2 In Paris, the best apartments were located on the first floor—one flight above ground level—and the fifth floor was the proverbial garret. Monsieur de La Mole's protégés, appropriately, move to the second floor, not quite the best.
"To this point, all this young man knows is Latin and the Holy Scriptures, but it is not impossible that, some day, he'll show very large abilities as a preacher or perhaps as a spiritual guide. I don't know what he'll do, but he has a sacred passion; he's capable of going far. I had planned to assign him to our bishop—if one ever came to us who had even a little of your way of viewing men and their affairs." "Where does your young man come from?" asked the marquis. "He's said to be the son of a carpenter, from our mountains, but I'd sooner believe him the illegitimate son of some wealthy man. I saw him receive an anonymous, or perhaps a pseudonymous, letter, containing a bill for five hundred francs." "Ah! That's Julien Sorel," said the marquis. "How do you know his name?" said the astonished priest, and then he blushed at his question. "I'm not prepared to tell you that," answered the marquis. "In any case," the priest went on, "you might try him as your secretary. He has energy, and he has a mind. In a word, it's an experiment worth attempting." "Why not?" said the marquis. "But would he be the sort who'd let the chief of police, or someone else, grease his paws for spying on me? That's the only difficulty I see." After positive assurances from Father Pirard, the marquis picked up a thousand-franc note. "Send this to Julien Sorel, as travel money. Let him come to me." "It's very clear," said Father Pirard, "that you're a resident of Paris. You don't understand the tyranny that oppresses us all, we poor provincials, and presses especially on priests who are not allies of the Jesuits. They won't let Julien go; they know how to cover themselves with the cleverest excuses; they'll tell me he's sick, the letters were lost in the post, etc., etc." "Some day soon," said the marquis, "I'll bring the bishop a letter from the minister." "I forgot one warning," said the priest. "Although he's of low birth, the young man has a noble heart. He won't be of any use if his pride is wounded. You'll turn him into an idiot." "I like that," said the marquis. "I'll make him my son's companion. Will that do it?" Sometime afterward, Julien received a letter, written in an unknown hand and bearing a postmark from Châlons. It contained a money order drawn on a merchant in Besançon, and a notice to proceed, without delay, to Paris. The letter was signed with a made-up name, but in opening it Julien had been thrilled: a leaf had fallen at his feet, and this was the sign he'd agreed upon with Father Pirard. Less than an hour later, Julien was summoned to the bishop's palace, where he was greeted with entirely paternal benevolence. Even as he was quoting Horace, His Lordship paid him wonderfully shrewd compliments, on account of the high destiny awaiting him in Paris, which, in return, deserved further explanation. But Julien could not tell him a thing, primarily because he knew nothing about it, and His Lordship was abundantly considerate. One of the minor clerics at the palace wrote to the mayor, who came hurrying over with a passport, signed, but with the name of the traveler left blank. At midnight, Julien was at Fouqué's, whose knowing mind was more astonished than excited by the future apparently awaiting his friend. "You'll end up," said this liberal voter, "with a place in the government, which will compel you to do something for which the newspapers will run you down. That's how I'll hear news about you—by seeing you disgraced. Remember, even financially speaking, it's better to earn four hundred francs in the solid timber business, where you're your own boss, than to get four thousand francs from a government, even were it that of King Solomon."
