The Red and the Black by Stendhal, Horace B. Samuel

wind in the thick foliage of the pine tree and to the noise of some stray drops which were beginning to fall upon the leaves which were lowest down. Julien failed to notice one circumstance which, if he had, would have quickly reassured him; Madame de Rênal, who had been obliged to take away her hand, because she had got up to help her cousin to pick up a flower-pot which the wind had knocked over at her feet, had scarcely sat down again before she gave him her hand with scarcely any difficulty and as though it had already been a pre-arranged thing between them.
    Midnight had struck a long time ago; it was at last necessary to leave the garden; they separated. Madame de Rênal swept away as she was, by the happiness of loving, was so completely ignorant of the world that she scarcely reproached herself at all. Her happiness deprived her of her sleep. A leaden sleep overwhelmed Julien who was mortally fatigued by the battle which timidity and pride had waged in his heart all through the day.
    He was called at five o’clock on the following day and scarcely gave Madame de Rênal a single thought.
    He had accomplished his duty, and a heroic duty too. The consciousness of this filled him with happiness; he locked himself in his room, and abandoned himself with quite a new pleasure to reading exploits of his hero.
    When the breakfast bell sounded, the reading of the Bulletins of the Great Army had made him forget all his advantages of the previous day. He said to himself flippantly, as he went down to the salon, “I must tell that woman that I am in love with her.” Instead of those looks brimful of pleasure which he was expecting to meet, he found the stern visage of M. de Rênal, who had arrived from Verrières two hours ago, and did not conceal his dissatisfaction at Julien’s having passed the whole morning without attending to the children. Nothing could have been more sordid than this self-important man when he was in a bad temper and thought that he could safely show it.
    Each harsh word of her husband pierced Madame de Rênal’s heart.
    As for Julien, he was so plunged in his ecstasy, and still so engrossed by the great events which had been passing before his eyes for several hours, that he had some difficulty at first in bringing his attention sufficiently down to listen to the harsh remarks which M. de Rênal was addressing to him. He said to him at last, rather abruptly,
    â€œI was ill.”
    The tone of this answer would have stung a much less sensitive man than the mayor of Verrières. He half thought of answering Julien by turning him out of the house straight away. He was only restrained by the maxim which he had prescribed for himself, of never hurrying unduly in business matters.
    â€œThe young fool,” he said to himself shortly afterwards, “has won a kind of reputation in my house. That man Valenod may take him into his family, or he may quite well marry Elisa, and in either case, he will be able to have the laugh of me in his heart.”
    In spite of the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Rênal’s dissatisfaction did not fail to vent itself any the less by a string of coarse insults which gradually irritated Julien. Madame de Rênal was on the point of bursting into tears. Breakfast was scarcely over, when she asked Julien to give her his arm for a walk. She leaned on him affectionately. Julien could only answer all that Madame de Rênal said to him by whispering.
    â€œThat’s what rich people are like!”
    M. de Rênal was walking quite close to them; his presence increased Julien’s anger. He suddenly noticed that Madame de Rênal was leaning on his arm in a manner which was somewhat marked. This horrified him, and he pushed her violently away and disengaged his arm.
    Luckily, M. de Rênal did not see this new piece of impertinence; it was only noticed by Madame Derville. Her friend burst into tears. M. de Rênal now started to