Leo Tolstoy - 3 books to know Napoleonic Wars

‘Do you then wish me,’ he asked her, ‘to retain no memory of having seen you? The love that is doubtless glowing in those charming eyes, shall it then be lost to me? Shall the whiteness of that lovely hand be invisible to me? Think that I am leaving you for a very long time perhaps!’

Madame de Renal could refuse nothing in the face of this idea which made her dissolve in tears. Dawn was beginning to paint in clear hues the outline of the fir trees on the mountain to the least of Verrieres. Instead of going away, Julien, intoxicated with pleasure, asked Madame de Renal to let him spend the whole day hidden in her room, and not to leave until the following night.

‘And why not?’ was her answer. ‘This fatal relapse destroys all my self-esteem, and dooms me to lifelong misery,’ and she pressed him to her heart. ‘My husband is no longer the same, he has suspicions; he believes that I have been fooling him throughout this affair, and is in the worst of tempers with me. If he hears the least sound I am lost, he will drive me from the house like the wretch that I am.’

‘Ah! There I can hear the voice of M. Chelan,’ said Julien; you would not have spoken to me like that before my cruel departure for the Seminary; you loved me then!’

Julien was rewarded for the coolness with which he had uttered this speech; he saw his mistress at once forget the danger in which the proximity of her husband involved her, to think of the far greater danger of seeing Julien doubtful of her love for him. The daylight was rapidly increasing and now flooded the room; Julien recovered all the exquisite sensations of pride when he was once more able to see in his arms and almost at his feet this charming woman, the only woman that he had ever loved, who, a few hours earlier, had been entirely wrapped up in the fear of a terrible God and in devotion to duty. Resolutions fortified by a year of constancy had not been able to hold out against his boldness.

Presently they heard a sound in the house; a consideration to which she had not given a thought now disturbed Madame de Renal.

‘That wicked Elisa will be coming into the room, what are we to do with that enormous ladder?’ she said to her lover; ‘where are we to hide it? I am going to take it up to the loft,’ she suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of playfulness.

‘But you will have to go through the servant’s room,’ said Julien with astonishment.

‘I shall leave the ladder in the corridor, call the man and send him on an errand.’

‘Remember to have some excuse ready in case the man notices the ladder when he passes it in the passage.’

‘Yes, my angel,’ said Madame de Renal as she gave him a kiss. ‘And you, remember to hide yourself quickly under the bed if Elisa comes into the room while I am away.’

Julien was amazed at this sudden gaiety. ‘And so,’ he thought, ‘the approach of physical danger, so far from disturbing her, restores her gaiety because she forgets her remorse! Indeed a superior woman! Ah! There is a heart in which it is glorious to reign!’ Julien was in ecstasies.

Madame de Renal took the ladder; plainly it was too heavy for her. Julien went to her assistance; he was admiring that elegant figure, which suggested anything rather than strength, when suddenly, without help, she grasped the ladder and picked it up as she might have picked up a chair. She carried it swiftly to the corridor on the third storey, where she laid it down by the wall. She called the manservant, and, to give him time to put on his clothes, went up to the dovecote. Five minutes later, when she returned to the corridor, the ladder was no more to be seen. What had become of it? Had Julien been out of the house, the danger would have been nothing. But, at that moment, if her husband saw the ladder! The consequences might be appalling. Madame de Renal ran up and down the house. At last she discovered the ladder under the roof, where the man had taken it and in fact hidden it himself. This in itself was strange, and at another time would have alarmed her.

‘What does it matter to me,’ she thought, ‘what may happen in twenty-four hours from now, when Julien will have gone? Will not everything then be to me horror and remorse?’

She had a sort of vague idea that she ought to take her life, but what did that matter? After a parting which she had supposed to be for ever, he was restored to her, she saw him again, and what he had done in making his way to her gave proof of such a wealth of love!

In telling Julien of the incident of the ladder:

‘What shall I say to my husband,’ she asked him, ‘if the man tells him how he found the ladder?’ She meditated for a moment. ‘It will take them twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it to you’; and flinging herself into Julien’s arms and clasping him in a convulsive embrace: ‘Ah! to die, to die like this!’ she cried as she covered him with kisses; ‘but I must not let you die of hunger,’ she added with a laugh.

‘Come; first of all, I am going to hide you in Madame Derville’s room, which is always kept locked.’ She kept watch at the end of the corridor and Julien slipped from door to door. ‘Remember not to answer, if anyone knocks,’ she reminded him as she turned the key outside; ‘anyhow, it would only be the children playing.’

‘Make them go into the garden, below the window,’ said Julien, ‘so that I may have the pleasure of seeing them, make them speak.’

‘Yes, yes,’ cried Madame de Renal as she left him.

She returned presently with oranges, biscuits, a bottle of Malaga; she had found it impossible to purloin any bread.

‘What is your husband doing?’ said Julien.

‘He is writing down notes of the deals he proposes to do with some peasants.’

But eight o’clock had struck, the house was full of noise. If Madame de Renal were not to be seen, people would begin searching everywhere for her; she was obliged to leave him. Presently she returned, in defiance of all the rules of prudence, to bring him a cup of coffee; she was afraid of his dying of hunger. After luncheon she managed to shepherd the children underneath the window of Madame Derville’s room. He found that they had grown considerably, but they had acquired a common air, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de Renal spoke to them of Julien. The eldest replied with affection and regret for his former tutor, but it appeared that the two younger had almost forgotten him.

M. de Renal did not leave the house that morning; he was incessantly going up and downstairs, engaged in striking bargains with certain peasants, to whom he was selling his potato crop. Until dinner time, Madame de Renal had not a moment to spare for her prisoner. When dinner was on the table, it occurred to her to steal a plateful of hot soup for him. As she silently approached the door of the room in which he was, carrying the plate carefully, she found herself face to face with the servant who had hidden the ladder that morning. At that moment, he too was coming silently along the corridor, as though listening. Probably Julien had forgotten to tread softly. The servant made off in some confusion. Madame de Renal went boldly into Julien’s room; her account of the incident made him shudder.

‘You are afraid’; she said to him; ‘and I, I would brave all the dangers in the world without a tremor. I fear one thing only, that is the moment when I shall be left alone after you have gone,’ and she ran from the room.

‘Ah!’ thought Julien, greatly excited, ‘remorse is the only danger that sublime soul dreads!’

Night came at last. M. de Renal went to the Casino.

His wife had announced a severe headache, she retired to her room, made haste to dismiss Elisa, and speedily rose from her bed to open the door to Julien.