This cruel separation had been a bad beginning for Julien’s day. He was informed two or three hours later that a certain intriguing priest (who had, however, never managed to make any headway among the Jesuits of Besançon) had, since the morning, established himself in the street outside the prison gates. It was raining a great deal, and the man out there was pretending to play the martyr. Julien was in a weak mood, and this piece of stupidity annoyed him deeply.
In the morning, he had already refused this priest’s visit, but the man had taken it into his head to confess Julien, and to win a name for himself among the young women of Besançon by all the confidences which he would pretend to have received from him.
He declared in a loud voice that he would pass the day and the night by the prison gates. “God has sent me to touch the heart of this apostate ...” and the lower classes, who are always curious to see a scene, began to make a crowd.
“Yes, my brothers,” he said to them, “I will pass the day here and the night, as well as all the days and all the nights which will follow. The Holy Ghost has spoken to me. I am commissioned from above; I am the man who must save the soul of young Sorel. Do you join in my prayers, etc.”
Julien had a horror of scandal, and of anything which could attract attention to him. He thought of seizing the opportunity of escaping from the world incognito; but he had some hope of seeing madame de Rênal again, and he was desperately in love.
The prison gates were situated in one of the most populous streets. His soul was tortured by the idea of this filthy priest attracting a crowd and creating a scandal—“and doubtless he is repeating my name at every single minute!” This moment was more painful than death.
He called the turnkey who was devoted to him, and sent him two or three times at intervals of one hour to see if the priest was still by the prison gates.
“Monsieur,” said the turnkey to him on each occasion, “he is on both his knees in the mud; he is praying at the top of his voice, and saying litanies for your soul.
“The impudent fellow,” thought Julien. At this moment he actually heard a dull buzz. It was the responses of the people to the litanies. His patience was strained to the utmost when he saw the turnkey himself move his lips while he repeated the Latin words.
“They are beginning to say,” added the turnkey, “that you must have a very hardened heart to refuse the help of this holy man.”