All Julien saw in this was the petty spirit of a provincial bourgeois. He was finally going to make his appearance in the theater of great events. The happiness of going to Paris—which he imagined peopled by cleverly scheming minds, distinctly hypocritical, but as polished as the Bishop of Besançon, or the Bishop of Agde—overshadowed thoughts of anything else. He explained to his friend that Father Pirard's letter left him no other choice. The next day, about noon, and the happiest of men, he came to Verrières. He was counting on seeing Madame de Rênal once again. But first he went to see his original protector, Father Chélan. He met with a harsh reception. "Do you think you owe me something?" Father Chélan said, not responding to his greeting. "Come to lunch with me, and during that time someone will lend you another horse, and you'll leave Verrières, without seeing anyone else." "To hear is to obey," replied Julien, like a seminarian, and as if all they were discussing were theology and classically correct Latin. He mounted his horse, rode a mile or two, at which point he saw a wood and nobody around to see him ride into it, so in he went. When the sun went down, he sent back the horse. Later, he walked into a peasant's house, where the man agreed to sell him a ladder and follow after him, carrying it, until they reached the little wood overlooking Loyalty Walkway, in Verrières. "I've been walking along behind some poor conscript, who's deserted ...or maybe a smuggler," the peasant said, taking leave of him. "But who cares? I've gotten a good price for my ladder, and in all these years I've had to do some pretty fancy stepping, myself." It was now pitch dark. At about one o'clock in the morning, carrying his ladder, Julien entered Verrières. As quickly as he could, he went down into the old streambed, now enclosed by two walls and crossing Monsieur de Rênal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet. Julien climbed up easily, on his ladder. "How will the guard dogs react to me?" he wondered. "That's the whole question." The dogs barked and started to dash at him, but he whistled softly, and they wagged their tails and licked his hands. Climbing up from terrace to terrace, though all the gates were locked, he quite easily found himself underneath Madame de Rênal's bedroom window; overlooking the garden, it was no more than eight or ten feet above the ground. The shutters had a small, heart-shaped opening, which Julien knew well. He was deeply disappointed: no glow from a night-light shone through this little opening. "Good Lord!" he said to himself. "Madame de Rênal isn't using the room tonight. Where could she be sleeping? The family must be at Verrières, since the dogs were on guard outside, but if I went into the dark room, I might meet up with Monsieur de Rênal himself, or some stranger—and then, what a scandal!" The most prudent thing would be to leave, but to Julien that seemed a horrible choice. "If it's a stranger, I can save myself by running as fast as my legs will carry me, leaving my ladder behind. But if it's her, what sort of reception will I find? She's fallen into deep remorse, and become incredibly pious: that's for sure. Still, her memory of me is still alive: she's just written to me." That argument settled the matter. His heart trembling, but determined to see her or to perish, he threw pebbles at the shutters. There was no response. He leaned his ladder against the wall, alongside the window, and tapped on the shutters, softly at first, but then harder. "No matter how dark it is, they could shoot at me," he thought. That idea reduced the whole wild affair to a question of courage.
"Either there's no one in the room, tonight," he pondered, "or else whoever may be sleeping there is now awake. So I don't need to go on tiptoes anymore. All I have to worry about is not being heard by people sleeping in the other rooms." He climbed down, repositioned the ladder directly against one of the shutters, climbed back up, and put his hand through the heart-shaped opening. He was lucky, and quickly located the wire from which hung a hook: this hook locked the shutter. He pulled on the wire, and felt an inexpressible joy, realizing that the shutter had been released, and could now be opened. "I have to open it gently, a little at a time, and let her recognize my voice." He opened it enough so he could put his head past the shutter, then said, very softly, "It's a friend." He could tell, listening carefully, that the silence remained unbroken. But he could also see that there was indeed no night-light set above the fireplace, not even one turned very low. This was truly a bad sign. "Watch out for gunshots!" He considered matters for a bit, then tapped on the glass pane. There was no response. He tapped harder. "Well, even