Page:The red and the black (1916).djvu/528

508 "It is nothing," she said to him. "You hurt me."

"Your shoulder," exclaimed Julien, bursting into tears. He drew back a little, and covered her hands with kisses of fire. "Who could have prophesied this, dear, the last time I saw you in your room at Verrières?"

"Who could have prophesied then that I should write that infamous letter to M. de la Mole? "

"Know that I have always loved you, and that I have never loved anyone but you."

"Is it possible?" cried Madame de Rênal, who was delighted in her turn. She leant on Julien, who was on his knees, and they cried silently for a long time.

Julien had never experienced moments like this at any period of his whole life.

"And how about that young madame Michelet?" said Madame de Rênal, a long time afterwards when they were able to speak. Or rather, that mademoiselle de la Mole? for I am really beginning to believe in that strange romance."

"It is only superficially true," answered Julien. "She is my wife, but she is not my mistress."

After interrupting each other a hundred times over, they managed with great difficulty to explain to each other what they did not know. The letter written to M. de la Mole had been drafted by the young priest who directed Madame de Rênal's conscience, and had been subsequently copied by her,—"What a horrible thing religion has made me do," she said to him, "and even so I softened the most awful passages in the letter."

Julien's ecstatic happiness proved the fulness of her forgiveness. He had never been so mad with love.

"And yet I regard myself as devout," madame de Rênal went on to say to him in the ensuing conversation. "I believe sincerely in God! I equally believe, and I even have full proof of it, that the crime which I am committing is an awful one, and yet the very minute I see you, even after you have fired two pistol shots at me—" and at this point, in spite of her resistance, Julien covered her with kisses.

"Leave me alone," she continued, "I want to argue with you, I am frightened lest I should forget … The very minute I see you all my duties disappear. I have nothing but love for you, dear, or rather, the word love is too weak.