Yet I surrendered unconditionally without struggling against her subtle logic, convinced that her aristocratic bringing-up ought to serve me as a guide in all doubtful cases where my education did not suffice. She had a ready answer to everything. The Baron had never bought a single piece of furniture. Everything belonged to her—and since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife's furniture, I need not scruple to accept all articles which belonged to my own wife.
The last phrase: "Since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife's furniture," caused me lively satisfaction. Because the pictures which hung in my drawing-room were proofs of a noble trust and evidenced the ideal character of our relationship, they remained where they were; I even carried simplicity to the length of telling all inquisitive callers who cared to know who the giver of those landscapes was.
I never dreamed in those days that it was I, the man belonging to the middle-classes, who possessed tact and delicacy, instincts which are as frequently found amongst the lower strata of society as they are wanting in men and women of the upper ones, where coarse minds are only too often cleverly concealed under a thin layer of veneer. Would that I had known what manner of woman she was in whose hands I had laid my fate!
But I did not know it.
[IV]
As soon as Marie had got over her confinement, which compelled her to live quietly for a time, she was seized with a craving for excitement. Under the pretext of studying her art, she visited the theatres and went to public entertainments while I stayed at home and worked. Protected by the title of a married woman, she was received in circles which had been closed to the divorced wife. She was anxious that I should accompany her, for she considered the fact of her husband's absence prejudicial to her best interests. But I resisted, and while claiming for myself personal freedom, according to our verbal agreement, I allowed her absolute liberty, and let her go where she pleased.
"But no one ever sets eyes on the husband," she objected.
"People will understand him," I replied.
The husband! The very way in which she pronounced the word conveyed opprobrium; and she fell into the habit of treating me with a certain amount of superciliousness.