growth against the dark background of the woods; all these fairylike effects of summer suggested only prosaic and misanthropic reflections in Julien’s mind.  He thought of the tricks, the envy and hatred that the possession of these little squares of ground brought forth among their rapacious owners.  The prolific exuberance of forest vegetation was an exemplification of the fierce and destructive activity of the blind forces of Nature.  All the earth was a hateful theatre for the continual enactment of bloody and monotonous dramas; the worm consuming the plant; the bird mangling the insect, the deer fighting among themselves, and man, in his turn, pursuing all kinds of game.  He identified nature with woman, both possessing in his eyes an equally deceiving appearance, the same beguiling beauty, and the same spirit of ambuscade and perfidy.  The people around him inspired him only with mistrust and suspicion.  In every peasant he met he recognized an enemy, prepared to cheat him with wheedling words and hypocritical lamentations.  Although during the few months he had experienced the delightful influence of Reine Vincart, he had been drawn out of his former prejudices, and had imagined he was rising above the littleness of every-day worries; he now fell back into hard reality; his feet were again embedded in the muddy ground of village politics, and consequently village life was a burden to him.

He never went out, fearing to meet Reine Vincart.  He fancied that the sight of her might aggravate the malady from which he suffered and for which he eagerly sought a remedy.

But, notwithstanding the cloistered retirement to which he had condemned himself, his wound remained open.  Instead of solitude having a healing effect, it seemed to make his sufferings greater.  When, in the evening, as he sat moodily at his window, he would hear Claudet whistle to his dog, and hurry off in the direction of La Thuiliere, he would say to himself:  “He is going to keep an appointment with Reine.”  Then a feeling of blind rage would overpower him; he felt tempted to leave his room and follow his rival secretly—­a moment afterward he would be ashamed of his meanness.  Was it not enough that he had once, although involuntarily, played the degrading part of a spy!  What satisfaction could he derive from such a course?  Would he be much benefited when he returned home with rage in his heart and senses, after watching a love-scene between the young pair?  This consideration kept him in his seat, but his imagination ran riot instead; it went galloping at the heels of Claudet, and accompanied him down the winding paths, moistened by the evening dew.  As the moon rose above the trees, illuminating the foliage with her mild bluish rays, he pictured to himself the meeting of the two lovers on the flowery turf bathed in the silvery light.  His brain seemed on fire.  He saw Reine in white advancing like a moonbeam, and Claudet passing his arm around the yielding waist of the maiden.  He tried to substitute himself in idea, and to imagine the delight of the first words of welcome, and the ecstasy of the prolonged embrace.  A shiver ran through his whole body; a sharp pain transfixed his heart; his throat closed convulsively; half fainting, he leaned against the window-frame, his eyes closed, his ears stopped, to shut out all sights or sounds, longing only for oblivion and complete torpor of body and mind.