She gave me a cunning wink, and put out her hand to
the chair on which I had sat down, and her outstretched
hands, her smile, her half-open lips, her white, sharp,
and ferocious teeth, all drew my attention to the
little axe which was used for cutting wood, whose sharp
blade was glistening in the candle-light, and while
she put out her hand as if she were going to take
it, she put her left arm round me, and drawing me to
her, and putting her lips against mine, with her right
arm she made a motion as if she were cutting off the
head of a kneeling man!
This, my friend, is the manner in which people here
understand conjugal duties, love, and hospitality!
The old doctor and his young patient were talking
by the side of the fire. There was nothing the
matter with her, except that she had one of those
little feminine ailments from which pretty women frequently
suffer; slight anaemia, nervous attack, and a suspicion
of fatigue, of that fatigue from which newly married
people often suffer at the end of the first month
of their married life, when they have made a love match.
She was lying on the couch and talking. “No,
doctor,” she said; “I shall never be able
to understand a woman deceiving her husband. Even
allowing that she does not love him, that she pays
no heed to her vows and promises, how can she give
herself to another man? How can she conceal the
intrigue from other people’s eyes? How can
it be possible to love amidst lies and treason?”
The doctor smiled, and replied: “It is
perfectly easy, and I can assure you that a woman
does not think of all those little subtle details,
when she has made up her mind to go astray. I
even feel certain that no woman is ripe for true love
until she has passed through all the promiscuousness
and all the loathsomeness of married life, which,
according to an illustrious man, is nothing but an
exchange of ill-tempered words by day, and disagreeable
odors at night. Nothing is more true, for no
woman can love passionately until after she has married.
“As for dissimulation, all women have plenty
of it on hand on such occasions, and the simplest
of them are wonderful, and extricate themselves from
the greatest dilemmas in an extraordinary way.”
The young woman, however, seemed incredulous. ...
“No, doctor,” she said, “one never
thinks until after it has happened, of what one ought
to have done in a dangerous affair, and women are certainly
more liable than men to lose their heads on such occasions.”
The doctor raised his hands. “After it
has happened, you say! Now, I will tell you something
that happened to one of my female patients, whom I
always considered as an immaculate woman.
“It happened in a provincial town, and one night
when I was sleeping profoundly, in that deep, first
sleep from which it is so difficult to arouse us,
it seemed to me, in my dreams, as if the bells in the
town were sounding a fire alarm, and I woke up with
a start. It was my own bell, which was ringing
wildly, and as my footman did not seem to be answering
the door, I, in turn, pulled the bell at the head of
my bed, and soon I heard banging, and steps in the
silent house, and then Jean came into my room, and
handed me a letter which said: ’Madame Lelievre
begs Doctor Simeon to come to her immediately.’
