What was Julien doing while they were talking about him in the little summer salon of the hôtel d'Estrelle? He was working, or was supposed to be working. He constantly changed his position, he was hot and cold, he started at the slightest sound. He said to himself that perhaps his name was on the countess's lips at that moment, that perhaps she was asking some question about him, merely as a matter of form, without listening to the answer. He went to the window, the lower sash of which was really nailed in its place and covered with a green cloth; but there was an imperceptible slit in that cloth, there was a scratch on the ground glass, and through that treacherous crevice, cunningly made and cunningly concealed, he saw Madame d'Estrelle every day, strolling among the shrubbery in her garden, and walking along the path which was in full view from the pavilion. Julien knew almost to a minute her regular hours for that walk. When some accident interfered with her usual practice, then mysterious presentiments, the divinatory instinct which belongs only to love, and especially to a first love, warned him of Julie's approach. Then he invented a thousand pretexts, each more ingenious than the last, for turning his mother's vigilant eye in some other direction and gazing at his fair neighbor; or else he would find that he had to go and get something in his bedroom, and would go upstairs, his mother remaining below, enter her room and look through the blind. In fact he had adored Julie for a fortnight, and Julie thought that he had never seen her, and Madame Thierry lied unconsciously when she said that her son could see nothing from the studio, and that he had never looked out of her bedroom windows.
To Julien himself there was something insane, or at all events inexplicable, in that sudden passion which had taken possession of him, who was so sensible in all other respects; but as there is a cause for every effect, it is our place to seek it, and not be too free to admit the improbability of actual occurrences.
Marcel came very often, with or without his wife, to pass a portion of the evening with his aunt Thierry. Julien and he were much attached to each other, and although they often disagreed, Marcel considering Julien too romantic, and Julien considering Marcel too practical, they would have died for each other. Marcel talked freely about his practice, which was rapidly increasing. When Julien asked him: "Is your office flourishing?" he would answer: "It is budding, my boy, it is budding! I often have clients who bring me more honor than profit, and they are not the ones of whom I think the least."—Among those clients who were not fond of litigation, but to whom he owed pleasant or profitable connections, Marcel placed the Comtesse d'Estrelle in the first rank. He mentioned her so often and in such enthusiastic terms, he thought and spoke so severely of the lovely widow's unworthy husband, he inveighed so bitterly against the inhuman avarice of the family, he took such a profound interest in Julie's gentle and noble character, he involuntarily extolled her charms so warmly, that Julien was curious to see her; he saw her and loved her, if indeed he did not love her before he saw her.
Julien had never loved before. He had led a very virtuous life, he had experienced a great sorrow, he was at the height of his physical and mental development; his susceptibility was overstrained by the courageous efforts he had made, by a constant exchange of fervent affection with his loving mother, by a tendency to enthusiasm which he derived from long association with an enthusiastic father. He lived in seclusion, he denied himself all diversion and worked with intense eagerness to preserve the honor of his name and to save his mother from want. All this must inevitably find a vent, and that generous heart discharge its surplus emotion. We will say no more about it; indeed we have already said far too much in explanation of that impossible phenomenon which we see every day—a persistent, violent, boundless aspiration toward an object which is known to be unattainable. Long, long before, La Fontaine had written this refrain, which had passed into a proverb:
"Love, love! when thou dost hold us,
Well may we say: 'Prudence, farewell!'"
[II]
Now, while the countess was talking to Madame Thierry, and Julien to himself, Marcel Thierry was talking not far away with his uncle Antoine, the old bachelor, the ex-armorer, the rich man of the family.
Gentle reader—as they used to say at the time when these events took place—be kind enough to accompany us to Rue Blomet from the hôtel d'Estrelle on Rue de Babylone; skirting the garden wall for five minutes, passing in front of the Louis XIII. pavilion, then skirting the wall of another garden much larger than Madame d'Estrelle's, along a lane grass-grown on the edges, muddy and full of holes in the centre, destined at some time to be an extension of Rue de Babylone; then turning to the left and passing along another street in embryo to the corner of Rue Blomet, where stands a large house of the Louis XIV. style of architecture, formerly the hôtel de Melcy, recently purchased and occupied by Monsieur Antoine Thierry. If Monsieur Antoine Thierry would have allowed us to pass through his extensive grounds, we might have started from Julien's house and walked straight through the nursery to the rear of the mansion; but Uncle Antoine is determined to be master on his own estate, and he will not grant any easement whatsoever, even in favor of his brother's widow and son. Marcel, therefore, on leaving the countess, had taken this walk, half in the city, half in the country; and now behold him seated in the rich man's study, formerly a boudoir with painted and gilded ceiling, now filled with shelves and tables covered with bags of seeds, specimens of fruit moulded in wax, and baskets of tools and other articles connected with horticulture.
To reach this study, the proprietor's favorite retreat, he has had to pass through galleries and immense salons overweighted with gilt decorations in relief, grand in conception, but blackened by neglect and dampness; for the windows are shut and the shutters tightly closed in all weathers; the rich man never tarries in those majestic apartments, he never receives visitors there, he never gives parties or banquets, he cares for no one, he is suspicious of everybody. He loves rare flowers and exotic shrubs, he also esteems the product of fruit trees, and he is constantly deliberating upon the trimming and grafting of his subjects. He overlooks and directs in person a score of gardeners, whom he pays handsomely, and whose families he takes under his protection. Never attempt to interest him in any other people than those who flatter or subserve his caprices or his vanity.
This passion for gardening he acquired by a mere chance. One of the vessels which sailed to the far east on his account and for his profit brought from China a parcel of seeds which he carelessly dropped in an urn filled with earth. The seeds sprouted, the plants grew and were covered with lovely flowers. The armorer, who did not anticipate that result, and who, moreover, had never in his life looked at a plant, paid very little heed at first; but another accident brought to his house a connoisseur who went into ecstasies, and declared the priceless plant to be absolutely new and unknown to science.