When he was deep asleep an hour afterwards, he was woken up by feeling
tears flow over his hand. "Oh, it is Mathilde again," he thought, only
half awake. "She has come again, faithful to her tactics of attacking
my resolution by her sentimentalism." Bored by the prospect of this
new scene of hackneyed pathos he did not open his eyes. The verses of
Belphgor, as he ran away from his wife, came into his mind. He heard a
strange sigh. He opened his eyes. It was madame de Rênal.
"Ah, so I see you again before I die, or is it an illusion," he
exclaimed as he threw himself at her feet.
"But, forgive me, madame, you must look upon me as a mere murderer," he
said, immediately, as he recovered himself.
"Monsieur, I have come to entreat you to appeal; I know you do not want
to...." her sobs choked her; she was unable to speak.
"Deign to forgive me."
"If you want me to forgive you," she said to him, getting up and
throwing herself into his arms, "appeal immediately against your death
sentence."
Julien covered her with kisses.
"Will you come and see me every day during those two months?"
"I swear it--every day, unless my husband forbids me."
"I will sign it," exclaimed Julien.
"What! you really forgive me! Is it possible?"
He clasped her in his arms; he was mad. She gave a little cry.
"It is nothing," she said to him. "You hurt me."
"Your shoulder," exclaimed Julien, bursting into tears. He drew back
a little, and covered her hands with kisses of fire. "Who could
have prophesied this, dear, the last time I saw you in your room at
Verrières?"
"Who could have prophesied then that I should write that infamous
letter to M. de la Mole?"
"Know that I have always loved you, and that I have never loved anyone
but you."
"Is it possible?" cried Madame de Rênal, who was delighted in her turn.
She leant on Julien, who was on his knees, and they cried silently for
a long time.
Julien had never experienced moments like this at any period of his
whole life.
"And how about that young madame Michelet?" said Madame de Rênal, a
long time afterwards when they were able to speak. "Or rather, that
mademoiselle de la Mole? for I am really beginning to believe in that
strange romance."
"It is only superficially true," answered Julien. "She is my wife, but
she is not my mistress."
After interrupting each other a hundred times over, they managed with
great difficulty to explain to each other what they did not know. The
letter written to M. de la Mole had been drafted by the young priest
who directed Madame de Rênal's conscience, and had been subsequently
copied by her, "What a horrible thing religion has made me do," she
said to him, "and even so I softened the most awful passages in the
letter."
Julien's ecstatic happiness proved the fulness of her forgiveness. He
had never been so mad with love.
"And yet I regard myself as devout," madame de Rênal went on to say to
him in the ensuing conversation. "I believe sincerely in God! I equally
believe, and I even have full proof of it, that the crime which I am
committing is an awful one, and yet the very minute I see you, even
after you have fired two pistol shots at me--" and at this point, in
spite of her resistance, Julien covered her with kisses.
"Leave me alone," she continued, "I want to argue with you, I am
frightened lest I should forget.... The very minute I see you all my
duties disappear. I have nothing but love for you, dear, or rather, the
word love is too weak. I feel for you what I ought only to feel for
God; a mixture of respect, love, obedience.... As a matter of fact, I
don't know what you inspire me with.... If you were to tell me to stab
the gaoler with a knife, the crime would be committed before I had
given it a thought. Explain this very clearly to me before I leave you.
I want to see down to the bottom of my heart; for we shall take leave
of each other in two months.... By the bye, shall we take leave of each
other?" she said to him with a smile.
"I take back my words," exclaimed Julien, getting up, "I shall not
appeal from my death sentence, if you try, either by poison, knife,
pistol, charcoal, or any other means whatsoever, to put an end to your
life, or make any attempt upon it."
Madame de Rênal's expression suddenly changed. The most lively
tenderness was succeeded by a mood of deep meditation.
"Supposing we were to die at once," she said to him.
"Who knows what one will find in the other life," answered Julien,
"perhaps torment, perhaps nothing at all. Cannot we pass two delicious
months together? Two months means a good many days. I shall never have
been so happy."
"You will never have been so happy?"
"Never," repeated Julien ecstatically, "and I am talking to you just as
I should talk to myself. May God save me from exaggerating."
"Words like that are a command," she said with a timid melancholy smile.
