"It is a violent impression made by ugliness on a soul intended by nature to love the beautiful."
The man who was writing lifted up his head. Julien only perceived it after a moment had passed, and even after seeing it, he still remained motionless, as though struck dead by the terrible look of which he was the victim.
Julien's troubled eyes just managed to make out a long face, all covered with red blotches except the forehead, which manifested a mortal pallor.
Two little black eyes, calculated to terrify the most courageous, shone between these red cheeks and that white forehead.
The vast area of his forehead was bounded by thick, flat, jet black hair.
"Will you come near, yes or no?" said the man at last, impatiently.
Julien advanced with an uneasy step, and at last, paler than he had ever been in his life and on the point of falling, stopped three paces from the little white wooden table which was covered with the squares of paper.
"Nearer," said the man.
Julien advanced still further, holding out his hand, as though trying to lean on something.
"Your name?"
"Julien Sorel."
"You are certainly very late," said the man to him, as he rivetted again on him that terrible gaze.
Julien could not endure this look. Holding out his hand as though to support himself, he fell all his length along the floor.
The man rang. Julien had only lost the use of his eyes and the power of movement.
He heard steps approaching.
He was lifted up and placed on the little armchair of white wood.
He heard the terrible man saying to the porter,
"He has had an epileptic fit apparently, and this is the finishing touch."
When Julien was able to open his eyes, the man with the red face was going on with his writing. The porter had disappeared.
"I must have courage," said our hero to himself, "and above all, hide what I feel." He felt violently sick.
"If anything happens to me, God knows what they will think of me."
Finally the man stopped writing and looked sideways at Julien.
"Are you in a fit state to answer me?"
"Yes, sir," said Julien in an enfeebled voice.
"Ah, that's fortunate."
The man in black had half got up, and was looking impatiently for a letter in the drawer of his pinewood table, which opened with a grind.
He found it, sat down slowly, and looking again at Julien in a manner calculated to suck out of him the little life which he still possessed, said,
"You have been recommended to me by M. Chelan.
He was the best cure in the diocese; he was an upright man if there ever was one, and my friend for thirty years."
"Oh. It's to M. Pirard then that I have the honour of speaking?" said Julien in a dying voice. "Apparently," replied the director of the seminary, as he looked at him disagreeably.
The glitter of his little eyes doubled and was followed by an involuntary movement of the muscles of the corner of the mouth.
It was the physiognomy of the tiger savouring in advance the pleasure of devouring its prey.
"Chelan's letter is short," he said, as though speaking to himself. "Intelligenti pauca.
In the present time it is impossible to write too little."
He read aloud:—
"I recommend to you Julien Sorel of this parish, whom I baptized nearly twenty years ago, the son of a rich carpenter who gives him nothing.
Julien will be a remarkable worker in the vineyard of the Lord.
He lacks neither memory nor intelligence; he has some faculty for reflection.
Will he persevere in his calling?
Is he sincere?"
"Sincere," repeated the abbe Pirard with an astonished air, looking at Julien. But the abbe's look was already less devoid of all humanity.
"Sincere," he repeated, lowering his voice, and resuming his reading:—
"I ask you for a stipend for Julien Sorel. He will earn it by passing the necessary examinations.
I have taught him a little theology, that old and good theology of the Bossuets, the Arnaults, and the Fleury's.
If the person does not suit you, send him back to me. The director of the workhouse, whom you know well, offers him eight hundred to be tutor to his children.
My inner self is tranquil, thanks to God.
I am accustoming myself to the terrible blow, 'Vale et me ama.'"
The abbe Pirard, speaking more slowly as he read the signature, pronounced with a sigh the word,
"Chelan."
"He is tranquil," he said, "in fact his righteousness deserves such a recompense.