His thoughts are too much given to earthly things, and I have no more faith in him than in the rest of them." So he shut himself up again in his solitude, with one more illusion destroyed.

He asked himself, and his heart became heavy at the thought, whether, in course of time, he also would undergo this stultification, this moral depression, which ends by lowering us to the level of the low-minded people among whom we live.
Among all the persons he had met since his arrival at Vivey, only one had impressed him as being sympathetic and attractive: Reine Vincart--and even her energy was directed toward matters that Julien looked upon as secondary.

And besides, Reine was a woman, and he was afraid of women.

He believed with Ecclesiastes the preacher, that "they are more bitter than death...

and whoso pleaseth God shall escape from them." He had therefore no other refuge but in his books or his own sullen reflections, and, consequently, his old enemy, hypochondria, again made him its prey.
Toward the beginning of January, the snow in the valley had somewhat melted, and a light frost made access to the woods possible.