cannot be called a sacrifice, and if she departs from the sentiment of
modesty she does it either by love, which makes noble the raptures,
or because she does it by the act of duty, but at the same time
she wishes to be herself a legitimated duty. Even if a woman is an
irreligious being and she refuses to be blessed by religion, she can
desire that her sentiment were legitimated. The priest or _monsieur le
maire_? Clotilde, who loves Doctor Pascal, does not ask for anything.
Marriage, accomplished by a _maire_, seems to her to be a secondary
thing. Here also one cannot understand her, because a true love would
wish to make the knot lasting. That which really happens is quite
different, in the novel, that first separation is the end of the
relation between them. Were they married at least by a _maire_, they
would have remained even in the separation husband and wife, they
would not cease to belong to each other; but as they were not married,
therefore at the moment of her departure he became unmarried, as
formerly, Doctor Pascal, she--seduced Clotilde. Even during their life
in common there happened a thousand disagreeable incidents for both of
them. One time, for instance, Clotilde rushes crying and red, and when
the frightened doctor asks her what is the matter, she answers:

"Ah, those women! Walking in the shade, I closed my parasol and I hurt
a child. In that moment all of the women fell on me and began to shout
such things! Ah, it was so dreadful! that I shall never have any
children, that such things are not for such a dishcloth as I! and many
other things which I cannot repeat; I do not wish to repeat them; I do
not even understand them."

Her breast was moved by sobbings; he became pale, and seizing her by
the shoulders, commenced to cover her face with kisses, saying: