CHAPTER XXXI
HE PLEASURES OF THE COUNTRY
O rus quando ego te aspiciam?—Horace
"You've no doubt come to wait for the Paris mail," Monsieur, said the host of an inn where he had stopped to breakfast.
"To-day or to-morrow, it matters little," said Julien.
The mail arrived while he was still posing as indifferent. There were two free places.
"Why! it's you my poor Falcoz," said the traveller who was coming from the Geneva side to the one who was getting in at the same time as Julien.
"I thought you were settled in the outskirts of Lyons," said Falcoz, "in a delicious valley near the Rhne."
"Nicely settled! I am running away."
"What! you are running away? you Saint Giraud! Have you, who look so virtuous, committed some crime?" said Falcoz with a smile.
"On my faith it comes to the same thing. I am running away from the abominable life which one leads in the provinces. I like the freshness of the woods and the country tranquillity, as you know. You have often accused me of being romantic. I don't want to hear politics talked as long as I live, and politics are hounding me out."
"But what party do you belong to?"
"To none and that's what ruins me. That's all there is to be said about my political life—I like music and painting. A good book is an event for me. I am going to be forty-four. How much longer have I got to live? Fifteen—twenty—thirty years at the outside. Well, I want the ministers in thirty years' time to be a little cleverer than those of to-day but quite as honest. The history of England serves as a mirror for our
