“Yes, upon my word, all is over,” he said aloud as he recovered himself. “Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight ... or killing myself here.”
His reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had been seized in some violent grip. He looked round to see if anyone was holding him. After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.
Madame de Rênal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had pierced her hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round. The bullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate, had ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however, broken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous splinter of stone.
When, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to madame de Rênal, “I answer for your life as I would for my own,” she was profoundly grieved.
She had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time. The letter which she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the injunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a creature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness. This unhappiness was caused by Julien’s absence; but she, for her own part, called it remorse. Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both virtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no mistake as to its nature.
“Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being a sin,” thought madame de Rênal. “God will perhaps forgive me for rejoicing over my death.” She did not dare to add, “and dying by Julien’s hand puts the last touch on my happiness.”
She had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the crowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid, Elisa. “The gaoler,” she said to her with a violent blush, “is a cruel man. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing so.... I cannot bear that idea. Could you not go, as though on your own account, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some louis. You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly, above all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money.”
It was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had to thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrières. It was still the same M. Noiraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so finely alarmed by M. Appert’s presence.
A judge appeared in the prison. “I occasioned death by premeditation,” said Julien to him. “I bought the pistols and had them loaded at so-and-so’s, a gunsmith. Article 1342 of the penal code is clear. I deserve death, and I expect it.” Astonished at this kind of answer, the judge started to multiply his questions, with a view of the accused contradicting himself in his answers.
“Don’t you see,” said Julien to him with a smile, “that I am making myself out as guilty as you can possibly desire? Go away, monsieur, you will not fail to catch the quarry you are pursuing. You will have the pleasure to condemn me. Spare me your presence.”