The World, or What the Rich LackI am alone on earth, no one deigns to think of me. All the people Isee making their fortunes have a brazenness and a hard-heartedness which I do not sense in myself. Ah! I shall soon be dead,either of hunger, or from the sorrow of finding men so hard.

　　YOUNGHe made haste to brush his coat and to go downstairs; he was late. Anunder-master rebuked him severely; instead of seeking to excuse himself, Julien crossed his arms on his breast:

　　'Peccavi, pater optime (I have sinned, I confess my fault, O Father),' hesaid with a contrite air.

　　This was a most successful beginning. The sharp wits among the seminarists saw that they had to deal with a man who was not new to thegame. The recreation hour came, Julien saw himself the object of generalcuriosity. But they found in him merely reserve and silence. Followingthe maxims that he had laid down for himself, he regarded his threehundred and twenty-one comrades as so many enemies; the most dangerous of all in his eyes was the abbe Pirard.

　　A few days later, Julien had to choose a confessor, he was furnishedwith a list.

　　'Eh; Great God, for what do they take me?' he said to himself. 'Do theysuppose I can't take a hint?' And he chose the abbe Pirard.

　　Though he did not suspect it, this step was decisive. A little seminarist,still quite a boy, and a native of Verrieres, who, from the first day, haddeclared himself his friend, informed him that if he had chosen M.

　　Castanede, the vice-principal of the Seminary, he would perhaps haveshown greater prudence.

　　 'The abbe Castanede is the enemy of M. Pirard, who is suspected ofJansenism'; the little seminarist added, whispering this information in hisear.

　　All the first steps taken by our hero who fancied himself so prudentwere, like his choice of a confessor, foolish in the extreme. Led astray byall the presumption of an imaginative man, he mistook his intentions forfacts, and thought himself a consummate hypocrite. His folly went thelength of his reproaching himself for his successes in this art of the weak.

　　'Alas! It is my sole weapon! In another epoch, it would have been byspeaking actions in the face of the enemy that I should have earned mybread.'

　　Julien, satisfied with his own conduct, looked around him; he foundeverywhere an appearance of the purest virtue.

　　Nine or ten of the seminarists lived in the odour of sanctity, and hadvisions like Saint Teresa and Saint Francis, when he received the Stigmata upon Monte Verna, in the Apennines. But this was a great secretwhich their friends kept to themselves. These poor young visionarieswere almost always in the infirmary. Some hundred others combinedwith a robust faith an unwearying application. They worked until theymade themselves ill, but without learning much. Two or three distinguished themselves by real talent, and, among these, one named Chazel;but Julien felt himself repelled by them, and they by him.

　　The rest of the three hundred and twenty-one seminarists were composed entirely of coarse creatures who were by no means certain thatthey understood the Latin words which they repeated all day long. Almost all of them were the sons of peasants, and preferred to earn theirbread by reciting a few Latin words rather than by tilling the soil. It wasafter making this discovery, in the first few days, that Julien promisedhimself a rapid success. 'In every service, there is need of intelligentpeople, for after all there is work to be done,' he told himself. 'Under Napoleon, I should have been a serjeant; among these future cures, I shallbe a Vicar-General.

　　'All these poor devils,' he added, 'labourers from the cradle, havelived, until they came here, upon skim milk and black bread. In their cottages, they tasted meat only five or six times in a year. Like the Romansoldiers who found active service a holiday, these boorish peasants areenchanted by the luxuries of the Seminary.'

　　Julien never read anything in their lack-lustre eyes beyond the satisfaction of a bodily need after dinner, and the expectation of a bodily pleasure before the meal. Such were the people among whom he mustdistinguish himself; but what Julien did not know, what they refrainedfrom telling him, was that to be at the top of the various classes ofdogma, church history, etc., etc., which were studied in the Seminary,was nothing more in their eyes than a sin of vainglory. Since Voltaire,since Two Chamber government, which is at bottom only distrust andprivate judgment, and instils in the hearts of the people that fatal habit ofwant of confidence, the Church of France seems to have realised that booksare its true enemies. It is heartfelt submission that is everything in itseyes. Success in studies, even in sacred studies, is suspect, and with goodreason. What is to prevent the superior man from going over to the otherside, like Sieyes or Gregoire? The trembling Church clings to the Pope asto her sole chance of salvation. The Pope alone can attempt to paralyseprivate judgment, and, by the pious pomps of the ceremonies of hiscourt, make an impression upon the sick and listless minds of men andwomen of the world.

