In Paris, Julien's relationship with Mme. de Renal would have been simplified very quickly; but in Paris, love is the child of fiction. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found their position clarified for them in three or four novels, even in the couplets sung at the Gymnase.* The novels would have outlined the parts they should play, have shown the model to be imitated; and sooner or later, vanity would have compelled Julien to imitate this model, although with no pleasure and perhaps boggling.

In a small town in the Aveyron or in the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the torrid climate. But as matters stand, under our duller kies, a poor young man, ambitious only because his refined nature requires some of the pleasures money can buy, is coming into daily contact with a thirty-year-old woman, one who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and who does not take the novels for a model of conduct in any respect. Things go slowly; things happen gradually in the provinces; people are more natural there.