CHAPTER XX
ANONYMOUS LETTERS _____
Do not give dalliance
Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood.—Tempest. _____
As they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien had time to say to his love,
"Don't let us see each other to-night. Your husband has suspicions. I would swear that that big letter he read with a sigh was an anonymous letter."
Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room.
Madame de Renal had the mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her.
She absolutely lost her head, and came to his door at the accustomed hour.
Julien, who had heard the noise in the corridor, immediately blew out his lamp.
Someone was trying to open the door. Was it Madame de Renal? Was it a jealous husband?
Very early next morning the cook, who liked Julien, brought him a book, on the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: Guardate alla pagina 130.
Julien shuddered at the imprudence, looked for page 130, and found pinned to it the following letter hastily written, bathed with tears, and full of spelling mistakes.
Madame de Renal was usually very correct. He was touched by this circumstance, and somewhat forgot the awfulness of the indiscretion.
"So you did not want to receive me to-night?
There are moments when I think that I have never read down to the depths of your soul.
Your looks frighten me.
I am afraid of you.
Great God! perhaps you have never loved me?
In that case let my husband discover my love, and shut me up in a prison in the country far away from my children.
Perhaps God wills it so.
I shall die soon, but you will have proved yourself a monster.
"Do you not love me?
Are you tired of my fits of folly and of remorse, you wicked man?
Do you wish to ruin me?
I will show you an easy way.
Go and show this letter to all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod.
Tell him that I love you, nay, do not utter such a blasphemy, tell him I adore you, that it was only on the day I saw you that my life commenced; that even in the maddest moments of my youth I never even dreamt of the happiness that I owe to you, that I have sacrificed my life to you and that I am sacrificing my soul. You know that I am sacrificing much more.
But does that man know the meaning of sacrifice?
Tell him, I say, simply to irritate him, that I will defy all evil tongues, that the only misfortune for me in the whole world would be to witness any change in the only man who holds me to life.
What a happiness it would be to me to lose my life, to offer it up as a sacrifice and to have no longer any fear for my children.
"Have no doubt about it, dear one, if it is an anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who has persecuted me for the last six years with his loud voice, his stories about his jumps on horseback, his fatuity, and the never ending catalogue of all his advantages.
"Is there an anonymous letter?
I should like to discuss that question with you, you wicked man; but no, you acted rightly.
Clasping you in my arms perhaps for the last time, I should never have been able to argue as coldly as I do, now that I am alone.
From this moment our happiness will no longer be so easy.
Will that be a vexation for you?
Yes, on those days when you haven't received some amusing book from M. Fouque.
The sacrifice is made; to-morrow, whether there is or whether there is not any anonymous letter, I myself will tell my husband I have received an anonymous letter and that it is necessary to give you a golden bridge at once, find some honourable excuse, and send you back to your parents without delay.
"Alas, dear one, we are going to be separated for a fortnight, perhaps a month!
Go, I will do you justice, you will suffer as much as I, but anyway, this is the only means of disposing of this anonymous letter.
It is not the first that my husband has received, and on my score too.
Alas! how I used to laugh over them!
"My one aim is to make my husband think that the letter comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is its author.
If you leave the house, make a point of establishing yourself at Verrieres; I will manage that my husband should think of passing a fortnight there in order to prove to the fools there was no coldness between him and me.
Once at Verrieres, establish ties of friendship with everyone, even with the Liberals.
I am sure that all their ladies will seek you out.
"Do not quarrel with M. Valenod, or cut off his ears, as you said you would one day. Try, on the contrary, to ingratiate yourself with him.
The essential point is that it should be notorious in Verrieres that you are going to enter the household either of Valenod or of someone else to take charge of the children's education.