“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Mathis turned his head and smiled wryly. “Do you know the word encotillonné?”
“No.”
“A man who is governed by his wife is encotillonné.”
“In English we say ‘hen-pecked.’ ”
“Ah, yes?” Obviously he did not care what was said in English. “I must tell you a joke about it. Once I was encotillonné. Oh, but very badly! Does that surprise you?”
“It does.” Graham saw that the man was dramatising himself, and was curious.
“My wife used to have a very great temper. She still has it, I think, but now I do not see it. But for the first ten years of our marriage it was terrible. I had a small business. Trade was very bad and I became bankrupt. It was not my fault, but she always pretended that it was. Has your wife a bad temper, Monsieur?”
“No. Very good.”
“You are lucky. For years I lived in misery. And then one day I made a great discovery. There was a socialist meeting in our town and I went to it. I was, you must understand, a Royalist. My family had no money, but they had a title which they would have liked to use without their neighbours sniggering. I was of my family. I went to this meeting because I was curious. The speaker was good, and he spoke about Briey. That interested me because I had been at Verdun. A week later we were with some friends in the café and I repeated what I had heard. My wife laughed in a curious way. Then when I got home I made my great discovery. I found that my wife was a snob and more stupid than I had dreamed. She said that I had humiliated her by saying such things as if I believed them. All her friends were respectable people. I must not speak as if I were a workman. She cried. I knew then that I was free. I had a weapon that I could use against her. I used it. If she displeased me I became a socialist. To the smug little tradesmen whose wives were her friends I would preach the abolition of profit and the family. I bought books and pamphlets to make my arguments more damaging. My wife became very docile. She would cook things that I liked so that I would not disgrace her.” He paused.