"Well, you will swear by the love you have for me, to make no attempt
either direct or indirect, upon your life ... remember," he added,
"that you must live for my son, whom Mathilde will hand over to lackeys
as soon as she is marquise de Croisenois."
"I swear," she answered coldly, "but I want to take away your notice
of appeal, drawn and signed by yourself. I will go myself to M. the
procureur-general."
"Be careful, you will compromise yourself."
"After having taken the step of coming to see you in your prison, I
shall be a heroine of local scandal for Besançon, and the whole of
Franche-Comté," she said very dejectedly. "I have crossed the bounds of
austere modesty.... I am a woman who has lost her honour; it is true
that it is for your sake...."
Her tone was so sad that Julien embraced her with a happiness which was
quite novel to him. It was no longer the intoxication of love, it was
extreme gratitude. He had just realised for the first time the full
extent of the sacrifice which she had made for him.
Some charitable soul, no doubt informed M. de Rênal of the long visits
which his wife paid to Julien's prison; for at the end of three days
he sent her his carriage with the express order to return to Verrières
immediately.
This cruel separation had been a bad beginning for Julien's day. He
was informed two or three hours later that a certain intriguing priest
(who had, however, never managed to make any headway among the Jesuits
of Besançon) had, since the morning, established himself in the street
outside the prison gates. It was raining a great deal, and the man out
there was pretending to play the martyr. Julien was in a weak mood, and
this piece of stupidity annoyed him deeply.
In the morning, he had already refused this priest's visit, but the man
had taken it into his head to confess Julien, and to win a name for
himself among the young women of Besançon by all the confidences which
he would pretend to have received from him.
He declared in a loud voice that he would pass the day and the night by
the prison gates. "God has sent me to touch the heart of this apostate
..." and the lower classes, who are always curious to see a scene,
began to make a crowd.
"Yes, my brothers," he said to them, "I will pass the day here and the
night, as well as all the days and all the nights which will follow.
The Holy Ghost has spoken to me. I am commissioned from above; I am the
man who must save the soul of young Sorel. Do you join in my prayers,
etc."
Julien had a horror of scandal, and of anything which could attract
attention to him. He thought of seizing the opportunity of escaping
from the world incognito; but he had some hope of seeing madame de
Rênal again, and he was desperately in love.
The prison gates were situated in one of the most populous streets. His
soul was tortured by the idea of this filthy priest attracting a crowd
and creating a scandal--"and doubtless he is repeating my name at every
single minute!" This moment was more painful than death.
He called the turnkey who was devoted to him, and sent sent him two or
three times at intervals of one hour to see if the priest was still by
the prison gates.
"Monsieur," said the turnkey to him on each occasion, "he is on both
his knees in the mud; he is praying at the top of his voice, and saying
litanies for your soul.
"The impudent fellow," thought Julien. At this moment he actually heard
a dull buzz. It was the responses of the people to the litanies. His
patience was strained to the utmost when he saw the turnkey himself
move his lips while he repeated the Latin words.
"They are beginning to say," added the turnkey, "that you must have a
very hardened heart to refuse the help of this holy man."
"Oh my country, how barbarous you still are!" exclaimed Julien, beside
himself with anger. And he continued his train of thought aloud,
without giving a thought to the turn-key's presence.
"The man wants an article in the paper about him, and that's a way in
which he will certainly get it.
"Oh you cursed provincials! At Paris I should not be subjected to all
these annoyances. There they are more skilled in their charlatanism.
"Show in the holy priest," he said at last to the turnkey, and great
streams of sweat flowed down his forehead. The turnkey made the sign of
the cross and went out rejoicing.
The holy priest turned out to be very ugly, he was even dirtier than he
was ugly. The cold rain intensified the obscurity and dampness of the
cell. The priest wanted to embrace Julien, and began to wax pathetic as
he spoke to him. The basest hypocrisy was only too palpable; Julien had
never been so angry in his whole life.
A quarter of an hour after the priest had come in Julien felt an
absolute coward. Death appeared horrible to him for the first time. He
began to think about the state of decomposition which his body would be
in two days after the execution, etc., etc.
He was on the point of betraying himself by some sign of weakness or
throwing himself on the priest and strangling him with his chain, when
it occurred to him to beg the holy man to go and say a good forty franc
mass for him on that very day.
It was twelve o'clock, so the priest took himself off.