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All of a sudden the dreadful word "adultress" occurred to her. Everything disgusting that the vilest lewdness might impart to the idea of sensual love came crowding into her imagination. Ideas of this sort were doing their worst to tarnish the tender and divine image she had made of Julien and of h…

"What! can this be love!" she kept asking herself, "could I have fallen in love! I, a married woman, in love! But," she said to herself, "I have never felt this somber passion for my husband that makes it impossible for me to take my mind off Julien. Really, he's nothing but a child full of respect…

[...] As for Mme. de Renal, her hand in Julien's, she hadn't a thought in the world; she was letting herself live. For her the hours they spent beneath that great lime tree, which, as local tradition would have it, had been planted by Charles the Bold,* were a time of bliss. She listened delightedl…

The dinner bell rang; Mme. de Renal blushed a great deal when she heard Julien bringing back the children. bit more resourceful now that she was in love, she complained of a terrible headache to explain away her flushed face.

"Just like a woman," M. de Renal answered her with his big laugh. "Som…

Mme. de Renal intended to do some work but fell into a deep sleep; when she woke, she was not so alarmed as she should have been. She was too happy to think ill of anything. Artless and innocent, this good provincial woman had never tortured her soul with trying to squeeze a bit of sensibility from…