CHAPTER 10
A GREAT HEART AND A SMALL FORTUNE
But passion most disembles,yet betrays,
Even by its darkness, as the blackest sky
Foretells the heaviest tempest.
Don Juan, c. 4, st. 75.
M.De Rênal was going through all the rooms in the château, and he came back into the children's room with the servants who were bringing back the stuffings of the mattresses. The sudden entry of this man had the effect on Julien of the drop of water which makes the pot overflow.
Looking paler and more sinister than usual, he rushed towards him. M. de Rênal stopped and looked at his servants.
"Monsieur," said Julien to him, "Do you think your children would have made the progress they have made with me with any other tutor? If you answer'No,'" continued Julien so quickly that M. de Rênal did not have time to speak, "how dare you reproach me with neglecting them?"
M. de Rênal, who had scarcely recovered from his fright, concluded from the strange tone he saw this little peasant assume, that he had some advantageous offer in his pocket, and that he was going to leave him.
The more he spoke the more Julien's anger increased,"I can live without you, Monsieur," he added.
"I am really sorry to see you so upset," answered M. de Rênal shuddering a little. The servants were ten yards off engaged in making the beds.
"That is not what I mean, Monsieur," replied Julien quite beside himself. "Think of the infamous words that you have addressed to me, and before women too."
M. de Rênal understood only too well what Julien was asking, and a painful conflict tore his soul. It happened that Julien, who was really mad with rage,cried out,
"I know where to go, Monsieur, when I leave your house."
At these words M. de Rênal saw Julien installed with M. Valenod. "Well, sir," he said at last with a sigh,just as though he had called in a surgeon to perform the most painful operation, "I accede to your request.I will give you fifty francs a month. Starting from the day after to-morrow which is the first of the month.
Julien wanted to laugh, and stood there dumbfounded. All his anger had vanished.
"I do not despise the brute enough," he said to himself. "I have no doubt that that is the greatest apology that so base a soul can make."
The children who had listened to this scene with gaping mouths, ran into the garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was very angry, but that he was going to have fifty francs a month.
Julien followed them as a matter of habit without even looking at M. de Rênal whom he left in a considerable state of irritation.
"That makes one hundred and sixty-eight francs,"said the mayor to himself, "that M. Valenod has cost me. I must absolutely speak a few strong words to him about his contract to provide for the foundlings."
A minute afterwards Julien found himself opposite M. de Rênal.
"I want to speak to M. Chélan on a matter of conscience.I have the honour to inform you that I shall be absent some hours."
"Why, my dear Julien," said M. de Rênal smiling with the falsest expression possible, "take the whole day, and to-morrow too if you like, my good friend. Take the gardener's horse to go to Verrières."
"He is on the very point," said M. de Rênal to himself, "of giving an answer to Valenod. He has promised me nothing, but I must let this hot-headed young man have time to cool down."
Julien quickly went away, and went up into the great forest, through which one can manage to get from Vergy to Verrières. He did not wish to arrive at M.Chélan's at once. Far from wishing to cramp himself in a new pose of hypocrisy he needed to see clear in his own soul, and to give audience to the crowd of sentiments which were agitating him.
"I have won a battle," he said to himself, as soon as he saw that he was well in the forest, and far from all human gaze. "So I have won a battle."
This expression shed a rosy light on his situation,and restored him to some serenity.
"Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month, M. de Rênal must be precious afraid, but what of?"
This meditation about what could have put fear into the heart of that happy, powerful man against whom he had been boiling with rage only an hour back, completed the restoration to serenity of Julien's soul. He was almost able to enjoy for a moment the delightful beauty of the woods amidst which he was walking. Enormous blocks of bare rocks had fallen down long ago in the middle of the forest by the mountain side. Great cedars towered almost as high as these rocks whose shade caused a delicious freshness within three yards of places where the heat of the sun's rays would have made it impossible to rest.
Julien took breath for a moment in the shade of these great rocks, and then he began again to climb.Traversing a narrow path that was scarcely marked,and was only used by the goat herds, he soon found himself standing upon an immense rock with the complete certainty of being far away from all mankind.This physical position made him smile. It symbolised to him the position he was burning to attain in the moral sphere. The pure air of these lovely mountains filled his soul with serenity and even with joy. The mayor of Verrières still continued to typify in his eyes all the wealth and all the arrogance of the earth; but Julien felt that the hatred that had just thrilled him had nothing personal about it in spite of all the violence which he had manifested. If he had left off seeing M.de Rênal he would in eight days have forgotten him,his castle, his dogs, his children and all his family. "I forced him, I don't know how, to make the greatest sacrifice. What? more than fifty crowns a year, and only a minute before I managed to extricate myself from the greatest danger; so there are two victories in one day. The second one is devoid of merit, I must find out the why and the wherefore. But these laborious researches are for to-morrow."
Standing up on his great rock, Julien looked at the sky which was all afire with an August sun. The grasshoppers sang in the field about the rock; when they held their peace there was universal silence around him. He saw twenty leagues of country at his feet. He noticed from time to time some hawk, which launching off from the great rocks over his head was describing in silence its immense circles. Julien's eye followed the bird of prey mechanically. Its tranquil powerful movements struck him. He envied that strength, that isolation.
"Would Napoleon's destiny be one day his?"