Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/495

Rh was still very young; but in my view he was a fine specimen. Instead of his character passing from tenderness to cunning, as is the case with the majority of men, age would have given him that kindness of heart which is easily melted … but what avail these vain prophecies.

The interrogations became more frequent in spite of all the efforts of Julien, who always endeavoured by his answers to shorten the whole matter.

"I killed, or at anyrate, I wished to occasion death, and I did so with premeditation," he would repeat every day. But the judge was a pedant above everything. Julien's confessions had no effect in curtailing the interrogations. The judge's conceit was wounded. Julien did not know that they had wanted to transfer him into an awful cell, and that it was only, thanks to Fouqué's efforts, that he was allowed to keep his pretty room at the top of a hundred and eighty steps.

M. the abbé de Frilair was one of the important customers who entrusted Fouqé [sic] with the purveying of their firewood. The good tradesmen managed to reach the all powerful grand vicar. M. de Frilair informed him, to his unspeakable delight, that he was so touched by Julien's good qualities, and by the services which he had formerly rendered to the seminary, that he intended to recommend him to the judges. Fouqué thought he saw a hope of saving his friend, and as he went out, bowing down to the ground, requested M. the grand vicar, to distribute a sum of ten louis in masses to entreat the acquittal of the accused.

Fouqué was making a strange mistake. M. de Frilair was very far from being a Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the good peasant understand that he would do better to keep his money. Seeing that it was impossible to be clear without being indiscreet, he advised him to give that sum as alms for the use of the poor prisoners, who, in point of fact, were destitute of everything.

"This Julien is a singular person, his action is unintelligible," thought M. de Frilair, "and I ought to find nothing unintelligible. Perhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him.… In any case, I shall get to the bottom of the matter, and shall perhaps find an opportunity of putting fear into the heart of that madame de Rênal who has no respect for us, and at the bottom detests me.… Perhaps I might