guarantee not to show some emotion. This dense, squalid cell gives me fits of fever in which I do not recognise mystlf, but fear? no! I shall not be seen to flinch."
He had made his arrangements in advance for Fouqué to take Mathilde and madame de Rênal away on the morning of his last day.
"Drive them away in the same carriage," he had said. "Do you see that the posthorses do not leave off galloping. They will either fall into each other's arms, or manifest towards each other a mortal hatred. In either case the poor women will have something to distract them a little from their awful grief."
Julien had made madame de Rênal swear that she would live to look after Mathilde's son.
"Who knows? Perhaps we have still some sensations after our death," he had said one day to Fouqué. "I should like to rest, for rest is the right word, in that little grotto in the great mountain which dominates Verrières. Many a time, as I have told you, I have spent the night alone in that grotto, and as my gaze would plunge far and wide over the richest provinces of France, ambition would inflame my heart. In those days it was my passion.… Anyway, I hold that grotto dear, and one cannot dispute that its situation might well arouse the desires of the philosopher's soul… Well, you know! those good priests of Besançon will make money out of everything. If you know how to manage it, they will sell you my mortal remains."
Fouqué succeeded in this melancholy business. He was passing the night alone in his room by his friend's body when, to his great surprise, he saw Mathilde come in. A few hours before he had left her ten leagues from Besançon. Her face and eyes looked distraught.
"I want to see him," she said.
Fouqué had not the courage either to speak or get up. He pointed with his finger to a big blue cloak on the floor; there was wrapped in it all that remained of Julien.
She threw herself on her knees. The memory of Boniface de la Mole, and of Marguerite of Navarre gave her, no doubt, a superhuman courage. Her trembling hands undid the cloak. Fouqué turned away his eyes.
He heard Mathilde walking feverishly about the room.
