"That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly punished."
Julien was profoundly touched.
He could see in this neither hypocrisy nor exaggeration.
"She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me, and all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son.
I cannot doubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments of hers have real greatness.
But how could I have inspired such a love, I who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so coarse in my manners?"
One night the child was extremely ill.
At about two o'clock in the morning, M. de Renal came to see it.
The child consumed by fever, and extremely flushed, could not recognise its father.
Suddenly Madame de Renal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was going to confess everything and ruin herself for ever.
Fortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Renal.
"Adieu! Adieu!" he said, going away.
"No, listen to me," cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to hold him back.
"Hear the whole truth.
It is I who am killing my son.
I gave him life, and I am taking it back.
Heaven is punishing me.
In the eyes of God I am guilty of murder.
It is necessary that I should ruin and humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord."
If M. de Renal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have realized everything.
"Romantic nonsense," he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to embrace his knees.
"All that is romantic nonsense!
Julien, go and fetch the doctor at daybreak," and he went back to bed.
Madame de Renal fell on her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical gesture. Julien was astonished.
"So this is what adultery is," he said to himself.
"Is it possible that those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit so many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true theory of sin?
How droll!"
For twenty minutes after M. de Renal had gone back to bed, Julien saw the woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed, motionless, and almost unconscious.
"There," he said to himself, "is a woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness simply because she has known me."
"Time moves quickly.
What can I do for her?
I must make up my mind.
I have not got simply myself to consider now.
What do I care for men and their buffooneries?
What can I do for her?
Leave her?
But I should be leaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief.
That automaton of a husband is more harm to her than good.
He is so coarse that he is bound to speak harshly to her.
She may go mad and throw herself out of the window."
"If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess everything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to bring him, he will create a scandal.
She may confess everything (great God) to that scoundrel of an abbe who makes the illness of a child of six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a purpose either.
In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she knows of the man; she only sees the priest."
"Go away," said Madame de Renal suddenly to him, opening her eyes.
"I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most use to you," answered Julien.
"I have never loved you so much, my dear angel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore you as you deserve to be adored.
What would become of me far from you, and with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have done?
But don't let my suffering come into the matter.
I will go—yes, my love!
But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be incessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything. You will ruin yourself.