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Rh though in former times she would have thought that worse than death.

"I will go to the king. I will confess freely that you are my lover. The life of a man, and of a man like Julien, too, ought to prevail over every consideration. I will tell him that it was because of jealousy that you made an attempt upon my life. There are numerous instances of poor young people who have been saved in such a case by the clemency of the jury or of the king."

"I will leave off seeing you; I will shut myself up in my prison," exclaimed Julien, "and you can be quite certain that if you do not promise me to take no step which will make a public exhibition of us both, I will kill myself in despair the day afterwards. This idea of going to Paris is not your own. Tell me the name of the intriguing woman who suggested it to you.

"Let us be happy during the small number of days of this short life. Let us hide our existence; my crime was only too self-evident. Mademoiselle de la Mole enjoys all possible influence at Paris. Take it from me that she has done all that is humanly possible. Here in the provinces I have all the men of wealth and prestige against me. Your conduct will still further aggravate those rich and essentially moderate people to whom life comes so easy.… Let us not give the Maslons, the Valenods, and the thousand other people who are worth more than they, anything to laugh about."

Julien came to find the bad air of the cell unbearable. Fortunately, nature was rejoicing in a fine sunshine on the day when they announced to him that he would have to die, and he was in a courageous vein. He found walking in the open air as delicious a sensation as the navigator, who has been at sea for a long time, finds walking on the ground. "Come on, everything is going all right," he said to himself. "I am not lacking in courage."

His head had never looked so poetical as at that moment when it was on the point of falling. The sweet minutes which he had formerly spent in the woods of Vergy crowded back upon his mind with extreme force.

Everything went off simply, decorously, and without any affectation on his part.

Two days before he had said to Fouqué: "I cannot