　　Having half mastered these several truths, which however all thewords uttered in a Seminary tend to deny, Julien fell into a deep melancholy. He worked hard, and rapidly succeeded in learning things ofgreat value to a priest, entirely false in his eyes, and in which he took nointerest. He imagined that there was nothing else for him to do.

　　'Am I then forgotten by all the world?' he wondered. He little knewthat M. Pirard had received and had flung in the fire several letters bearing the Dijon postmark, letters in which, despite the most conventionalstyle and language, the most intense passion was apparent. Keen remorse seemed to be doing battle with this love. 'So much the better,'

　　thought the abbe Pirard, 'at least it is not an irreligious woman that thisyoung man has loved.'

　　One day, the abbe Pirard opened a letter which seemed to be half obliterated by tears, it was an eternal farewell. 'At last,' the writer informedJulien, 'heaven has granted me the grace of hating not the author of myfault, he will always be dearer to me than anything in the world, but myfault itself. The sacrifice is made, my friend. It is not without tears, as yousee. The salvation of the beings to whom I am bound, and whom youhave loved so dearly, has prevailed. A just but terrible God can no longerwreak vengeance upon them for their mother's crimes. Farewell, Julien,be just towards men.'

　　This ending to the letter was almost entirely illegible. The writer gavean address at Dijon, and at the same time hoped that Julien would never reply, or that at least he would confine himself to language which a woman restored to the ways of virtue could read without blushing.

　　Julien's melancholy, assisted by the indifferent food supplied to theSeminary by the contractor for dinners at 83 centimes a head, was beginning to have an effect on his health, when one morning Fouque suddenlyappeared in his room.

　　'At last I have found my way in. I have come five times to Besancon,honour bound, to see you. Always a barred door. I posted someone atthe gate of the Seminary; why the devil do you never come out?'

　　'It is a test which I have set myself.'

　　'I find you greatly altered. At last I see you again. Two good five francpieces have just taught me that I was no better than a fool not to haveoffered them on my first visit.'

　　The conversation between the friends was endless. Julien changed col-our when Fouque said to him:

　　'Have you heard, by the way? The mother of your pupils has becomemost devoutly religious.'

　　And he spoke with that detached air which makes so singular an impression on the passionate soul whose dearest interests the speaker unconsciously destroys.

　　'Yes, my friend, the most exalted strain of piety. They say that shemakes pilgrimages. But, to the eternal shame of the abbe Maslon, whohas been spying so long upon that poor M. Chelan, Madame de Renalwill have nothing to do with him. She goes to confession at Dijon orBesancon.'

　　'She comes to Besancon!' said Julien, his brow flushing.

　　'Quite often,' replied Fouque with a questioning air.

　　'Have you any Constitutionnels on you?'

　　'What's that you say?' replied Fouque.

　　'I ask you if you have any Constitutionnels?' Julien repeated, in a calmertone. 'They are sold here for thirty sous a copy.'

　　'What! Liberals even in the Seminary!' cried Fouque. 'UnhappyFrance!' he went on, copying the hypocritical tone and meek accents ofthe abbe Maslon.

　　This visit would have made a profound impression upon our hero,had not, the very next day, a remark addressed to him by that little seminarist from Verrieres who seemed such a boy, led him to make an important discovery. Ever since he had been in the Seminary, Julien'sconduct had been nothing but a succession of false steps. He laughed bitterly at himself.

　　As a matter of fact, the important actions of his life were wiselyordered; but he paid no attention to details, and the clever people in aSeminary look only at details. And so he passed already among his fellow students as a free thinker. He had been betrayed by any number oftrifling actions.

　　In their eyes he was convicted of this appalling vice, he thought, hejudged for himself, instead of blindly following authority and example. Theabbe Pirard had been of no assistance to him; he had not once uttered aword to him apart from the tribunal of penitence, and even there helistened rather than spoke. It would have been very different had Julienchosen the abbe Castanede.

　　The moment that Julien became aware of his own folly, his interest revived. He wished to know the whole extent of the harm, and, with thisobject, emerged a little from that haughty and obstinate silence withwhich he repulsed his fellows. It was then that they took their revengeon him. His advances were received with a contempt which went thelength of derision. He realised that since his entering the Seminary, notan hour had passed, especially during recreation, that had not bornesome consequence for or against him, had not increased the number ofhis enemies, or won him the good will of some seminarist who wasgenuinely virtuous or a trifle less boorish than the rest. The damage to berepaired was immense, the task one of great difficulty. ThenceforwardJulien's attention was constantly on the alert; it was a case of portrayinghimself in an entirely new character.

　　The control of his eyes, for instance, gave him a great deal of trouble. Itis not without reason that in such places they are kept lowered. 'Whatwas............