If I want to win their respect and that of my own self, I must shew them that it is simply a business transaction between my poverty and their wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues away from their insolence, and is situated in too high a sphere to be affected by their petty marks of favour or disdain."
While these feelings were crowding the soul of the young tutor, his mobile features assumed an expression of ferocity and injured pride.
Madame de Renal was extremely troubled.
The virtuous coldness that she had meant to put into her welcome was succeeded by an expression of interest—an interest animated by all the surprise brought about by the sudden change which she had just seen.
The empty morning platitudes about their health and the fineness of the day suddenly dried up.
Julien's judgment was disturbed by no passion, and he soon found a means of manifesting to Madame de Renal how light was the friendly relationship that he considered existed between them. He said nothing to her about the little journey that he was going to make; saluted her, and went away.
As she watched him go, she was overwhelmed by the sombre haughtiness which she read in that look which had been so gracious the previous evening. Her eldest son ran up from the bottom of the garden, and said as he kissed her,
"We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey."
At these words, Madame de Renal felt seized by a deadly coldness. She was unhappy by reason of her virtue, and even more unhappy by reason of her weakness.
This new event engrossed her imagination, and she was transported far beyond the good resolutions which she owed to the awful night she had just passed.
It was not now a question of resisting that charming lover, but of losing him for ever.
It was necessary to appear at breakfast.
To complete her anguish, M. de Renal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien's departure.
The mayor of Verrieres had noticed something unusual in the firm tone in which he had asked for a holiday.
"That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else's offer up his sleeve, but that somebody else, even though it's M. Valenod, is bound to be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs, which the annual salary now tots up to.
He must have asked yesterday at Verrieres for a period of three days to think it over, and our little gentleman runs off to the mountains this morning so as not to be obliged to give me an answer.
Think of having to reckon with a wretched workman who puts on airs, but that's what we've come to."
"If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien, thinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?" said Madame de Renal to herself.
"Yes, that is all decided."
In order to be able at any rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering Madame Derville's questions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to bed.
"That's what women are," repeated M. de Renal, "there is always something out of order in those complicated machines," and he went off jeering.
While Madame de Renal was a prey to all the poignancy of the terrible passion in which chance had involved her, Julien went merrily on his way, surrounded by the most beautiful views that mountain scenery can offer.
He had to cross the great chain north of Vergy.
The path which he followed rose gradually among the big beech woods, and ran into infinite spirals on the slope of the high mountain which forms the northern boundary of the Doubs valley.
Soon the traveller's view, as he passed over the lower slopes bounding the course of the Doubs towards the south, extends as far as the fertile plains of Burgundy and Beaujolais.
However insensible was the soul of this ambitious youth to this kind of beauty, he could not help stopping from time to time to look at a spectacle at once so vast and so impressive.
Finally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which he had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at the solitary valley where lived his friend Fouque, the young wood merchant.
Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any other human being.
Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks which crowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off anyone coming near him.
He discovered a little grotto in the middle of the almost vertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it, and was soon ensconced in this retreat.
"Here," he said, "with eyes brilliant with joy, men cannot hurt me."
It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure of writing down those thoughts of his which were so dangerous to him everywhere else.
A square stone served him for a desk; his pen flew.
He saw nothing of what was around him.
He noticed at last that the sun was setting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.
"Why shouldn't I pass the night here?" he said to himself.
"I have bread, and I am free."
He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of that great word.
The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in his not being free, even at Fouque's.
Leaning his head on his two hands, Julien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever been in his life, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his freedom.
Without realising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight become successively extinguished.
Surrounded by this immense obscurity, his soul wandered into the contemplation of what he imagined that he would one day meet in Paris.
First it was a woman, much more beautiful and possessed of a much more refined temperament than anything he could have found in the provinces.
He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from her for some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to deserve to be loved still more.
A young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of Paris society, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if we assume him possessed of Julien's imagination, have been brought back to himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great deeds would have disappeared from out his ken together with hope of achieving them and have been succeeded by the platitude.
"If one leave one's mistress one runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or three times a day."
But the young peasant saw nothing but the lack of opportunity between himself and the most heroic feats.
But a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two leagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which Fouque lived.
Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and carefully burnt all that he had written.
He quite astonished his friend when he knocked at his door at one o'clock in the morning.