"Do you know the people who live in the little red cottage at the end of
the Rue du Berceau?"--Madame Bondel was out of sorts. She answered:
"Yes and no; I am acquainted with them, but I do not care to know them."
It seems that he had led a bad life, that is to say, he had squandered a
little money, which action, in a poor family, is one of the greatest
crimes. With rich people a man who amuses himself only sows his wild
oats. He is what is generally called a sport. But among needy families
a boy who forces his parents to break into the capital becomes a
good-for-nothing, a rascal, a scamp. And this distinction is just,
although the action be the same, for consequences alone determine the
seriousness of the act.
"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!
He awaited he knew not what, possessed with that vague hope which
persists in the human heart in spite of everything. He awaited in the
corner of the farmyard in the biting December wind, some mysterious aid
from Heaven or from men, without the least idea whence it was to arrive.
A number of black hens ran hither and thither, seeking their food in the
earth which supports all living things. Ever now and then they snapped
up in their beaks a grain of corn or a tiny insect; then they continued
their slow, sure search for nutriment.