if I have to break the glass, I need to get this done." When he tapped very forcefully indeed, he thought he glimpsed, in the middle of the intense darkness, something like a white shadow coming across the room. And then he was sure of it: there was a shadow, and it was coming very slowly toward him. Suddenly, he saw a cheek, leaning against the glass he was peering through. He shivered and pulled his head back a little. But so dark was the night that, even at so short a distance, he could not tell if it was Madame de Rênal. He worried about a sudden, alarmed cry: he could hear the dogs circling around the foot of the ladder, growling nervously. "It's me," he repeated, quite loudly, "a friend." There was no response. The white phantom had disappeared. "Please let me in, I have to talk to you, I'm miserable!" And he rapped almost hard enough to crack the glass. He heard a quick, faint sound; the rod was pulled back. He pushed the window open and jumped nimbly into the room. The white phantom withdrew; he grasped its arms; it was a woman. All his brave ideas vanished. "If it's her, what's she going to say?" How did he feel when she gave a faint cry and he realized it was indeed Madame de Rênal? He held her tightly. She trembled, and barely had the strength to push him away. "Wretch! What are you doing?" Her choked voice could scarcely shape the words. Julien could hear her very real indignation. "After fourteen months of bitter separation, I've come to see you." "Go away, leave me immediately! Ah, Father Chélan, why did you stop me from writing to him? I could have prevented this horror." She pushed him again, with extraordinary force. "I repent my sin, heaven has graciously shed its light on me," she repeated, her voice breaking. "Leave! Go away!" "I don't intend to leave without speaking to you, not after fourteen months of misery. I want to know everything you've done. Ah, surely I've loved you deeply enough to deserve that much trust...I want to know everything." In spite of herself, his firm voice still ruled her heart. Julien had been clasping her tightly, not letting her push him away, but now loosened his arms. This somewhat reassured her. "I'll pull up the ladder," he said, "so you won't be compromised, should some servant, wakened by the noise, come to inspect." "Ah, go away, go away instead," she told him, truly angry. "What do other people matter? It's God who sees the ghastly scene you're inflicting on me, and it's He who will punish me.
You're taking cowardly advantage of feelings I once had for you, but which I have no longer. Do you hear me, Monsieur Julien?" He pulled up the ladder, slowly and carefully, making no noise. "Is your husband in town?" he asked, using the intimate form of the word you, not intending to annoy her but falling into old habits. "Don't talk to me like that, for mercy's sake, or I'll summon my husband. I'm already more than guilty, not having chased you away, no matter what. I pity you," she told him, trying to wound the pride she knew was so prickly. These rejections, this sharp way of snapping so tender a tie, one he still counted on, drove Julien almost to the height of passionate delirium. "Ah! You really don't love me anymore? Is that possible?" he said amorously, the sort of talk it was difficult to hear dispassionately. She did not reply, and he, he wept bitter tears. Indeed, he no longer had the strength to say anything. "And so," he thought, "I've been completely forgotten by the only one who's ever loved me! What's the point to living?" All his courage had deserted him, from the moment he no longer had to worry about encountering, in this dark room, not a familiar woman but a man. There was only one thing left in his heart, and that was love. He cried, silently, for a long time. He took her hand; she tried to pull it away, but then, after several very nearly convulsive movements, she left it where it was. The darkness was absolute; they found themselves sitting, side by side, on Madame de Rênal's bed. "How changed from fourteen months ago!" Julien thought, and his tears flowed faster. "So this is how absence inevitably destroys all human feelings!" "Please: tell me what's happened to you," he finally said, embarrassed by his silence, and in a voice broken by tears. "Surely," Madame de Rênal replied, her voice brittle and freighted with dry reproach, "at the time you left here, the whole town knew my erring ways. You behaved so recklessly! Later, when I'd fallen into despair, worthy Father Chélan came to see me. This accomplished nothing because, for a long time, he tried to get me to confess. One day, he thought of bringing me to the church in Dijon, where I'd made my first communion. There, for the first time, he ventured to speak—" Madame de Rênal broke off, weeping. "What a