He found Fouque engaged in making up his accounts.
He was a young man of high stature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a never-ending nose, and a large fund of good nature concealed beneath this repulsive appearance.
"Have you quarelled with M. de Renal then that you turn up unexpectedly like this?"
Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the events of the previous day.
"Stay with me," said Fouque to him.
"I see that you know M. de Renal, M. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the cure Chelan. You have understood the subtleties of the character of those people.
So there you are then, quite qualified to attend auctions.
You know arithmetic better than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot in my business.
The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the fear of taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from undertaking excellent business.
It's scarcely a month since I put Michaud de Saint-Amand, whom I haven't seen for six years, and whom I ran across at the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six thousand francs.
Why shouldn't it have been you who made those six thousand francs, or at any rate three thousand.
For if I had had you with me that day, I would have raised the bidding for that lot of timber and everybody else would soon have run away.
Be my partner."
This offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams.
Fouque showed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the supper—which the two friends prepared themselves like the Homeric heroes (for Fouque lived alone) and proved to him all the advantages offered by his timber business.
Fouque had the highest opinion of the gifts and character of Julien.
When, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood, he said to himself:
"It is true I can make some thousands of francs here and then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or of a priest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France.
The little hoard that I shall have amassed will remove all petty difficulties.
In the solitude of this mountain I shall have dissipated to some extent my awful ignorance of so many of the things which make up the life of all those men of fashion.
But Fouque has given up all thoughts of marriage, and at the same time keeps telling me that solitude makes him unhappy.
It is clear that if he takes a partner who has no capital to put into his business, he does so in the hopes of getting a companion who will never leave him."
"Shall I deceive my friend," exclaimed Julien petulantly.
This being who found hypocrisy and complete callousness his ordinary means of self-preservation could not, on this occasion, endure the idea of the slightest lack of delicate feeling towards a man whom he loved.
But suddenly Julien was happy. He had a reason for a refusal.
What!
Shall I be coward enough to waste seven or eight years.
I shall get to twenty-eight in that way!
But at that age Bonaparte had achieved his greatest feats.
When I shall have made in obscurity a little money by frequenting timber sales, and earning the good graces of some rascally under-strappers who will guarantee that I shall still have the sacred fire with which one makes a name for oneself?
The following morning, Julien with considerable sangfroid, said in answer to the good Fouque, who regarded the matter of the partnership as settled, that his vocation for the holy ministry of the altars would not permit him to accept it.
Fouque did not return to the subject.
"But just think," he repeated to him, "I'll make you my partner, or if you prefer it, I'll give you four thousand francs a year, and you want to return to that M. de Renal of yours, who despises you like the mud on his shoes.
When you have got two hundred louis in front of you, what is to prevent you from entering the seminary?
I'll go further: I will undertake to procure for you the best living in the district, for," added Fouque, lowering his voice, I supply firewood to M. le ——, M. le ——, M. ——. I provide them with first quality oak, but they only pay me for plain wood, but never was money better invested.
Nothing could conquer Julien's vocation. Fouque finished by thinking him a little mad.
The third day, in the early morning, Julien left his friend, and passed the day amongst the rocks of the great mountain.
He found his little cave again, but he had no longer peace of mind. His friend's offers had robbed him of it.
He found himself, not between vice and virtue, like Hercules, but between mediocrity coupled with an assured prosperity, and all the heroic dreams of his youth.
"So I have not got real determination after all," he said to himself, and it was his doubt on this score which pained him the most.
"I am not of the stuff of which great men are made, because I fear that eight years spent in earning a livelihood will deprive me of that sublime energy which inspires the accomplishment of extraordinary feats." _____
CHAPTER XIII
THE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS _____
A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk along the high road.—Saint-Real. _____
When Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy, he noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Renal since the day before yesterday.
The other day, when I took my leave, that woman made me realise the infinite distance which separated us; she treated me like a labourer's son.
No doubt she wished to signify her repentance for having allowed me to hold her hand the evening before. ...
It is, however very pretty, is that hand.
What a charm, what a nobility is there in that woman's expression!
The possibility of making a fortune with Fouque gave a certain facility to Julien's logic. It was not spoilt quite so frequently by the irritation and the keen consciousness of his poverty and low estate in the eyes of the world.