The Red and the Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

elsewhere, and whom could they have come from, if not from Valenod. It was in vain that M. de Rênal pressed Sorel to clinch the matter then and there. The old peasant, astute man that he was, stubbornly refused to do so. He wanted, he said, to consult his son, as if in the provinces, forsooth, a rich father consulted a penniless son for any other reason than as a mere matter of form.
    A water saw-mill consists of a shed by the side of a stream. The roof is supported by a framework resting on four large timber pillars. A saw can be seen going up and down at a height of eight to ten feet in the middle of the shed, while a piece of wood is propelled against this saw by a very simple mechanism. It is a wheel whose motive-power is supplied by the stream, which sets in motion this double piece of mechanism, the mechanism of the saw which goes up and down, and the mechanism which gently pushes the piece of wood towards the saw, which cuts it up into planks.
    Approaching his workshop, Father Sorel called Julien in his stentorian voice; nobody answered. He only saw his giant elder sons, who, armed with heavy axes, were cutting up the pine planks which they had to carry to the saw. They were engrossed in following exactly the black mark traced on each piece of wood, from which every blow of their axes threw off enormous shavings. They did not hear their father’s voice. The latter made his way towards the shed. He entered it and looked in vain for Julien in the place where he ought to have been by the side of the saw. He saw him five or six feet higher up, sitting astride one of the rafters of the roof. Instead of watching attentively the action of the machinery, Julien was reading. Nothing was more antipathetic to old Sorel. He might possibly have forgiven Julien his puny physique, ill adapted as it was to manual labour, and different as it was from that of his elder brothers; but he hated this reading mania. He could not read himself.
    It was in vain that he called Julien two or three times. It was the young man’s concentration on his book, rather than the din made by the saw, which prevented him from hearing his father’s terrible voice. At last the latter, in spite of his age, jumped nimbly on to the tree that was undergoing the action of the saw, and from there on to the cross-bar that supported the roof. A violent blow made the book which Julien held, go flying into the stream; a second blow on the head, equally violent, which took the form of a box on the ears, made him lose his balance. He was on the point of falling twelve or fifteen feet lower down into the middle of the levers of the running machinery which would have cut him to pieces, but his father caught him as he fell, in his left hand.
    â€œSo that’s it, is it, lazy bones! always going to read your damned books are you, when you’re keeping watch on the saw? You read them in the evening if you want to, when you go to play the fool at the curé’s, that’s the proper time.”
    Although stunned by the force of the blow and bleeding profusely, Julien went back to his official post by the side of the saw. He had tears in his eyes, less by reason of the physical pain than on account of the loss of his beloved book.
    â€œGet down, you beast, when I am talking to you,” the noise of the machinery prevented Julien from hearing this order. His father, who had gone down did not wish to give himself the trouble of climbing up on to the machinery again, and went to fetch a long fork used for bringing down nuts, with which he struck him on the shoulder. Julien had scarcely reached the ground, when old Sorel chased him roughly in front of him and pushed him roughly towards the house. “God knows what he is going to do with me,” said the young man to himself. As he passed, he looked sorrowfully into the stream into which his book had fallen, it was the one that he held dearest of all, the Memorial of St. Helena.
    He had purple