“My dear, you know that I abhor gossip. As for those people, I find them
very pleasant.”
She asked testily: “The wife also?”
“Why, yes; although I have barely seen her.”
The discussion gradually grew more heated, always on the same subject
for lack of others. Madame Bondel obstinately refused to say what
she had heard about these neighbors, allowing things to be understood
without saying exactly what they were. Bendel would shrug his shoulders,
grin, and exasperate his wife. She finally cried out: “Well! that
gentleman is deceived by his wife, there!”
The husband answered quietly: “I can't see how that affects the honor of
a man.”
She seemed dumfounded: “What! you don't see?--you don't see?--well,
that's too much! You don't see!--why, it's a public scandal! he is
disgraced!”
He answered: “Ah! by no means! Should a man be considered disgraced
because he is deceived, because he is betrayed, robbed? No, indeed! I'll
grant you that that may be the case for the wife, but as for him--”
She became furious, exclaiming: “For him as well as for her. They are
both in disgrace; it's a public shame.”
Bondel, very calm, asked: “First of all, is it true? Who can assert such
a thing as long as no one has been caught in the act?”
Madame Bondel was growing uneasy; she snapped: “What? Who can assert
it? Why, everybody! everybody! it's as clear as the nose on your face.
Everybody knows it and is talking about it. There is not the slightest
doubt.”
He was grinning: “For a long time people thought that the sun revolved
around the earth. This man loves his wife and speaks of her tenderly and
reverently. This whole business is nothing but lies!”
Stamping her foot, she stammered: “Do you think that that fool, that
idiot, knows anything about it?”
Bondel did not grow angry; he was reasoning clearly: “Excuse me. This
gentleman is no fool. He seemed to me, on the contrary, to be very
intelligent and shrewd; and you can't make me believe that a man with
brains doesn't notice such a thing in his own house, when the neighbors,
who are not there, are ignorant of no detail of this liaison--for I'll
warrant that they know everything.”
Madame Bondel had a fit of angry mirth, which irritated her husband's
nerves. She laughed: “Ha! ha! ha! they're all the same! There's not a
man alive who could discover a thing like that unless his nose was stuck
into it!”
The discussion was wandering to other topics now. She was exclaiming
over the blindness of deceived husbands, a thing which he doubted and
which she affirmed with such airs of personal contempt that he finally
grew angry. Then the discussion became an angry quarrel, where she took
the side of the women and he defended the men. He had the conceit to
declare: “Well, I swear that if I had ever been deceived, I should have
noticed it, and immediately, too. And I should have taken away your
desire for such things in such a manner that it would have taken more
than one doctor to set you on foot again!”
Boiling with anger, she cried out to him: “You! you! why, you're as big
a fool as the others, do you hear!”
He still maintained: “I can swear to you that I am not!”
She laughed so impertinently that he felt his heart beat and a chill run
down his back. For the third time he said:
“I should have seen it!”
She rose, still laughing in the same manner. She slammed the door and
left the room, saying: “Well! if that isn't too much!”
Bondel remained alone, ill at ease. That insolent, provoking laugh
had touched him to the quick. He went outside, walked, dreamed. The
realization of the loneliness of his new life made him sad and
morbid. The neighbor, whom he had met that morning, came to him with
outstretched hands. They continued their walk together. After touching
on various subjects they came to talk of their wives. Both seemed to
have something to confide, something inexpressible, vague, about these
beings associated with their lives; their wives. The neighbor was
saying:
“Really, at times, one might think that they bear some particular
ill-will toward their husband, just because he is a husband. I love my
wife--I love her very much; I appreciate and respect her; well! there
are times when she seems to have more confidence and faith in our
friends than in me.”
Bondel immediately thought: “There is no doubt; my wife was right!”
When he left this man he began to think things over again. He felt in
his soul a strange confusion of contradictory ideas, a sort of interior
burning; that mocking, impertinent laugh kept ringing in his ears and
seemed to say: “Why; you are just the same as the others, you fool!”
That was indeed bravado, one of those pieces of impudence of which a
woman makes use when she dares everything, risks everything, to wound
and humiliate the man who has aroused her ire. This poor man must also
be one of those deceived husbands, like so many others. He had said
sadly: “There are times when she seems to have more confidence and
faith in our friends than in me.” That is how a husband formulated his
observations on the particular attentions of his wife for another man.
That was all. He had seen nothing more. He was like the rest--all the
rest!
And how strangely Bondel's own wife had laughed as she said: “You, too
--you, too.” How wild and imprudent these creatures are who can arouse
such suspicions in the heart for the sole purpose of revenge!
He ran over their whole life since their marriage, reviewed his mental
list of their acquaintances, to see whether she had ever appeared to
show more confidence in any one else than in himself. He never had
suspected any one, he was so calm, so sure of her, so confident.
But, now he thought of it, she had had a friend, an intimate friend, who
for almost a year had dined with them three times a week. Tancret, good
old Tancret, whom he, Bendel, loved as a brother and whom he continued
to see on the sly, since his wife, he did not know why, had grown angry
at the charming fellow.
He stopped to think, looking over the past with anxious eyes. Then he
grew angry at himself for harboring this shameful insinuation of the
defiant, jealous, bad ego which lives in all of us. He blamed and
accused himself when he remembered the visits and the demeanor of
this friend whom his wife had dismissed for no apparent reason. But,
suddenly, other memories returned to him, similar ruptures due to the
vindictive character of Madame Bondel, who never pardoned a slight. Then
he laughed frankly at himself for the doubts which he had nursed; and
he remembered the angry looks of his wife as he would tell her, when
he returned at night: “I saw good old Tancret, and he wished to be
remembered to you,” and he reassured himself.
