First Experience of LifeThe present moment, by God! is the ark of the Lord. Woe betidethe man who lays his hand upon it.

　　DIDEROTThe reader will kindly excuse our giving but few clear and precise details of this epoch in Julien's life. Not that we lack them, far from it; butperhaps the life he led in the Seminary is too black for the modest colouring which we have sought to preserve in these pages. People who havebeen made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of themwithout a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to befound in reading a story.

　　Julien met with little success in his attempts at hypocrisy in action; hepassed through moments of disgust and even of complete discouragement. He was utterly unsuccessful, and that moreover in a vile career.

　　The slightest help from without would have sufficed to restore his morale, the difficulty to be overcome was not great; but he was alone, aslonely as a vessel abandoned in mid-ocean. 'And if I should succeed,' hesaid to himself; 'to have to spend my whole life in such evil company!

　　Gluttons who think of nothing but the ham omelette they are going todevour at dinner, or men like the abbe Castanede, to whom no crime istoo black! They will rise to power; but at what a price, great God!

　　'Man's will is powerful, I see it written everywhere; but is it sufficiently so to overcome such repulsion? The task of great men has alwaysbeen easy; however terrible was their danger, it was beautiful in theireyes; and who but myself can realise the ugliness of all that surroundsme?'

　　This was the most trying moment in his life. It was so easy for him toenlist in one of the fine regiments that were stationed at Besancon! Hemight become a teacher of Latin; he wanted so little to keep himself alive! But then, no career, no future for his imagination: it was a livingdeath. Here is a detailed account of one of his wretched days.

　　'My presumption has so often flattered itself upon my being differentfrom the other young peasants! Well, I have lived long enough to seethat difference breeds hatred,' he said to himself one morning. This greattruth had just been revealed to him by one of his most annoying failures.

　　He had laboured for a week to make himself agreeable to a student wholived in the odour of sanctity. He was walking with him in the courtyard,listening submissively to idiocies that sent him to sleep as he walked.

　　Suddenly a storm broke, the thunder growled, and the saintly studentexclaimed, thrusting him rudely away:

　　'Listen, each for himself in this world, I have no wish to be struck bylightning: God may blast you as an infidel, another Voltaire.'

　　His teeth clenched with rage and his eyes opened towards the sky furrowed by streaks of lightning: 'I should deserve to be submerged, were Ito let myself sleep during the storm!' cried Julien. 'Let us attempt the conquest of some other drudge.'

　　The bell rang for the abbe Castanede's class of sacred history.

　　These young peasants who lived in such fear of the hard toil andpoverty of their fathers, were taught that day by the abbe Castanede thatthat being so terrible in their eyes, the Government, had no real or legitimate power save what was delegated to it by God's Vicar on Earth.

　　'Render yourselves worthy of the Pope's bounties by the sanctity ofyour lives, by your obedience, be like a rod in his hands,' he went on,'and you will attain to a superb position where you will be in supremecommand, under no man's control; a permanent position, of which theGovernment pays one third of the emoluments, and the faithful, rousedby your preaching, the other two thirds.'

　　On leaving his classroom, M. Castanede stopped in the courtyard.

　　'You may we............