shameful moment! That wonderful man didn't bother to heap his indignation on my head: he grieved with me. Every day I wrote you letters, back then, but I didn't dare send them. I hid them, very carefully, and when I was too miserable to endure it, I locked myself in my room and reread my letters. "In the end, Father Chélan persuaded me to give them all to him.. .. A few, written more sensibly, were sent to you, but you never answered." "I swear to you, I never received any letters from you, when I was in the seminary." "My God, who could have intercepted them?" "Imagine my sorrow before that day I saw you in the cathedral. I didn't know if you were still alive." "God gave me the grace to understand how deeply I sinned against Him, against my children, against my husband," answered Madame de Rênal. "He has never loved me, not the way I used to believe you loved me." Julien fairly threw himself into her arms, not thinking anything, but simply beside himself. Yet Madame de Rênal once again repulsed him, and continued, with considerable determination: "My worthy friend, Father Chélan, has helped me to understand that, in marrying Monsieur de Rênal, I committed to him all my affections, even those I did not know I
possessed, and which, before a fatal liaison, I had never experienced...Since the huge sacrifice of those letters, so terribly dear to me, my life has flowed on, perhaps not happily, but at least more or less calmly. Don't disturb it: be my friend...my best friend. "Now it's your turn: tell me what you've been doing." Julien could not speak. "I want to know what your life in the seminary was like," she repeated, "and after that, you'll go away." Not thinking what he was saying, Julien recounted the endless scheming and jealousy he'd encountered, at the start, then the quieter life he'd lived since having been made an assistant master. "That was when," he added, "after a long silence, surely intended to make me understand what, today, I'm seeing, which is that you no longer love me and that I've become of no concern to you..." Madame de Rênal clasped his hands. "That was when you sent me five hundred francs." "Never," said Madame de Rênal. "It was a letter postmarked in Paris and signed Paul Sorel, to avoid suspicion." A brief discussion arose on the letter's possible origin. The moral positions shifted. Without being aware of it, Madame de Rênal had abandoned her grave approach and returned to their former tenderness. They could not see each other, in the complete blackness. But the sound of their voices said everything. Julien put his arm around his beloved's waist, clearly a risky thing. She tried to remove his arm, but he skillfully began to recount a particularly interesting episode, and she was distracted. His arm was totally forgotten and stayed where it was. After many attempts to guess at the letter's origin, Julien had resumed his account. In speaking of the life he'd been leading, he became more master of himself, for it interested him remarkably little, compared to what was happening at the moment. His sole concern was how this visit was going to end. "You'll go away," she kept saying, from time to time, and rather curtly. "How I'll be shamed, if I'm sent packing! Such a failure would poison my entire life," he told himself. "She'll never write to me. God only knows when I'll come back to this part of the country!" Then and there, whatever admixture of the celestial there had been in Julien's attitude, and in his heart, rapidly disappeared. Sitting next to a woman he adored, virtually holding her in his arms, in this very room where, once, he had been so happy, wrapped in total darkness, very much aware that a brief moment ago she had begun weeping, sensing her sobs from her heaving breast, he became, alas! a cold schemer, almost as calculating and cold as when, in the seminary courtyard, he'd found himself the target of some nasty joke, played by a classmate much stronger than he was. Julien dragged out his story, and spoke of the miserable existence he'd led since leaving Verrières. "So," said Madame de Rênal to herself, "after a year away, almost completely deprived of any sign that he was remembered, and while I was forgetting him, all he thought about were the happy days he experienced at Vergy." Her sobs grew stronger. Julien saw how successful his story had been. He understood that, now, he had to deploy his final resource: he turned, swiftly, to the letter he'd just received from Paris. "I've said my farewell to the bishop." "What? You're not going back to Besançon? You're leaving us for good?" "Yes," Julien answered, his voice firm. "I'm abandoning a place where I've been forgotten even by the one, in all my life, that I've loved the best, and I leave with no intention of ever coming back. I'm going to Paris..."
