After M. Bergeret had taken the _University Bulletin_ from the table
and gone out of the room without saying a word, M. Roux and Madame
Bergeret together emitted a long sigh of relief.
“He saw nothing,” whispered M. Roux, trying to make light of the affair.
But Madame Bergeret shook her head with an expression of anxious doubt.
For her part, what she wanted was to throw on her partner’s shoulders
the whole responsibility for any consequences that might ensue.
She felt uneasy and, above all, thwarted. She was also a prey to a
certain feeling of shame at having allowed herself, like a fool, to be
surprised by a creature who was so easily hoodwinked as M. Bergeret,
whom she despised for his credulity. Finally, she was in that state of
anxiety into which a new and unprecedented situation always throws one.
M. Roux repeated the comforting assurance which he had first made to
himself:
“I am sure he did not see us. He only looked at the table.”
And when Madame Bergeret still remained doubtful, he declared that
anyone sitting on the couch could not be seen from the doorway. Of this
Madame Bergeret tried to make sure. She went and stood in the doorway,
while M. Roux stretched himself on the sofa, to represent the surprised
lovers.
The test did not seem conclusive, and it fell next to M. Roux’s turn to
go to the door, while Madame Bergeret reconstructed their love scene.
Solemnly, coldly, and even with some show of sulkiness to each other,
they repeated this process several times. But M. Roux did not succeed
in soothing Madame Bergeret’s doubts.
At last he lost his temper and exclaimed:
“Well! if he did see us, anyway he’s a precious——.”
Here he used a word which was unfamiliar to Madame Bergeret’s ears, but
which sounded to her coarse, unseemly and abominably offensive. She was
disgusted with M. Roux for having permitted himself to use such a term.
Thinking that he would only injure Madame Bergeret more by remaining
longer in her company, M. Roux whispered a few consoling phrases in
her ear and then began to tiptoe towards the door. His natural sense
of decorum made him unwilling to risk a meeting with the kindly master
whom he had wronged. Left alone in this way, Madame Bergeret went to
her own room to think.
It did not seem to her that what had just taken place was important in
itself. In the first place, if this was the first time that she had
permitted herself to be compromised by M. Roux, it was not the first
time that she had been indiscreet with others, few in number as they
might be. Besides, an act like this may be horrible in thought, while
in actual performance it merely appears commonplace, dependent upon
circumstances and naturally innocent. In face of reality, prejudice
dies away. Madame Bergeret was not a woman carried away from her
homely, middle-class destiny by invincible forces hidden in the secret
depths of her nature. Although she possessed a certain temperament, she
was still rational and very careful of her reputation. She never sought
for adventures, and at the age of thirty-six she had only deceived M.
Bergeret three times. But these three occasions were enough to prevent
her from exaggerating her fault. She was still less disposed to do so,
since this third adventure was in essentials only a repetition of the
first two, and these had been neither painful nor pleasurable enough
to play a large part in her memory. No phantoms of remorse started
up before the matron’s large, fishy eyes. She regarded herself as an
honourable woman in the main, and only felt irritated and ashamed at
having allowed herself to be caught by a husband for whom she had the
most profound scorn. She felt this misfortune the more, because it had
come upon her in maturity, when she had arrived at the period of calm
reflection. On the two former occasions the intrigue had begun in the
same way. Usually Madame Bergeret felt much flattered whenever she made
a favourable impression on any man of position. She watched carefully
for any signs of interest they might show in her, and she never
considered them exaggerated in any way, for she believed herself to be
very alluring. Twice before the affair with M. Roux, she had allowed
things to go on up to the point where, for a woman, there is henceforth
neither physical power to put a stop to them, nor moral advantage to
be gained by so doing. The first time the intrigue had been with an
elderly man who was very experienced, by no means egotistic, and very
anxious to please her. But her pleasure in him was spoilt by the worry
which always accompanies a first lapse. The second time she took more
interest in the affair, but unfortunately her accomplice was lacking
in experience, and now M. Roux had caused her so much annoyance that
she was unable even to remember what had happened before they were
surprised. If she attempted to recall to herself their posture on the
sofa, it was only in order to guess at what M. Bergeret had been able
to deduce from it, so that she might make sure up to what point she
could still lie to him and deceive him.
She was humiliated and annoyed, and whenever she thought of her big
girls, she felt ashamed: she knew that she had made herself ridiculous.
But fear was the last feeling in her mind, for either by craft or
audacity, she felt sure she could manage this gentle, timid man, so
ignorant of the ways of the world, so far inferior to herself.
She had never lost the idea that she was immeasurably superior to M.
Bergeret. This notion inspired all her words and acts, nay, even her
silence. She suffered from the pride of race, for she was a Pouilly,
the daughter of Pouilly, the University Inspector, the niece of Pouilly
of the Dictionary, the great-granddaughter of a Pouilly who, in 1811,
composed _la Mythologie des Demoiselles_ and _l’Abeille des Dames_. She
had been encouraged by her father in this sentiment of family pride.
What was a Bergeret by the side of a Pouilly? She had, therefore, no
misgivings as to the result of the struggle which she foresaw, and she
awaited her husband’s return with an attitude of boldness dashed with
cunning. But when, at lunch time, she heard him going downstairs, a
shade of anxiety crept over her mind. When he was out of her sight,
this husband of hers disquieted her: he became mysterious, almost
formidable. She wore out her nerves in imagining what he would say to
her and in preparing different deceitful or defiant answers, according
to the circumstances. She strained and stiffened her courage, in order
to repel attack. She pictured to herself pitiable attitudes and threats
of suicide followed by a scene of reconciliation. By the time evening
came, she was thoroughly unnerved. She cried and bit her handkerchief.
Now she wanted, she longed for explanations, abuse, violent speeches.
She waited for M. Bergeret with burning impatience, and at nine o’clock
she at last recognised his step on the landing. But he did not come
into her room; the little maid came instead:
“Monsieur says,” she announced, with a sly, pert grin, “that I’m to put
up the iron bedstead for him in the study.”
Madame Bergeret said not a word, for she was thunderstruck.
Although she slept as soundly as usual that night, yet her audacious
spirit was quelled.