and pretty Paris shoe were evidently attracting the looks of the gallant sub-prefect.
Madame de Rênal was very much afraid, and let fall her scissors, her ball of wool and her needles, so that Julien's movement could be passed for a clumsy effort, intended to prevent the fall of the scissors, which presumably he had seen slide. Fortunately, these little scissors of English steel were broken, and Madame de Rênal did not spare her regrets that Julien had not succeeded in getting nearer to her. "You noticed them falling before I did—you could have prevented it, instead, all your zealousness only succeeding in giving me a very big kick." All this took in the sub-perfect, but not Madame Derville. "That pretty boy has very silly manners," she thought. The social code of a provincial capital never forgives this kind of lapse.
Madame de Rênal found an opportunity of saying to Julien, "Be prudent, I order you."
Julien appreciated his own clumsiness. He was upset. He deliberated with himself for a long time, in order to ascertain whether or not he ought to be angry at the expression "I order you." He was silly enough to think she might have said "I order you," if it were some question concerning the children's education, but in answering my love she puts me on an equality. It is impossible to love without equality…and all his mind ran riot in making common-places on equality. He angrily repeated to himself that verse of Corneille which Madame Derville had taught him some days before.
"L'amour
Fait les égalités, et ne les cherche pas."
Julien who had never had a mistress in his whole life, but yet insisted on playing the rôle of a Don Juan, made a shocking fool of himself all day. He had only one sensible idea. Bored with himself and Madame de Rênal, he viewed with apprehension the advance of the evening when he would have to sit by her side in the darkness of the garden. He told M. de Rênal that he was going to Verrières to see the curé. He left after dinner, and only came back in the night.
At Verrières Julien found M. Chélan occupied in moving. He had just been deprived of his living; the curate Maslon
