Country PleasuresO rus, quando ego te aspiciam!

　　VIRGIL [HORACE in earlier edition]

　　'The gentleman is waiting, surely, for the mail-coach for Paris?' he wasasked by the landlord of an inn at which he stopped to break his fast.

　　'Today or tomorrow, it is all the same to me,' said Julien.

　　The coach arrived while he was feigning indifference. There were twoplaces vacant.

　　'What! It is you, my poor Falcoz,' said the traveller, who had comefrom the direction of Geneva to him who now entered the coach withJulien.

　　'I thought you had settled in the neighbourhood of Lyons,' said Falcoz,'in a charming valley by the Rhone.'

　　'Settled, indeed! I am running away.'

　　'What! Running away? You, Saint-Giraud! With that honest face ofyours, have you committed a crime?' said Falcoz, with a laugh.

　　'Upon my soul, not far off it. I am running away from the abominablelife one leads in the country. I love the shade of the woods and the quietof the fields, as you know; you have often accused me of being romantic.

　　The one thing I never wished to hear mentioned was politics, and politics pursue me everywhere.'

　　'But to what party do you belong?'

　　'To none, and that is what has been fatal to me. These are all my politics: I enjoy music, and painting; a good book is an event in my life; I shallsoon be four and forty. How many years have I to live? Fifteen, twenty,thirty, perhaps, at the most. Very well; I hold that in thirty years fromnow, our Ministers will be a little more able, but otherwise just as goodfellows as we have today. The history of England serves as a mirror to show me our future. There will always be a King who seeks to extend hisprerogative; the ambition to enter Parliament, the glory and the hundreds of thousands of francs amassed by Mirabeau will always keep ourwealthy provincials awake at night: they will call that being Liberal andloving the people. The desire to become a Peer or a Gentleman in Waiting will always possess the Ultras. On board the Ship of State, everyonewill wish to be at the helm, for the post is well paid. Will there never be alittle corner anywhere for the mere passenger?'

　　'Why, of course, and a very pleasant one, too, for a man of your peaceful nature. Is it the last election that is driving you from your district?'

　　'My trouble dates from farther back. I was, four years ago, forty yearsold, and had five hundred thousand francs, I am four years older now,and have probably fifty thousand less, which I shall lose by the sale ofmy place, Monfleury, by the Rhone, a superb position.

　　'In Paris, I was tired of that perpetual play-acting, to which one is driven by what you call nineteenth-century civilisation. I felt a longing forhuman fellowship and simplicity. I bought a piece of land in the mountains by the Rhone, the most beautiful spot in the world.

　　'The vicar of the village and the neighbouring squires made much ofme for the first six months; I had them to dine; I had left Paris, I toldthem, so as never to mention or to hear of politics again. You see, I subscribe to no newspaper. The fewer letters the postman brings me, thehappier I am.

　　'This was not what the vicar wanted; presently I was besieged withendless indiscreet requests, intrigues, and so forth. I wished to give twoor three hundred francs every year to the poor, they pestered me forthem on behalf of pious associations; Saint Joseph, Our Lady, and soforth. I refused: then I came in for endless insults. I was foolish enoughto show annoyance. I could no longer leave the house in the morning togo and enjoy the beauty of our mountain scenery, without meeting somebore who would interrupt my thoughts with an unpleasant reminder ofmy fellow men and their evil ways. In the Rogationtide processions, forinstance, the chanting in which I like (it is probably a Greek melody),they no longer bless my fields, because, the vicar says, they belong to anunbeliever. A pious old peasant woman's cow dies, she says that it is because there is a pond close by which belongs to me, the unbeliever, aphilosopher from Paris, and a week later I find all my fish floating on thewater, poisoned with lime. I am surrounded by trickery in every form.

　　The justice of the peace, an honest man, but afraid of losing his place, always decides against me. The peace of the fields is hell to me. As soonas they saw me abandoned by the vicar, head of the village Congregation,and not supported by the retired captain, head of the Liberals, they allfell upon me, even the mason who had been living upon me for a year,even the wheelwright, who tried to get away with cheating me when hemended my ploughs.

　　'In order to have some footing and to win a few at least of my lawsuits,I turned Liberal; but, as you were saying, those damned elections came,they asked me for my vote … '

　　'For a stranger?'

　　'Not a bit of it, for a man I know only too well. I refused, a fearful imprudence! From that moment, I had the Liberals on top of me as well, myposition became intolerable. I believe that if it had ever entered thevicar's head to accuse me of having murdered my servant, there wouldhave been a score of witnesses from both parties, ready to swear thatthey had seen me commit the crime.'

　　'You wish to live in the country without ministering to your neighbours' passions, without even listening to their gossip. What a mistake!'

