beside me.’

Thoroughly awakened by the necessity of controlling herself, she felt less wretched; reason resumed the sway of which her state of drowsiness had deprived it. To escape from the fixed stare of her maid, she ordered her to read the newspaper aloud, and it was to the monotonous sound of the girl’s voice, reading a long article from the Quotidienne, that Madame de Renal formed the virtuous resolution to treat Julien with absolute coldness when next she saw him.

A JOURNEY

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In Paris you find elegant people, there may be people with character in the provinces.

SIEYES

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NEXT MORNING, AT FIVE o’clock, before Madame de Renal was visible, Julien had obtained from her husband three days’ leave of absence. Contrary to his expectation, Julien found himself longing to see her again, and could think of nothing but that shapely hand. He went down to the garden, Madame de Renal was long in coming. But if Julien had been in love with her he would have seen her, behind her half-closed shutters on the first floor, her face pressed to the glass. She was watching him. At length, in spite of her resolutions, she decided to show herself in the garden. Her customary pallor had given place to the most glowing colour. This simple-minded woman was evidently agitated: a feeling of constraint and even of resentment marred that expression of profound serenity, as though raised above all the common interests of life, which gave such charm to that heavenly face.

Julien lost no time in joining her; he admired those fine arms which a shawl flung in haste across her shoulders left visible. The coolness of the morning air seemed to increase the brilliance of a complexion which the agitation of the past night made all the more sensible to every impression. This beauty, modest and touching, and yet full of thoughts which are nowhere to be found among the lower orders, seemed to reveal to Julien an aspect of her nature of which he had never yet been aware. Wholly absorbed in admiration of the charms which his greedy eye surprised, Julien was not thinking of the friendly greeting which he might expect to receive. He was all the more astonished by the icy coldness that was shown him, beneath which he even thought he could make out a deliberate intention to put him in his place.

The smile of pleasure faded from his lips; he remembered the rank that he occupied in society, especially in the eyes of a noble and wealthy heiress. In a moment, his features showed nothing but pride and anger with himself. He felt a violent disgust at having been so foolish as to postpone his departure by more than an hour, only to receive so humiliating a greeting.

‘Only a fool,’ he told himself, ‘loses his temper with other people: a stone falls because it is heavy. Am I always to remain a boy? When am I going to form the good habit of giving these people their exact money’s worth and no more of my heart and soul? If I wish to be esteemed by them and by myself, I must show them that it is my poverty that deals with their wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues away from their insolence, and is placed in too exalted a sphere to be reached by their petty marks of contempt or favour.’

While these sentiments came crowding into the young tutor’s mind, his features assumed an expression of injured pride and ferocity. Madame de Renal was greatly distressed by this. The virtuous coldness which she had meant to impart to her greeting gave way to an expression of interest, and of an interest animated by the surprise of the sudden change which she had just beheld in him. The flow of idle words that people exchange in the morning with regard to one another’s health, to the beauty of the day, and so forth, dried up at once in them both. Julien, whose judgment was not disturbed by any passion, soon found a way of letting Madame de Renal see how little he regarded himself as being on terms of friendship with her; he said nothing to her of the little expedition on which he was starting, bowed to her, and set off.

As she watched him go, overwhelmed by the sombre pride which she read in that glance, so friendly the evening before, her eldest son, who came running up from the other end of the garden, said to her as he embraced her:

‘We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey.’

At these words Madame de Renal felt herself frozen by a deadly chill; she was unhappy in her virtue, and more unhappy still in her weakness.

This latest development now occupied the whole of her imagination; she was carried far beyond the wise resolutions which were the fruit of the terrible night she had passed. It was a question no longer of resisting this charming lover, but of losing him for ever.

She was obliged to take her place at table. To add to her misery, M. de Renal and Madame Derville spoke of nothing but Julien’s departure. The Mayor of Verrieres had remarked something, unusual in the firm tone with which he had demanded a holiday.

‘The young peasant has doubtless an offer from someone in his pocket. But that someone, even if it should be M. Valenod, must be a little discouraged by the sum of 600 francs, which he must now be prepared to spend annually. Yesterday, at Verrieres, he will have asked for three days in which to think things over; and this morning, so as not to be obliged to give me an answer, the young gentleman goes off to the mountains. To have to reckon with a wretched workman who puts on airs, that’s what we’ve come to!’

‘Since my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien, thinks he is going to leave us, what am I to suppose?’ Madame de Renal asked herself. ‘Ah! It is all settled!’

So as to be able at least to weep in freedom, and without having to answer Madame Derville’s questions, she pleaded a splitting headache, and retired to bed.

‘There you have a woman all over,’ M. de Renal repeated; ‘there’s always something wrong with those complicated machines.’ And he went on his way jeering.

While Madame de Renal was at the mercy of the most cruel inflictions of the terrible passion into which accident had led her, Julien was making his way light-heartedly amid the loveliest views that mountain scenery has to offer. He was obliged to pass over the high range to the north of Vergy. The path which he followed, rising gradually amid great beechwoods, forms an endless series of zigzags on the side of the high mountain which bounds the valley of the Doubs on the north. Presently the traveller’s gaze, passing over the lower ridges which confine the course of the Doubs on the south, was able to sweep the fertile plains of Burgundy and Beaujolais. Irresponsive as the heart of this ambitious youth might be to this kind of beauty, he could not refrain from stopping now and again to gaze at so vast and so imposing a prospect.

At length he came to the summit of the high mountain, beneath which he must pass in order to arrive, by this diagonal route, at the lonely valley in which his friend Fouque, the young timber merchant, lived. Julien was in no hurry to see him, or any other human being for that matter. Concealed like a bird of prey, amid the bare rocks which crowned the high mountain, he could see a long way off anyone that might be coming his way. He discovered a small cave in the almost perpendicular face of one of the rocks. He set his course for it, and presently was ensconced in this retreat. ‘Here,’ he said, his eyes sparkling with joy, ‘men can do me no harm.’ It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure of writing down his thoughts, so dangerous to him in any other place. A smooth block of stone served as his table. His pen flew: he saw nothing of the scene round about him. At length he noticed that the sun was setting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.