“But there was a time when I had to do it. Let me tell you that a woman who says that she is not constituted to look after children, isn’t a woman. But that fact doesn’t make a man of her, by any means. What is she, then?”
“Shame on you that you should speak like that of the mother of your children!”
“What does the world call a man who will have nothing to do with women? Isn’t it something very ugly?”
“I won’t hear another word!”
And she left him and locked herself into her room.
She fell ill. The doctor, the almighty man, who took over the care of the body when the priest lost the care of the soul, pronounced country air and solitude to be harmful.
They were obliged to return to town so that the wife could have proper medical treatment.
Town had a splendid effect on her health; the air of the slums gave colour to her cheeks.
The lawyer practised his profession and so husband and wife had found safety-valves for their temperaments which refused to blend.