"You're going to Paris!" she exclaimed, rather loudly. Her voice was almost choked by tears, and clearly showed how deeply she was affected. Julien needed this encouragement. He was about to take a step that might decide everything against him. Before this stifled cry, and being unable to see her, he'd had absolutely no idea what effect he'd produced. He hesitated no longer. Fear of failure gave him supreme control over himself. He rose, and spoke coldly: "Yes, madame, I'm leaving you forever. Be happy. Farewell." He took several steps toward the window; he had it open. Madame de Rênal rushed toward him and threw herself into his arms. Thus, after talking for three hours, Julien obtained what, with so much passion, he'd desired for the first two of those hours. Had it happened a bit sooner, this reversion to tender emotions, this casting off of Madame de Rênal's remorse, would have been divine happiness. Attained as it was, by artful skill, it was merely a pleasure. Julien was determined, despite his beloved's protests, to turn on the night-light. "Do you want me," he said to her, "to have no memory of having seen you? Love, surely delightful to you, will be forever lost to me. For me, the whiteness of this pretty hand will remain invisible? Remember, I'm leaving you for a very long time!" There was no way Madame de Rênal could resist these ideas, which made her dissolve in tears. But dawn began to clearly outline the pine trees on the mountain, east of Verrières. Instead of leaving, Julien, drunk with sensual delight, asked Madame de Rênal to spend the whole day with her, shut in her room, which she would not leave until darkness fell once more. "And why not?" she answered. "This fatal relapse completely destroys my self-respect and makes me forever miserable." She pressed herself against his breast. "My husband has never been the same, he's suspicious; he thinks I've been lying to him through this whole business, and he's clearly angry at me. If he hears the slightest noise, I'm lost: he'll throw me out like the wretch I am." "Ah, you learned those words from Father Chélan," said Julien. "You'd never have spoken to me like that before I was so cruelly sent off to the seminary. You loved me, then." Julien was rewarded for the cool calm with which he'd said these things. He saw his beloved swiftly forget the risks inherent in her husband's presence, becoming aware of the even greater risk that Julien doubted her love. The sun rose rapidly and lit up the room. Julien recovered all the delights of pride, seeing in his arms, and almost at his feet, this charming woman, the only one he'd ever loved and who, just a few hours earlier, had been completely overcome by fear of a terrible God, and by love of her duty to Him. Resolutions strengthened by an entire year of constancy had been unable to withstand his courage. Soon, there were noises heard in the house. One thing which she had not thought of began to worry Madame de Rênal. "That wicked Elisa will come in here. What can we do with this enormous ladder?" she asked her lover. "Where can I hide it? I'll put it up in the attic!" she suddenly cried, with a kind of playfulness. "But you'll have to go through the valet's bedroom," said Julien, astonished. "I'll leave the ladder in the corridor, then I'll call him in here and send him to do something somewhere else." "Think of what you can tell him, in case he notices the ladder as he goes by," he told her. "Yes, my angel," said Madame de Rênal, giving him a kiss. "And you, you think of quickly hiding under the bed, in case Elisa comes in while I'm away."
He was surprised at this sudden gaiety. "So," he thought, "the possibility of serious danger, rather than upsetting her, makes her gay, because she's forgotten all that remorse! What a supreme woman! Ah, ruling a heart like that is truly glorious." Julien was in ecstasies. Madame de Rênal approached the ladder; it was clearly too heavy for her. Julien went to help her. He was admiring her elegant waist, which did not indicate any serious strength, when suddenly, unaided, she picked up the ladder and carried it as she might have lifted a mere chair. She took it quickly down the corridor and laid it along the wall. Then she called for the valet, and in order to give him time to get dressed, went up to the pigeon house. Five minutes later, when she came back along the corridor, the ladder was gone. What had become of it? If Julien had been out of the house, this would hardly have mattered. But, just then, if her husband saw that ladder! That could be disastrous. She ran all over the house. Finally she found the ladder up under the roof, where the valet had carried and even hidden it. This was strange, and at any other time it would have been alarming. "What difference does it make to me," she thought, "what happens twenty-four hours from now, when Julien will be gone? For me, won't everything be horror and remorse?" The vague notion came to her: Should she leave this mortal life? But what did it matter? After a separation she had thought would be eternal, he'd been restored to her; she'd seen him again, and what he'd done to reach her demonstrated such love! As she told Julien about the ladder, she asked him: "What shall I say to my husband, if the valet tells him he found the ladder?" She considered for a moment. "They'll need twenty-four hours to find the peasant who sold it to you." And throwing herself into Julien's arms, hugging him exceedingly tightly: "Oh, to die, to die