Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/197

Rh "Will you come near, yes or no?" said the man at last, impatiently.

Julien advanced with an uneasy step, and at last, paler than he had ever been in his life and on the point of falling, stopped three paces from the little white wooden table which was covered with the squares of paper.

"Nearer," said the man. Julien advanced still further, holding out his hand, as though trying to lean on something.

"Your name?"

"Julien Sorel."

"You are certainly very late," said the man to him, as he rivetted again on him that terrible gaze.

Julien could not endure this look. Holding out his hand as though to support himself, he fell all his length along the floor.

The man rang. Julien had only lost the use of his eyes and the power of movement. He heard steps approaching.

He was lifted up and placed on the little armchair of white wood. He heard the terrible man saying to the porter,

"He has had an epileptic fit apparently, and this is the finishing touch."

When Julien was able to open his eyes, the man with the red face was going on with his writing. The porter had disappeared. "I must have courage," said our hero to himself, "and above all, hide what I feel." He felt violently sick. "If anything happens to me, God knows what they will think of me."

Finally the man stopped writing and looked sideways at Julien.

"Are you in a fit state to answer me?"

"Yes, sir," said Julien in an enfeebled voice.

"Ah, that's fortunate."

The man in black had half got up, and was looking impatiently for a letter in the drawer of his pinewood table, which opened with a grind. He found it, sat down slowly, and looking again at Julien in a manner calculated to suck out of him the little life which he still possessed, said,

"You have been recommended to me by M. Chélan. He was the best curé in the diocese; he was an upright man if there ever was one, and my friend for thirty years."

"Oh. It's to M. Pirard then that I have the honour of speaking?" said Julien in a dying voice.