And he wept bitterly for the first time since his father's death.
Tears did not relieve him. The tears of strong men are horrible cries and stifling sobs. He blushed to feel that he was so weak, and had to confess that he would be like that for a long while, perhaps forever. He returned home, dissatisfied with himself, and almost cursing the days of happiness he had enjoyed. He raged in his heart, and, wandering alone through the garden, while his mother slept, and the lightning constantly set the horizon on fire, he reproached his mother for loving him too well, and depriving him of liberty to dispose of himself.
"Why!" he exclaimed, "to live always for some other than oneself is downright slavery! I have no right to die! Why have I a mother? They who belong to no one are the happiest; they can, if they still love a broken life, hurl themselves into the dissipation which distracts the mind, into the debauchery which intoxicates. But I have not even that right! Nor have I the right to be depressed and ill. I must burn at a slow fire, smiling all the while; a tear is a crime. I cannot breathe heavily, dream, utter an exclamation in the night without my mother rushing to my side, terrified and ill herself. I cannot depart from my habits, go on a journey, seek oblivion and diversion in motion and fatigue; anything of that sort would worry her. To live without me would kill her. I must be a hero or a saint so that my mother may live! Happy are the orphans and abandoned children! they are not doomed to bear a burden beyond their strength!"
Julien had no sooner given vent to this revolt against destiny than other blasphemies entered his mind. Why had Julie disturbed his dream of self-sacrifice and virtue? Had he not accepted all the duties of his position? had he not performed those duties faithfully? By what right did that woman, because she was tired of solitude, take possession of his solitude? Was it not cowardly and blameworthy of her to give him a glimpse of the joys of heaven, although he neither hoped nor asked for anything, and then leave him to the humiliation of having believed in her?
"You have made me a miserable wretch!" he cried in the depths of his wrathful heart; "you are the cause that I no longer esteem myself, that I no longer love my art, that I curse my mother's love, that I no longer believe in my strength of will, and that I have felt the shameful and idiotic thirst for suicide. You deserve that I should revenge myself on you, that I should go to you among your friends and reproach you with the destruction of my beliefs, my peace of mind and my dignity. I will do it, I will say it to you, I will trample you under my feet!"
Then he thought of the future which Julie apparently had in mind for herself, and all the horrors of jealousy rose before him. He saw her in the arms of another, and he dreamed of the murder of his rival in every possible form.
He went out into the country and walked at random. He found himself once more on the shore of the stream. The storm broke and the lightning struck a tall tree not far from him. He darted in that direction, hoping that another bolt would strike him. He roamed about in torrents of rain, unheeding, and did not return until daybreak, ashamed to be seen in that state of insanity. He slept two hours and woke completely crushed, horribly frightened by what had taken place within him, and resolved not to allow himself to be taken by storm again by a violent passion of which he had not hitherto realized the extreme danger. He had much difficulty in rising; he breakfasted with his mother.
"I have always believed," he said to her, "that love, being the supreme blessing, should exalt us and sanctify us. I see now that love is the very acme of selfishness, and that it may make us bloodthirsty or idiotic. Love must be conquered; but love cannot be broken like a chain; it must be allowed to die out little by little."
Julien had a violent attack of fever and delirium; his mother divined his suffering, and she too cursed poor Julie in her heart.
Meanwhile Marcel had gone to see Julie.