"Ah! madame, if the plebeian were very rich, most people would forgive you."
"Then you would have me ask your uncle to enrich the man I love? I must dishonor myself in my own eyes—in Julien's too, perhaps—to earn the forgiveness of a society without honor and without heart? You ask too much of me, Marcel; you abuse my utter prostration. May God give me strength to do but one thing,—resist you; for, after that disgrace, I should feel that I had delayed too long to die."
Poor Marcel was overdone with fatigue and disappointment. He wore himself out in words and efforts of every sort, and he succeeded only in rescuing all his friends from poverty and saving the material comforts of life for them. He could do nothing for their mental condition, and he said to his wife every night:
"My dear love, there is nothing falser than reality! I am moving heaven and earth to provide them with the means of living, and I succeed only in killing them by inches."
[VIII]
Julie returned to Paris. She found there her luxurious surroundings, her carriages, her jewels and her servants. Monsieur Antoine had looked after everything; nothing about her was changed. She paid no heed to anything. In vain did Marcel hope that she would experience a sort of satisfaction, even if it were only a matter of instinct, in returning to her ordinary surroundings. He was alarmed and almost vexed by that immovable indifference. He had notified those of her friends whom he was able to reach, in order to force her to be on her guard before them. She greeted them without warmth, and when they expressed concern at her pallor and her air of depression, she attributed everything to a cold she had taken on the journey, which had detained her in the country an unconscionably long time. It was nothing, she said. She had been much worse; she was better now. She had preferred not to write in order not to make her friends anxious. She promised to see her physician and to get well.
Two days later the Baronne d'Ancourt appeared.
"I did you an ill turn," she said; "I am sorry, and I have come to ask you to forgive me."
"I bore you no grudge," Madame d'Estrelle replied.
"Yes, I know that you are either a great philosopher or a great saint; but you are a woman all the same, my friend; you have been persecuted and you are suffering!"