“Oh my country, how barbarous you still are!” exclaimed Julien, beside himself with anger. And he continued his train of thought aloud, without giving a thought to the turn-key’s presence.
“The man wants an article in the paper about him, and that’s a way in which he will certainly get it.
“Oh you cursed provincials! At Paris I should not be subjected to all these annoyances. There they are more skilled in their charlatanism.
“Show in the holy priest,” he said at last to the turnkey, and great streams of sweat flowed down his forehead. The turnkey made the sign of the cross and went out rejoicing.
The holy priest turned out to be very ugly, he was even dirtier than he was ugly. The cold rain intensified the obscurity and dampness of the cell. The priest wanted to embrace Julien, and began to wax pathetic as he spoke to him. The basest hypocrisy was only too palpable; Julien had never been so angry in his whole life.
A quarter of an hour after the priest had come in Julien felt an absolute coward. Death appeared horrible to him for the first time. He began to think about the state of decomposition which his body would be in two days after the execution, etc., etc.
He was on the point of betraying himself by some sign of weakness or throwing himself on the priest and strangling him with his chain, when it occurred to him to beg the holy man to go and say a good forty franc mass for him on that very day.
It was twelve o’clock, so the priest took himself off.