　　'I have made amends for it now. Monfleury is for sale. I shall lose fiftythousand francs, if I must, but I am overjoyed, I am leaving that hell ofhypocrisy and malice. I am going to seek solitude and rustic peace in theone place in France where they exist, in a fourth-floor apartment, overlooking the Champs-Elysees. And yet I am just thinking whether I shallnot begin my political career, in the Roule quarter, by presenting theblessed bread in the parish church.'

　　'None of that would have happened to you under Bonaparte,' said Falcoz, his eyes shining with anger and regret.

　　'That's all very well, but why couldn't he keep going, your Bonaparte?

　　Everything that I suffer from today is his doing.'

　　Here Julien began to listen with increased attention. He had realisedfrom the first that the Bonapartist Falcoz was the early playmate of M. deRenal, repudiated by him in 1816, while the philosopher Saint-Giraudmust be a brother of that chief clerk in the Prefecture of ——, who knewhow to have municipal property knocked down to him on easy terms.

　　'And all that has been your Bonaparte's doing,' Saint-Giraud continued: 'An honest man, harmless if ever there was one, forty years old andwith five hundred thousand francs, can't settle down in the country andfind peace there. Bonaparte's priests and nobles drive him out again.'

　　 'Ah! You must not speak evil of him,' cried Falcoz, 'never has Francestood so high in the esteem of foreign nations as during the thirteenyears of his reign. In those days, everything that was done had greatnessin it.'

　　'Your Emperor, may the devil fly away with him,' went on the man offour and forty, 'was great only upon his battlefields, and when he restored our financial balance in 1801. What was the meaning of all hisconduct after that? With his chamberlains and his pomp and his receptions at the Tuileries, he simply furnished a new edition of all the stuffand nonsense of the monarchy. It was a corrected edition, it might haveserved for a century or two. The nobles and priests preferred to return tothe old edition, but they have not the iron hand that they need to bring itbefore the public.'

　　'Listen to the old printer talking!'

　　'Who is it that is turning me off my land?' went on the printer withheat. 'The priests, whom Napoleon brought back with his Concordat, instead of treating them as the State treats doctors, lawyers, astronomers,of regarding them merely as citizens, without inquiring into the trade bywhich they earn their living. Would there be these insolent gentlementoday if your Bonaparte had not created barons and counts? No, thefashion had passed. Next to the priests, it is the minor country noblesthat have annoyed me most, and forced me to turn Liberal.'

　　The discussion was endless, this theme will occupy the minds andtongues of France for the next half-century. As Saint-Giraud kept on repeating that it was impossible to live in the provinces, Julien timidlycited the example of M. de Renal.

　　'Egad, young man, you're a good one!' cried Falcoz, 'he has turnedhimself into a hammer so as not to be made the anvil, and a terrible hammer at that. But I can see him cut out by Valenod. Do you know that rascal? He's the real article. What will your M. de Renal say when he findshimself turned out of office one of these fine days, and Valenod fillinghis place?'

　　'He will be left to meditate on his crimes,' said Saint-Giraud. 'So youknow Verrieres, young man, do you? Very good! Bonaparte, whomheaven confound, made possible the reign of the Renals and Chelans,which has paved the way for the reign of the Valenods and Maslons.'

　　This talk of shady politics astonished Julien, and took his thoughtsfrom his dreams of sensual bliss.

　　 He was little impressed by the first view of Paris seen in the distance.

　　His fantastic imaginings of the future in store for him had to do battlewith the still vivid memory of the twenty-four hours which he had justspent at Verrieres. He made a vow that he would never abandon hismistress's children, but would give up everything to protect them,should the impertinences of the priests give us a Republic and lead topersecutions of the nobility.

　　What would have happened to him on the night of his arrival at Verrieres if, at the moment when he placed his ladder against Madame deRenal's bedroom window, he had found that room occupied by astranger, or by M. de Renal?

　　But also what bliss in those first few hours, when his mistress reallywished to send him away, and he pleaded his cause, seated by her sidein the darkness! A mind like Julien's is pursued by such memories for alifetime. The rest of their meeting had already merged into the firstphases of their love, fourteen months earlier.

　　Julien was awakened from his profound abstraction by the stopping ofthe carriage. They had driven into the courtyard of the posthouse in therue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 'I wish to go to La Malmaison,' he told thedriver of a passing cabriolet. 'At this time of night, Sir? What to do?'

　　'What business is it of yours? Drive on.'

　　True passion thinks only of itself. That, it seems to me, is why the passions are so absurd in Paris, where one's neighbour always insists uponone's thinking largely of him. I shall not describe Julien's transports at LaMalmaison. He wept. What! In spite of the ugly white walls set up thisyear, which divide the park in pieces? Yes, sir; for Julien, as for posterity,there was no distinction between Arcole, Saint Helena and LaMalmaison.

　　That evening, Julien hesitated for long before entering the playhouse;he had strange ideas as to that sink of iniquity.

　　An intense distrust prevented him from admiring the Paris of today,he was moved only by............