Chapter 73 forty three

An hour later, in his deep sleep, he felt tears dripping on his hands and woke up immediately. "Hey! It's Madeline again," he thought in a daze, "she refuses to give up her claim, and wants to shake my determination with warmth." Thinking of seeing this earth-shattering scene again, he felt deeply I was so tired that I didn't bother to open my eyes.At this moment, Bai Feige took to heart the poem about his wife and running away. Suddenly I heard a sigh, which was a bit special: I opened my eyes and saw that it was Madame Renal. "Ah! I can still see you before I die, isn't it a dream?" He threw himself at her feet.

"But please forgive me, ma'am," he added hastily after regaining consciousness, "I have become a murderer in your eyes." "Sir, I'm here to beg you to file an appeal, and I know you don't want to..." She was sobbing, sobbing. "Please forgive me." "If you want me to forgive you," she stood up and threw herself into his arms, "then appeal immediately and express dissatisfaction with the death sentence." Julien kissed her again and again. "Did you come to see me every day for the past two months?" "I promise to come every day, unless my husband forbids it."

"Then I will sign it at once!" cried Julien. "Really, you forgive me! How is it possible!" He hugged her tightly in his arms, almost crazy with joy.She suddenly cried out in pain. "Oh, nothing," said Madame de Renal, "you've hurt me." "Is it the shoulder?" With tears streaming down his face, Julien leaned back a little, and pressed a fiery kiss on her hand, "Who would have expected what happened to the last side of your bedroom in Verrieres? ..." "Yes, who would have expected that I would write that terrible letter to the Marquis de La Moore? . . . "

"You know, I love you forever, and I only love you." "Really?" Madame de Renal also exclaimed joyfully.She bent over Julien, who was kneeling before her, and they wept silently for a long while without moving. At no stage in his life did Julien experience such a moment of sympathy. After a long time, when she was able to speak, Madame de Renal said: "The young Madame Michelet, or rather, the Mademoiselle Lamour, because I really believed this fantastic story at first!" "It is true only in appearance," replied Julien, "she is my wife, but not my mistress..."

The two interrupted each other's words from time to time, and it was hard for them to explain clearly what they didn't know about each other.The letter to M. de La Moore had been drawn up by the young priest who directed Madame de Renal's spiritual practice, and had her copy it. "The church taught me how much sin I have committed. I have softened a lot of the most terrible words in the letter..." Julien's joy and joy showed the extent to which he forgave her.He had never been so madly in love. "I still believe that I am religious," Madame de Renal went on in the conversation that followed, "and that I believe in God with all my heart. I also believe--and it turns out--that my crimes are horrific, but a Seeing you, even if you shoot me twice..." At this point, Julie kissed her again and again, regardless of her objections.

"Let go, let go," she went on, "I want to make it clear to you, lest I forget... When I saw you, I forgot all about my duty as a human being. Only my love for you, or Say, the word 'love' is too light. My feelings for you can be regarded as God: reverence, admiration, obedience, all mixed together... Really, I can't tell what kind of feeling you have caused me. If you say to me, "Give the jailer a knife", the crime will be committed before I think it over. Before I leave today, you explain to me so that I can understand my heart. In two months, we separated... But, can we separate?" She asked with a smile.

"I withdraw," said Julien, standing up. "If you wish to end or endanger your life by poison, knife, fire, or other means, I shall not appeal." Madame de Renal's expression changed drastically upon hearing this.The lingering tenderness has turned into an unfathomable fantasy. At the end, she said, "How about we die immediately?" "Who knows what his world is like?" Julien replied. "It may be suffering, or it may be emptiness. Can't we spend two months together happily? Two months is a lot of days. I've never felt so happy as I do right now!"

"You've never been so happy as you are at this moment?" "Never," repeated Julien cheerfully, "I say it to you as I say it to myself. The Lord will not allow me to exaggerate." "This statement is also an advice to me." She smiled shyly, a little sadly. "Forget it! You have to swear, you swear by your love for me, that you will never commit suicide, whether you use direct or indirect methods... Think about it, you have to live for my son, as soon as Mathilde gets married Kuangzenuo, the child is thrown to the servant." "I can swear on it," she said coldly, "but you have to write and sign an appeal letter yourself, and I will take it away. I will go to see the prosecutor myself."

"Be careful, this will hurt you." "Come to see me and make me the talk of the town in Besançon and in the whole of Franche-Comté," she said, grimacing. .Really, it's all for you..." Her tone was so sad that Julien hugged her with embarrassment.This is not the intoxication of love, but the supreme gratitude.For the first time, he felt the magnitude of her sacrifice. Someone must have told M. de Renal that his wife had been visiting Julien for too long.Because on the third day, Mr. Reina sent a carriage to ask her to go back to Wei Liye immediately. This cruel separation made a bad start to Lian Tian's life.Two or three hours later he was told that a well-established priest, who had not made his mark among the Jesuits in Besançon, had encamped early that morning outside the prison and stood in the street.It was raining heavily, and this man was about to die here.Julien, already in a bad mood, felt even more despondent about this folly.

This morning he had refused to see the priest, but he was determined to influence Julien, to win him a few words from the bottom of his heart, and to make a name for himself among the young women of Besançon. The priest announced loudly that he would stand day and night at the gate of the prison: "The Lord sent me to touch the heart of this apostate..." The lower classes, most of whom liked to watch the show, crowded around the priest. "Yes, brethren," said the priest to the crowd, "here I shall pass the day, and the night, and all the days and all the nights to come. The Holy Spirit has given me a mission from above: to save So Rael's young soul. Please join me in my prayers..."

What Julien hated most was making a fuss and attracting attention.He just wants to wait for the opportunity to leave the world quietly, but he still has a glimmer of hope, hoping to meet Madame de Renal again, just because he loves him so much. The gate of the prison faces a busy street.The thought of this mud-covered priest, with many booing crowds, disturbed his soul. "No doubt, he is saying my name all the time!" This scene is really sadder than death. There was a keykeeper who was very loyal to Lian.Julien called to him two or three times an hour to see if the priest was still at the prison gate. "Sir, he's on his knees in the muddy water," the keykeeper replied, "and he's praying aloud for your soul..." "Damn fellow!" thought Julien.At this time, a buzzing sound was indeed heard, because the last line of the prayer required the response of all present.The most unbearable thing was that the keykeeper moved his lips and read those broken Latin words. "There are rumors outside," the key holder added, "that you have a heart of stone, which is why you refuse the saint's salvation." Julien went mad with anger: "Ah, my country! You are still so uncivilized!" He talked to himself, regardless of whether the keykeeper was around or not. "This man wants to be in the papers, and he can get it." "Ah! Damn mainlanders! In Paris, you don't suffer from such sulking. People there are much better at deception." At the end, with sweat dripping from his brow, he said to the keykeeper, "Go and invite that saint to come in." The keykeeper made the sign of the cross, and went out happily. The holy priest was hideously ugly and covered in mud.At this time, the cold rain was pattering, making the dungeon even darker and damper.The priest wanted to hug Julien, but before he could say a few words to Julien, he was very moved.This kind of hypocrisy was so base and obvious that Julien had never been so angry. It had only been a quarter of an hour since the priest came in, and Julien had become a complete coward.For the first time, he felt the horror of death, thinking of the situation where the corpse began to rot two days after the execution... He was on the verge of showing timidity, or throwing himself on the priest and strangling him with chains, when he conceived the idea of ​​asking the saint to give him a forty-franc mass that very day. It was nearly noon before the priest withdrew from his post and left.