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dislocated it while moving a
fir trunk, and kept it in this uncomfortable position for two months.
After this corporal punishment he forgave himself. This was the
young man of nineteen, looking puny for his age, indeed unlikely to be
taken for more than seventeen at the very most, who with a small
bundle clasped under his arm was preparing to enter the magnificent
church in Verrières.
    He found it dark
and deserted. All the windows of the building had been draped with
crimson material for a feastday, and as a result the sun's rays
streaming in produced a dazzling light-effect of the most
awe-inspiring and religious kind. Julien shuddered. Alone in the
church, he took a seat in the finest-looking pew. It bore the arms of
M. de Rênal.
    On the hassock Julien
noticed a piece of paper with printing on it, spread out there as if
meant to be read. He looked at it closely and saw:
Details of the execution and last moments of Louis Jenrel, executed at Besançon on the . . .
    The paper was torn. On the back, the first few words of a line could be read. They ran: The first step.
    Who can have put that paper there? Julien wondered. Poor wretch, he
added with a sigh, his named ends like mine . . . and he crumpled up
the piece of paper.
    On his way out,
Julien thought he saw blood beside the stoup of holy water; some of it
had been spilled, and the light coming through the red drapings over
the windows made it look like blood.
    After a while Julien felt ashamed of his secret terror.
    Could I be a coward! he said to himself. 'To arms!'
    This expression, which recurred so often in the old surgeon's
accounts of battles, had heroic symbolism for Julien. He stood up and
walked quickly in the direction of M. de Rênal's house.
    In spite of this fine resolve, as soon as he caught sight of it
    -27-

twenty yards in front of him he was seized with overwhelming shyness.
The iron gate was open; it looked magnificent to him, and he had to
go inside.
    Julien was not the only person to feel deep agitation at his arrival in the house. M me de Rênal with her excessive shyness was put out at the thought of
this stranger who, by the very nature of his duties, was constantly
going to come between herself and her children. She was accustomed to
having her sons sleeping in her bedroom. That morning a good many
tears had been shed when she had seen their little beds moved into the
quarters set aside for the tutor. She asked her husband in vain to
have her youngest child Stanislas-Xavier's bed brought back into her
room.
    Feminine delicacy was carried to excess in M me de Rênal. She conjured up the most disagreeable image of a boorish,
ill- w kempt individual, empowered to scold her children solely
because he knew Latin, a barbarous language on account of which her
sons would be beaten.
    -28-

CHAPTER 6 Boredom
    Non so più cosa son, Cosa facio .
    MOZART ( Figaro ) *
    WITH the lively and graceful demeanour which came naturally to her when she was not in company, M me de Rênal was coming out into the garden through the French window of
the drawing-room when she noticed the figure of a young peasant
standing by the front door. He was scarcely more than a boy, and his
pale face showed signs of recent tears. He was wearing a spotless
white shirt and carrying a very clean jacket of thick mauve wool under
his arm.
    The peasant boy had so fair a complexion and such gentle eyes that M me de Rênal's romantically inclined nature led her to imagine at first
that he might be a girl in disguise, coming to ask some favour of the
mayor. She felt a surge of pity for the poor soul standing there at
the front door and obviously not daring to raise a hand to the bell.
She went over to him, distracted for a moment from the deep distress
which the prospect of a tutor in the house was causing her. Julien was
facing the door and did not see her coming. He started when a
gentle voice said right in his ear: 'What have you come for,