like this!" she exclaimed, covering him with kisses. Then she laughed: "But there's no need for you to die of hunger," she said. "Come. First I'll hide you in Madame Derville's room, which stays locked all the time." She stood guard at the end of the corridor, and Julien went running down. "Be careful: if anyone knocks, don't open the door," she told him, turning the key. "Anyway, it would just be the children, playing their games." "Take them into the garden, under the window," said Julien, "so I can have the pleasure of seeing them. Get them to talk." "Yes, yes," cried Madame de Rênal, hurrying off. She soon returned with oranges, and biscuits, and a bottle of Malaga wine. It had been impossible for her to steal any bread. "What's your husband doing?" asked Julien. "He's writing up marketing plans with some peasants." But now it was eight o'clock, and the house was very noisy. If they had not seen Madame de Rênal, they'd have been looking everywhere for her; she had no choice but to leave him. Soon she returned, defying all prudence, bringing him a cup of coffee: she shuddered that he might be dying of hunger. After lunch, she managed to lead the children under the window of Madame Derville's room. He saw how big they were, but had they become too much like all the rest? Or had his own ideas changed? Madame de Rênal talked to them about Julien. The oldest responded warmly, and with regrets, but Julien saw that the younger one had very nearly forgotten him. Monsieur de Rênal did not go out that morning. He was constantly going up and down the house, doing business with peasants to whom he was selling his potato crop. Until lunchtime, Madame de Rênal did not have a moment to give her prisoner. Lunch having been announced, and served, she conceived the notion of stealing a bowl of hot soup for him. As she walked noiselessly toward the door of the room he was occupying, carefully carrying a bowl,
she found herself face-to-face with the valet who, that morning, had hidden the ladder. Just then he too was going quietly along the corridor, and as if listening. Julien had probably been walking around, incautiously. The valet went away, a bit embarrassed. Madame de Rênal went boldly in to Julien; hearing what had just taken place, he shuddered. "You're afraid," she told him. "But me, I'd risk all the dangers in the world, and never blink. There's only one thing I'm afraid of, and that's the moment when I'll be alone, and you'll have gone away." She ran off and left him. "Ah," said Julien, swept away. "The only danger this sublime soul fears is remorse." Evening finally came. Monsieur de Rênal went to the casino. His wife had announced herself ill with a frightful migraine. She retired to her room, she hurriedly sent Elisa away, and then she quickly rose to release Julien. He realized that, in truth, he was dying of hunger. Madame de Rênal went down to the pantry, in search of bread. Julien heard a loud scream. Madame de Rênal returned, and told him that, going into the dark pantry and approaching a sideboard where the bread was kept, she put out her hand and touched a woman's arm. It was Elisa whose scream Julien had heard. "What was she doing there?" "Stealing some sweets. Or maybe she was spying on us," Madame de Rênal replied with utter indifference. "But luckily I found a meat pie and a loaf of bread." "And what's in there?" said Julien, pointing to her apron pockets. She'd forgotten that, since lunchtime, they'd been stuffed with bread. Julien took her in his arms with the liveliest passion: she had never seemed so beautiful. "Even in Paris," he told himself, more than a little bewildered, "I'll never find anyone with such a noble heart." She had all the awkwardness of a woman not accustomed to waiting on others, and at the same time the true courage of someone who feared only perils of a very different sort, and very much more terrible. While Julien ate, with a keen appetite, and his beloved was teasing him about the sparseness of his meal—for she had a horror of speaking seriously—suddenly the locked door was shaken back and forth, with great force. It was Monsieur de Rênal. "Why have you locked yourself in?" he shouted at her. Julien barely had time to slip under the sofa. "Hah! You're all dressed," said Monsieur de Rênal as he came in. "You're eating, but you've locked the door!" Such a question, delivered with the abruptness of married conversation, would on any ordinary day have bothered Madame de Rênal. But she knew that all her husband had to do was lower his glance, and he would see Julien, for Monsieur de Rênal had thrown himself into the chair that Julien had left only a moment before, and this chair faced the sofa. She used her headache to explain everything. As her husband recounted, at some length, exactly how he had won the billiards prize at the casino—"worth nineteen francs, by God!" he added—she saw, on a chair three feet away, Julien's hat. Her cool calm soared, she started taking off her clothes, and in a moment, as she walked quickly behind her husband, she dropped her dress across the revelatory chair. Finally, Monsieur de Rênal left. She begged Julien to resume his account of life at the seminary. "I didn't really hear you, yesterday; I kept thinking, while you were talking, how I could make myself send you away." She was rashness itself. Their voices were quite loud, and at about two o'clock that morning they were interrupted by a violent knock at the door. Once more, it was Monsieur de Rênal.
