3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ soon in one way or another, the present holder being seriously ill, and besides voting the wrong way at the elections; etc.

      DE CHOLIN

      On the margin of this petition was an endorsement signed de Moirod, which began with the words:

      ‘I had the honour yesterday to mention the respectable person who makes this request,’ and so forth.

      ‘And so even that imbecile Cholin shows me the way that I must follow,’ Julien said to himself.

      A week after the visit of the King of —— to Verrieres, the chief thing to emerge from the innumerable falsehoods, foolish interpretations, absurd discussions, etc., etc., to which the King, the Bishop of Agde, the Marquis de La Mole, the ten thousand bottles of wine, the unseated Moirod (who, in the hope of a Cross, did not set foot outside his own door for a whole month after his fall) were in turn subjected, was the utter indelicacy of having jockeyed into the Guard of Honour, Julien Sorel, the son of a carpenter. You ought to have heard, on this topic, the wealthy calico printers, who, morning, noon and night, used to talk themselves hoarse in preaching equality. That proud woman, Madame de Renal, was the author of this abomination. Her reason? The flashing eyes and pink cheeks of that young abbe Sorel were reason enough and to spare.

      Shortly after their return to Vergy, Stanislas Xavier, the youngest of the children, took fever; at once Madame de Renal was seized by the most fearful remorse. For the first time she blamed herself for falling in love in a coherent fashion. She seemed to understand, as though by a miracle, the appalling sin into which she had let herself be drawn. Although deeply religious by nature, until this moment she had never thought of the magnitude of her crime in the eyes of God.

      Long ago, at the convent of the Sacred Heart, she had loved God with a passionate love; she feared Him in the same way in this predicament. The struggles that rent her heart asunder were all the more terrible in that there was nothing reasonable in her fear. Julien discovered that any recourse to argument irritated instead of calming her; she saw in it the language of hell. However, as Julien himself was greatly attached to little Stanislas, he was more welcome to speak to her of the child’s illness: presently it assumed a grave character. Then her incessant remorse deprived Madame de Renal even of the power to sleep; she never emerged from a grim silence: had she opened her mouth, it would have been to confess her crime to God and before men.

      ‘I beg of you,’ Julien said to her, as soon as they were alone, ‘say nothing to anyone; let me be the sole confidant of your griefs. If you still love me, do not speak! your words cannot cure our Stanislas of his fever.’

      But his attempts at consolation produced no effect; he did not know that Madame de Renal had taken it into her head that, to appease the anger of a jealous God, she must either hate Julien or see her son die. It was because she felt that she could not hate her lover that she was so unhappy.

      ‘Avoid my presence,’ she said to Julien one day; ‘in the name of God, leave this house: it is your presence here that is killing my son.

      ‘God is punishing me,’ she added in a whisper; ‘He is just; I adore His equity; my crime is shocking, and I was living without remorse! It was the first sign of departure from God: I ought to be doubly punished.’

      Julien was deeply touched. He was unable to see in this attitude either hypocrisy or exaggeration. ‘She believes that she is killing her son by loving me, and yet the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. That, how can I doubt it, is the remorse that is killing her; there is true nobility of feeling. But how can I have inspired such love, I, so poor, so ill-bred, so ignorant, often so rude in my manners?’

      One night the child’s condition was critical. About two o’clock in the morning, M. de Renal came to see him. The boy, burning with fever, was extremely flushed and did not recognise his father. Suddenly Madame de Renal threw herself at her husband’s feet: Julien saw that she was going to reveal everything and to ruin herself for ever.

      Fortunately, this strange exhibition annoyed M. de Renal.

      ‘Good night! Good night!’ he said and prepared to leave the room.

      ‘No, listen to me,’ cried his wife on her knees before him, seeking to hold him back. ‘Learn the whole truth. It is I that am killing my son. I gave him his life, and I am taking it from him. Heaven is punishing me; in the eyes of God, I am guilty of murder. I must destroy and humble myself; it may be that such a sacrifice will appease the Lord.’

      If M. de Renal had been a man of imagination, he would have guessed everything.

      ‘Romantic stuff,’ he exclaimed, thrusting away his wife who sought to embrace his knees. ‘Romantic stuff, all that! Julien, tell them to fetch the doctor at daybreak.’

      And he went back to bed. Madame de Renal sank on her knees, half unconscious, with a convulsive movement thrusting away Julien, who was coming to her assistance.

      Julien stood watching her with amazement.

      ‘So this is adultery!’ he said to himself . . . ‘Can it be possible that those rascally priests are right after all? That they, who commit so many sins, have the privilege of knowing the true theory of sin? How very odd!’

      For twenty minutes since M. de Renal had left the room, Julien had seen the woman he loved, her head sunk on the child’s little bed, motionless and almost unconscious. ‘Here we have a woman of superior intelligence reduced to the last extremes of misery, because she has known me,’ he said to himself.

      The hours passed rapidly. ‘What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I have ceased to count here. What do I care for men, and their silly affectations? What can I do for her? . . . Go from her? But I shall be leaving her alone, torn by the most frightful grief. That automaton of a husband does her more harm than good. He will say something offensive to her, in his natural coarseness; she may go mad, throw herself from the window.

      ‘If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will tell him everything. And then, for all one knows, in spite of the fortune he is to inherit through her, he will make a scandal. She may tell everything, great God, to that — abbe Maslon, who makes the illness of a child of six an excuse for never stirring out of this house, and not without purpose. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all that she knows of the man; she sees only the priest.’

      ‘Leave me,’ came suddenly from Madame de Renal as she opened her eyes.

      ‘I would give my life a thousand times to know how I can be of most use to you,’ replied Julien; ‘never have I so loved you, my dear angel, or rather, from this instant only, I begin to adore you as you deserve to be adored. What is to become of me apart from you, and with the knowledge that you are wretched by my fault! But I must not speak of my own sufferings. I shall go, yes, my love. But, if I leave you, if I cease to watch over you, to be constantly interposing myself between you and your husband, you will tell him everything, you will be ruined. Think of the ignominy with which he will drive you from the house; all Verrieres, all Besancon will ring with the scandal. All the blame will be cast on you; you will never be able to lift up your head again.’

      ‘That is all that I ask,’ she cried, rising to her feet. ‘I shall suffer, all the better.’

      ‘But, by this appalling scandal, you will be harming him as well!’

      ‘But I humble myself, I throw myself down in the mud; and in that way perhaps I save my son. This humiliation, in the sight of all, is perhaps a public penance. So far as my frailty can СКАЧАТЬ