3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ really say a few firm words to him about his contract to supply the foundlings.’

      A moment later, Julien again stood before him.

      ‘I have a matter of conscience to discuss with M. Chelan. I have the honour to inform you that I shall be absent for some hours.’

      ‘Ah, my dear Julien,’ said M. de Renal, laughing in the most insincere manner, ‘the whole day, if you wish, the whole of tomorrow, my worthy friend. Take the gardener’s horse to go to Verrieres.’

      ‘There,’ M. de Renal said to himself, ‘he’s going with an answer to Valenod; he’s given me no promise, but we must let the young hothead cool down.’

      Julien made a speedy escape and climbed up among the big woods through which one can go from Vergy to Verrieres. He was in no hurry to reach M. Chelan’s. So far from desiring to involve himself in a fresh display of hypocrisy, he needed time to see clearly into his own heart, and to give audience to the swarm of conflicting feelings that disturbed it.

      ‘I have won a battle,’ he said to himself as soon as he found himself in the shelter of the woods and out of sight of anyone, ‘I have really won a battle!’

      The last word painted his whole position for him in glowing colours, and restored some degree of tranquillity to his heart.

      ‘Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month; M. de Renal must be in a fine fright. But of what?’

      His meditation as to what could have frightened the prosperous and powerful man against whom, an hour earlier, he had been seething with rage completely restored Julien’s serenity. He was almost conscious, for a moment, of the exquisite beauty of the woods through which he was walking. Enormous fragments of bare rock had in times past fallen into the heart of the forest from the side of the mountain. Tall beeches rose almost as high as these rocks whose shadow provided a delicious coolness within a few yards of places where the heat of the sun’s rays would have made it impossible to stop.

      Julien paused for a breathing-space in the shadow of these great rocks, then went on climbing. Presently, by following a narrow path, barely visible and used only by goatherds, he found himself standing upon an immense rock, where he could be certain of his complete isolation from his fellow-men. This natural position made him smile, it suggested to him the position to which he was burning to attain in the moral sphere. The pure air of these lofty mountains breathed serenity and even joy into his soul. The Mayor of Verrieres might still, in his eyes, be typical of all the rich and insolent denizens of the earth, but Julien felt that the hatred which had convulsed him that afternoon contained, notwithstanding its violence, no element of personal ill-feeling. Should he cease to see M. de Renal, within a week he would have forgotten him, the man himself, his house, his dogs, his children and all that was his. ‘I have forced him, I do not know how, to make the greatest of sacrifices. What, more than fifty crowns a year? A moment earlier I had just escaped from the greatest danger. That makes two victories in one day; the second contains no merit, I must try to discover the reason. But we can leave such arduous research for tomorrow.’

      Julien, erect upon his mighty rock, gazed at the sky, kindled to flame by an August sun. The grasshoppers were chirping in the patch of meadow beneath the rock; when they ceased everything around him was silence. Twenty leagues of country lay at his feet. From time to time a hawk, risen from the bare cliffs above his head, caught his eye as it wheeled silently in its vast circles. Julien’s eye followed mechanically the bird of prey. Its calm, powerful motion impressed him, he envied such strength, he envied such isolation.

      It was the destiny of Napoleon, was it one day to be his own?

      Chapter 11

      NIGHT THOUGHTS

      ––––––––

      Yet Julia’s very coldness still was kind,

      And tremulously gentle her small hand

      Withdrew itself from his, but left behind

      A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland

      And slight, so very slight, that to the mind

      Twas but a doubt.

      Don Juan, I. 71

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      HE MUST, HOWEVER, LET himself be seen at Verrieres. As he left the Presbytery the first person he met was, by a happy chance, M. Valenod, whom he hastened to inform of the increase in his salary.

      On his return to Vergy, Julien did not go down to the garden until night had set in. His heart was worn out by the multitude of powerful emotions that had assailed it in the course of the day. ‘What shall I say to them?’ he asked himself anxiously, thinking of the ladies. It never occurred to him that his spirits were precisely at the level of the trivial happenings that as a rule occupy the whole interest of women. Often Julien was unintelligible to Madame Derville, and even to her friend, while he in turn only half understood all that they were saying to him. Such was the effect of the force, and, if I may use the word, of the magnitude of the waves of passion on which the heart of this ambitious youth was being tossed. In this strange creature almost every day was one of storm.

      When he went into the garden that evening, Julien was ready to listen with interest to the thoughts of the fair cousins. They awaited his coming with impatience. He took his accustomed seat, by Madame de Renal’s side. The darkness soon became intense. He attempted to clasp a white hand which for some time he had seen close beside him, resting on the back of a chair. There was some hesitation shown, but finally the hand was withdrawn from him in a manner which betokened displeasure. Julien was prepared to regard this as final, and to continue the conversation in a light tone, when he heard M. de Renal approach.

      The rude words of the morning still rang in Julien’s ears. ‘Would it not,’ he said to himself, ‘be a good way of scoring off this creature, so lavishly endowed with every material advantage, to take possession of his wife’s hand under his very eyes? Yes, I will do it, I, for whom he has shown such contempt.’

      >From that moment peace of mind, so ill assorted to Julien’s character, speedily vanished; he desired most anxiously, and without being able to fix his mind on anything else, that Madame de Renal might consent to let him hold her hand.

      M. de Renal talked politics in an angry tone: two or three manufacturers at Verrieres were becoming decidedly richer than himself, and wished to oppose him at the elections. Madame Derville listened to him. Julien, irritated by this talk, moved his chair nearer to Madame de Renal’s. The darkness hid every movement. He ventured to place his hand close to the pretty arm which her gown left bare. Troubled, no longer conscious of what he was doing, he moved his cheek in the direction of this pretty arm, and made bold to press his lips to it.

      Madame de Renal shuddered. Her husband was a few feet away, she hastened to give Julien her hand, at the same time thrusting him slightly from her. While M. de Renal continued his abuse of the good-for-nothings and Jacobins who were making fortunes, Julien covered the hand which had been left in his with passionate kisses, or so at least they seemed to Madame de Renal. And yet the poor woman had been furnished with proof, on this fatal day, that the heart of the man whom СКАЧАТЬ