twelve francs a yard, a pheasant, a fish, a dish of fruit, for a tenth
of their value, for a woman so ignorant as to believe that she is
paying ample wages with two hundred and fifty francs to Madame Gobain,
a cook fit for a bishop.

"'You have sometimes found me rubbing my hands in the enjoyment of a
sort of happiness. Well, I had just succeeded in some ruse worthy of
the stage. I had just deceived my wife--I had sent her by a purchaser
of wardrobes an Indian shawl, to be offered to her as the property of
an actress who had hardly worn it, but in which I--the solemn lawyer
whom you know--had wrapped myself for a night! In short, my life at
this day may be summed up in the two words which express the extremes
of torment--I love, and I wait! I have in Madame Gobain a faithful spy
on the heart I worship. I go every evening to chat with the old woman,
to hear from her all that Honorine has done during the day, the
lightest word she has spoken, for a single exclamation might betray to
me the secrets of that soul which is wilfully deaf and dumb. Honorine
is pious; she attends the Church services and prays, but she has never
been to confession or taken the Communion; she foresees what a priest
would tell her. She will not listen to the advice, to the injunction,
that she should return to me. This horror of me overwhelms me, dismays
me, for I have never done her the smallest harm. I have always been
kind to her. Granting even that I may have been a little hasty when
teaching her, that my man's irony may have hurt her legitimate girlish
pride, is that a reason for persisting in a determination which only
the most implacable hatred could have inspired? Honorine has never
told Madame Gobain who she is; she keeps absolute silence as to her
marriage, so that the worthy and respectable woman can never speak a
word in my favor, for she is the only person in the house who knows my
secret. The others know nothing; they live under the awe caused by the