"Open the door right away, there are burglars in the house!" he called. "Saint-Jean found their ladder this morning." "It's the end of everything!" cried Madame de Rênal, throwing her arms around him. "He'll kill us both, he doesn't believe it's burglars. I'll die in your arms, happier when I die than I've ever been in my life." She gave her husband no answer at all; he grew angry. She held Julien in a passionate embrace. "Save Stanislas's mother," he told her, his glance authoritative. "I'm going to jump to the courtyard, through your dressing room window, and I'll run into the garden. The dogs know me. Roll up my clothes as fast as you can and throw them into the garden. Let him break down the door, in the meantime. Above all, admit absolutely nothing—I forbid it. Better for him to have suspicions than certainties." "You'll kill yourself, jumping!" It was the only thing she said, her only concern. She went to the window with him; she carefully hid his clothing. And at last she opened the door for her husband, who was boiling mad. He searched the bedroom, and her dressing room, without a word, and disappeared. She threw down Julien's clothes, he took the bundle and ran quickly toward the lower part of the garden, beside the Doubs. As he ran, he heard a bullet whistle by, and immediately after the sound of a gunshot. "That's not Monsieur de Rênal," he thought. "He's too poor a shot for that." The dogs ran beside him, silently. A second shot apparently hit one of them in the paw; he began to howl piteously. Julien jumped over a terrace wall, stayed under cover for another fifty feet, then turned and ran in a different direction. He heard voices calling back and forth, and he distinctly saw the valet, his enemy, firing a gun. A farmer fired, too, from the other side of the garden. But Julien had already gotten to the bank of the Doubs, where he put on his clothes. An hour later, he was three miles from Verrières, on the road to Geneva. "If they're looking anywhere," he thought, "they'll be hunting for me on the road to Paris."
Part Two She's not pretty, she's not wearing rouge. —Sainte-Beuve1 Chapter One: Country Pleasures Oh country scenes, when shall my eyes behold you! —Virgil [In Fact, By Horace]2 "The gentleman is surely waiting on the coach for Paris?" said the proprietor of an inn, where he'd stopped for lunch. "Today's coach or tomorrow's, it doesn't matter to me," said Julien. As he was pretending indifference, the coach arrived. There were two available seats. "What! It's you, my poor Falcoz," said the traveler who'd arrived from Geneva, speaking to the passenger who got on when Julien did. "I'd thought," said Falcoz, "you'd settled in the Lyons area, in a delightful little valley near the Rhône?" "Very happily settled. I'm running away." "Really! You're running away? You, Saint-Giraud, you who seem so reasonable, so wise— have you committed a crime?" said Falcoz, laughing. "By God, pretty much the same thing. I'm running away from the ghastly life one leads in the provinces. I love the freshness of the woods and the peacefulness of the fields, exactly as you say. You've often accused me of being a romantic. For the whole rest of my life I don't want to hear anything about politics, and yet it's politics that's chasing me away." "But what party do you belong to?" "None, and that's been my ruination. Here's my politics: I love music, painting; a good book is sensational, for me; I'm going on forty-four. How much longer do I have? Fifteen— twenty—thirty years at the most. So! It strikes me that, in thirty years, government ministers will be a little smarter, but just as decent fellows as the ones we have now. English history, I think, is a mirror for looking into our future. There'll always be a king trying to increase his power, and people trying to get into Parliament—and Mirabeau's reputation,3 plus the hundreds of thousands of francs he made, will go on keeping rich provincials from sleeping at night. They'll label themselves liberals, and claim they're on the people's side. There'll always be right-wingers desperately trying to become noblemen, or gentlemen of the king's chambers.