“Oh, if He did exist. Alas I should fall at His feet. I have deserved death, I should say to Him, but oh Thou great God, good God, indulgent God, give me back her whom I love!”
By this time the night was far advanced. After an hour or two of peaceful sleep, Fouqué arrived.
Julien felt strongly resolute, like a man who sees to the bottom of his soul.
[CHAPTER LXXV]
“I cannot play such a trick on that poor abbé Chas-Bernard, as to summon him,” he said to Fouqué: “it would prevent him from dining for three whole days.—But try and find some Jansenist who is a friend of M. Pirard.”
Fouqué was impatiently waiting for this suggestion. Julien acquitted himself becomingly of all the duty a man owes to provincial opinion. Thanks to M. the abbé de Frilair, and in spite of his bad choice of a confessor, Julien enjoyed in his cell the protection of the priestly congregation; with a little more diplomacy he might have managed to escape. But the bad air of the cell produced its effect, and his strength of mind diminished. But this only intensified his happiness at madame de Rênal’s return.
“My first duty is towards you, my dear,” she said as she embraced him; “I have run away from Verrières.”
Julien felt no petty vanity in his relations with her, and told her all his weaknesses. She was good and charming to him.