She would invariably answer: “When you see that gentleman you can tell
him that I can very well dispense with his remembrances.” With what an
irritated, angry look she would say these words! How well one could feel
that she did not and would not forgive--and he had suspected her even
for a second? Such foolishness!
But why did she grow so angry? She never had given the exact reason for
this quarrel. She still bore him that grudge! Was it?--But no--no--and
Bondel declared that he was lowering himself by even thinking of such
things.
Yes, he was undoubtedly lowering himself, but he could not help thinking
of it, and he asked himself with terror if this thought which had
entered into his mind had not come to stop, if he did not carry in his
heart the seed of fearful torment. He knew himself; he was a man to
think over his doubts, as formerly he would ruminate over his commercial
operations, for days and nights, endlessly weighing the pros and the
cons.
He was already becoming excited; he was walking fast and losing his
calmness. A thought cannot be downed. It is intangible, cannot be
caught, cannot be killed.
Suddenly a plan occurred to him; it was bold, so bold that at first he
doubted whether he would carry it out.
Each time that he met Tancret, his friend would ask for news of Madame
Bondel, and Bondel would answer: “She is still a little angry.” Nothing
more. Good Lord! What a fool he had been! Perhaps!
Well, he would take the train to Paris, go to Tancret, and bring him
back with him that very evening, assuring him that his wife's mysterious
anger had disappeared. But how would Madame Bondel act? What a scene
there would be! What anger! what scandal! What of it?--that would be
revenge! When she should come face to face with him, unexpectedly, he
certainly ought to be able to read the truth in their expressions.
He immediately went to the station, bought his ticket, got into the car,
and as soon as he felt him self being carried away by the train, he felt
a fear, a kind of dizziness, at what he was going to do. In order not to
weaken, back down, and return alone, he tried not to think of the matter
any longer, to bring his mind to bear on other affairs, to do what he
had decided to do with a blind resolution; and he began to hum tunes
from operettas and music halls until he reached Paris.
As soon as he found himself walking along the streets that led to
Tancret's, he felt like stopping, He paused in front of several shops,
noticed the prices of certain objects, was interested in new things,
felt like taking a glass of beer, which was not his usual custom; and as
he approached his friend's dwelling he ardently hoped not meet him. But
Tancret was at home, alone, reading. He jumped up in surprise, crying:
“Ah! Bondel! what luck!”
Bondel, embarrassed, answered: “Yes, my dear fellow, I happened to be in
Paris, and I thought I'd drop in and shake hands with you.”
“That's very nice, very nice! The more so that for some time you have
not favored me with your presence very often.”
“Well, you see--even against one's will, one is often influenced
by surrounding conditions, and as my wife seemed to bear you some
ill-will--”
“Jove! 'seemed'--she did better than that, since she showed me the
door.”
“What was the reason? I never heard it.”
“Oh! nothing at all--a bit of foolishness--a discussion in which we did
not both agree.”
“But what was the subject of this discussion?”
“A lady of my acquaintance, whom you may perhaps know by name, Madame
Boutin.”
“Ah! really. Well, I think that my wife has forgotten her grudge, for
this very morning she spoke to me of you in very pleasant terms.”
Tancret started and seemed so dumfounded that for a few minutes he
could find nothing to say. Then he asked: “She spoke of me--in pleasant
terms?”
“Yes.”
“You are sure?”
“Of course I am. I am not dreaming.”
“And then?”
“And then--as I was coming to Paris I thought that I would please you by
coming to tell you the good news.”
“Why, yes--why, yes--”
Bondel appeared to hesitate; then, after a short pause, he added: “I
even had an idea.”
“What is it?”
“To take you back home with me to dinner.”
Tancret, who was naturally prudent, seemed a little worried by this
proposition, and he asked: “Oh! really--is it possible? Are we not
exposing ourselves to--to--a scene?”
“No, no, indeed!”
“Because, you know, Madame Bendel bears malice for a long time.”
“Yes, but I can assure you that she no longer bears you any ill--will.
I am even convinced that it will be a great pleasure for her to see you
thus, unexpectedly.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really!”
“Well, then! let us go along. I am delighted. You see, this
misunderstanding was very unpleasant for me.”
They set out together toward the Saint-Lazare station, arm in arm.
They made the trip in silence. Both seemed absorbed in deep meditation.
Seated in the car, one opposite the other, they looked at each other
without speaking, each observing that the other was pale.
Then they left the train and once more linked arms as if to unite
against some common danger. After a walk of a few minutes they stopped,
a little out of breath, before Bondel's house. Bondel ushered his friend
into the parlor, called the servant, and asked: “Is madame at home?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Please ask her to come down at once.”
They dropped into two armchairs and waited. Both were filled with the
same longing to escape before the appearance of the much-feared person.
A well-known, heavy tread could be heard descending the stairs. A hand
moved the knob, and both men watched the brass handle turn. Then the
door opened wide, and Madame Bondel stopped and looked to see who was
there before she entered. She looked, blushed, trembled, retreated a
step, then stood motionless, her cheeks aflame and her hands resting
against the sides of the door frame.
Tancret, as pale as if about to faint, had arisen, letting fall his hat,
which rolled along the floor. He stammered out: “Mon Dieu--madame--it is
I--I thought--I ventured--I was so sorry--”
As she did not answer, he continued: “Will you forgive me?”
Then, quickly, carried away by some impulse, she walked toward him with
her hands outstretched; and when he had taken, pressed, and held these
two hands, she said, in a trembling, weak little voice, which was new to
her husband:
“Ah! my dear friend--how happy I am!”
And Bondel, who was watching them, felt an icy chill run over him, as if
he had been dipped in a cold bath.