distance. "Speak French, and repeat my Lord's own words without either adding or subtracting anything," said the ex-Director of the seminary in his harsh tone, and with his particularly inelegant manners, as Julien got slightly confused in translating into Latin the speeches of the Bishop.
"What a strange present on the part of the Bishop to a young seminarist," he ventured to say as he turned over the leaves of the superb Tacitus, whose gilt edges seemed to horrify him. Two o'clock was already striking when he allowed his favourite pupil to retire to his room after an extremely detailed account.
"Leave me the first volume of your Tacitus," he said to him. "Where is my Lord Bishop's compliment? This Latin line will serve as your lightning-conductor in this house after my departure."
Erit tibi, fill mi, successor meus tanquam leo querens quern devoret. (For my successor will be to you, my son, like a ravening lion seeking someone to devour).
The following morning Julien noticed a certain strangeness in the manner in which his comrades spoke to him. It only made him more reserved. "This," he thought, "is the result of M. Pirard's resignation. It is known over the whole house, and I pass for his favourite. There ought logically to be an insult in their demeanour." But he could not detect it. On the contrary, there was an absence of hate in the eyes of all those he met along the corridors. "What is the meaning of this? It is doubtless a trap. Let us play a wary game."
Finally the little seminarist said to him with a laugh,
"Cornelii Taciti opera omnia (complete works of Taciti)."
On hearing these words, they all congratulated Julien enviously, not only on the magnificent present which he had received from my lord, but also on the two hours' conversation with which he had been honoured. They knew even its minutest details. From that moment envy ceased completely. They courted him basely. The abbé Castanede, who had manifested towards him the most extreme insolence the very day before, came and took his arm and invited him to breakfast.
By some fatality in Julien's character, while the insolence of hese coarse creatures had occasioned him great pain, their baseness afforded him disgust, but no pleasure.
