3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

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СКАЧАТЬ . . . Since the great sacrifice of those letters, which were so precious to me, my life has flowed on, if not happily, at any rate quietly enough. Do not disturb it any more; be a friend to me . . . the best of friends.’ Julien covered her hands with kisses; she could feel that he was still crying. ‘Do not cry, you distress me so . . . Tell me, it is your turn now, all that you have been doing.’ Julien was unable to speak. ‘I wish to know what sort of life you led at the Seminary,’ she repeated, ‘then you shall go.’

      Without a thought of what he was telling her, Julien spoke of the endless intrigues and jealousies which he had encountered at first, then of his more peaceful life after he was appointed tutor.

      ‘It was then,’ he added, ‘that after a long silence, which was doubtless intended to make me understand what I see only too clearly now, that you no longer love me, and that I had become as nothing to you . . . ’

      Madame de Renal gripped his hands. ‘It was then that you sent me a sum of five hundred francs.’

      ‘Never,’ said Madame de Renal.

      ‘It was a letter postmarked Paris and signed Paul Sorel, to avoid all suspicion.’

      A short discussion followed as to the possible source of this letter. The atmosphere began to change. Unconsciously, Madame de Renal and Julien had departed from their solemn tone; they had returned to that of a tender intimacy. They could not see each other, so intense was the darkness, but the sound of their voices told all. Julien slipped his arm round the waist of his mistress; this movement was highly dangerous. She tried to remove Julien’s arm, whereupon he, with a certain adroitness, distracted her attention by an interesting point in his narrative.

      The arm was then forgotten, and remained in the position that it had occupied.

      After abundant conjectures as to the source of the letter with the five hundred francs, Julien had resumed his narrative; he became rather more his own master in speaking of his past life which, in comparison with what was happening to him at that moment, interested him so little. His attention was wholly concentrated on the manner in which his visit was to end. ‘You must leave me,’ she kept on telling him, in a curt tone.

      ‘What a disgrace for me if I am shown the door! The remorse will be enough to poison my whole life,’ he said to himself, ‘she will never write to me. God knows when I shall return to this place!’ From that moment, all the element of heavenly bliss in Julien’s situation vanished rapidly from his heart. Seated by the side of a woman whom he adored, clasping her almost in his arms, in this room in which he had been so happy, plunged in a black darkness, perfectly well aware that for the last minute she had been crying, feeling, from the movement of her bosom, that she was convulsed with sobs, he unfortunately became a frigid politician, almost as calculating and as frigid as when, in the courtyard of the Seminary, he saw himself made the butt of some malicious joke by one of his companions stronger than himself. Julien spun out his story, and spoke of the wretched life he had led since leaving Verrieres. ‘And so,’ Madame de Renal said to herself, ‘after a year’s absence, almost without a single token of remembrance, while I was forgetting him, his mind was entirely taken up with the happy days he had enjoyed at Vergy.’ Her sobs increased in violence. Julien saw that his story had been successful. He realised that he must now try his last weapon: he came abruptly to the letter that he had just received from Paris.

      ‘I have taken leave of Monseigneur, the Bishop.’

      ‘What! You are not returning to Besancon! You are leaving us for ever?’

      ‘Yes,’ replied Julien, in a resolute tone; ‘yes, I am abandoning the place where I am forgotten even by her whom I have most dearly loved in all my life, and I am leaving it never to set eyes on it again. I am going to Paris . . . ’

      ‘You are going to Paris!’ Madame de Renal exclaimed quite aloud.

      Her voice was almost stifled by her tears, and showed the intensity of her grief. Julien had need of this encouragement; he was going to attempt a course which might decide everything against him; and before this exclamation, seeing no light, he was absolutely ignorant of the effect that he was producing. He hesitated no longer; the fear of remorse gave him complete command of himself; he added coldly as he rose to his feet:

      ‘Yes, Madame, I leave you for ever, may you be happy; farewell.’

      He took a few steps towards the window; he was already opening it. Madame de Renal sprang after him and flung herself into his arms.

      Thus, after three hours of conversation, Julien obtained what he had so passionately desired during the first two. Had they come a little earlier, this return to tender sentiments, the eclipse of remorse in Madame de Renal would have been a divine happiness; obtained thus by artifice, they were no more than mere pleasure. Julien positively insisted, against the entreaties of his mistress, upon lighting the nightlight.

      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